Day 177 – EU – Greece [Stoupa to Vathi]

17/08/20

47.2km

  From Stoupa (Greece) to Vathi (Greece)

Europe

Another beautiful run, stunning sights, another hot and long day – another awesome day on the road

The Taygetus mountain range once again did a brilliant job of shading me from the sun for the first half of the run. Today’s run included again close to 900m positive elevation and I was glad that most of it was done out of the blazing sun.

Having started at sea-level and arriving at sea level again, I had the sweet reward of enjoying as much downhill for every bit of uphill I worked on. The best one was: going down towards Oitylo. It must be one of Peloponnese’s best kept secrets: the very wide bay is very sparsely built (a rarity) and at the back of a village entirely built in stone, Venetian style. A truly stunning view.

At the back of Oitylo, I had another 3km of steep uphill to go, followed by 12km gentle downhill towards the sea. These 3km of uphill, in the direct sun by then, were really hard work. Halfway through it, a car stopped by. Two sisters in it, asking me if I was alright or needed any help. We chatted for a little while (in Greek). I could tell they were not Greek. But as we parted ways, I heard them say something in French! So we talked some more 🙂

I am getting a lot of questions about my hydration “strategy” so to speak. On the run, I drink water. As I leave in the morning, I have 2 bottles of 750ml of water on the handlebar-bag of BoB the Stroller. And in my Isotherm bag (in the lower basket of BoB) I keep 3 litres of water plus 1/2l of coca-cola. I drink the water throughout the run and indulge in the cola in the last part of the run. On very hot days, I get a refill of my top bottles (1.5l) on the way.

I do not use electrolytes. Mostly because I have never used them in my 7 years living in Singapore, where sweat was abundant during exercise. I think as long as I can get everything I need through good nutrition, then my drinking water should be enough. So far it is working very well. I am not averse to using electrolytes, other than they don’t appear to be quite “natural”, but I simply haven’t seen the need for it yet (ie: I don’t suffer from cramps, I recover very well and I don’t face a “”wall””, ie: my pace remains even throughout the run, as flat runs help me verify).

Check my daily run GPS data on or

Here is the map of today’s run: