Day 221 – EU – Serbia [Vlasina Rid to Vlasotince]

30/09/20

54.6km

  From Vlasina Rid (Serbia) to Vlasotince (Serbia)

Europe

A peaceful run made longer than planned by a directional error in an area with no coverage… and no road signs

If there is such a thing as a perfect day to make a directional error that costs 14km extra running, today was the day! It was all downhill, from the nearly 1300m plateau where I stayed last night to just above 200m elevation tonight. I was setting out this morning for an easy day of running, cold and wet, but without any uphill parts.

Being in an area without network coverage I couldn’t check my position on the map (and I had failed to download the map for such event last night). There was also no signage on the road, therefore I missed the turn towards Predejane. I kept running on what was the main road and by the time I was able to look at the map, I was already 14km past the junction. Turning back would have cost me too much and turn into a 68km day which I was not ready for!

I found another town where I could finish, Vlasotince, that would amount to “just” short of 55km of running. That would do. I was lucky there was anything at all and therefore did not mind the extra kms. The landscapes were beautiful, the same dense forest throughout, mountainous, alternatively filing with fog and light rain. Pleasant.

Note: my SPOT device (which tracks me “live” throughout my run and communicates to TravelMap, as displayed on the frontpage of the website) has suffered a burnt battery issue. This has melted some components inside the case of the device – though it still provided my position today. I am trying to get a new device sent to Belgrade in 10 days time. I am hoping it will still be operational in the meantime…

Check my daily run GPS data on or

Here is the map of today’s run: