Day 382 – EU – Italy [Camposano to Benevento]

21/04/21

44.5km

  From Camposano (Italy) to Benevento (Italy)

Europe

A tough day marked a big tumble in the mountains early morning

In the mountains across from Camposano

As I left this morning the air was very pleasant and chilly. The storm had cleared overnight and it was sunny again. I knew the first 20km of today’s run contained all the uphill of the day and that I would be running in the mountains. There were some parts of the trails I could not verify on Google Maps because they were single tracks. There was no alternative route, so I went for it anyway.

The first of the three stony walls

About 8km into the run, I ended up on the flank of the mountain, quite steep, amongst olive trees that were terraced. The itinerary was sending me up the mountain to join some other path. But to do so, I had to go over some stony walls. Nothing too high, maybe about 1m20 or so. But they were doubled with barbed wire too, and all of it on a steep incline, so it was a bit complicated. I unloaded my bag off BoB the stroller and proceeded to hoist everything up. I passed the first wall just about ok. And things got bad on the second one. As I was hauling the stroller up, standing on the narrow wall, a wheel got stuck. I yanked the stroller to free it, and as I did so, the stones got loose underneath my feet.

I was sent flying down the slope, along with the loose rocks. I landed on my side, got a few scratches and bloody gashes on my arm but was glad there was nothing broken and my head was intact. The stroller was stuck on the rocks near the wall. I got everything up the remaining of the wall and kept walking up. I went through another wall and started running slowly again. It was painful. And as I left, I realised my satellite tracker no longer was in the front pocket of BoB. I left the stroller where it was and ran down the side of the mountain again. I found the tracker about 1km below – thank god it’s bright orange and it was easy to spot.

The Traiano Arch in Benevento

By the time I ran down the mountain on the other side, I had only covered 12km and it was late in the morning. There were 33km left to run and they seemed to last forever. I was completely out of it. Maybe because of the pains on the side of my body. Most probably because I have been quite scared and it downed on me the outcome could have been much worse. Now on for some good rest and maybe some Tiger Balm on the painful and bruised right side of the body to get everything back in good shape tomorrow 🙂

Check my daily run GPS data on or

Here is the map of today’s run: