Photo Blog - last updated on 11/10/07 at 21.50

		Departure
Message from the "bus" - departure on time thanks to the "just in time" delivery of our Prague guests Alain and Patrick - nice ... dutch weather : no rain ! - all runners from first team already made one relay each - we are in Rotterdam on Kralingse Zoom - we just lost for the first time our runner/cyclist .... but we are on our way to them !
		Team 1 On the Road
		Team 2 waiting at the end of the 1st stage Team 2 safely arrived on the first changing point and had to make a first difficult decision: do we use already our food reserves or decide for a plan B in a nice cafetaria nearby? Outcome still unclear but the sun is shining...
		Photos from the 1st stage
End of 1st Stage Team 1 has safely completed Stage 1 with a mean speed of 12,7 km/h, perfectly on schedule because they reached the 75km point at exactly 4pm. So in fact they made up for the 15min late departure. They were hungry when they arrived and had Chili con Carne. The whole Relay Team was very happy to see so many colleages at the Start in Rijswijk and also the Surprise to have the Drummers there was excellent! Thanks for your support. Team 2 is now Running. Expected time of arrival 10p.m. at 150km.
	Message from Team 2 on the 2nd Stage We are now finally running under a beautiful sun and managed until now to only get the wrong road once and one minor biking incident. The ladies in our group are still recovering from kissing intensively 2 frogs which were presented to them at the changing point by 2 cute kids. Unfortunately no prince came out so they are still with us. The chocolate stock in our minibus might have been a motivating factor as well...
End of 2nd Stage Message from Patrick Bodart: We just finished our first 6 hour shift a bit earlier than expected. Until now everything went smoothly, the atmosphere in the minibus is enthusiastic and everybody feels energised. We just noticed a strange correlation between one of the female runners and bike accidents. So we have changed our strategy and now let the bikers in front of the runners at least during daylight :-) Message from Eric van den Bossche: Team 2 just finished its first relay 15mn in advance on schedule at point 150 km. Everything went fine, except Daniel Charles who biked in an edge probably being to much focused on the runner Nathalie ! :-) Florent Lina also tried a salto over the handlebar of the bike but without visible damage apparently .... probably to impress Marta ! We are all on our way to point 225km, where around 4.00 this night team 2 will take over. We are currently stuck with the campers in a 25km traffic jam. We hope, the runner won't arrive before us at point 225 km ! Eric ... live from the mobile press center installed in Ragi's turbo camper
	Message from Patrick Bodart: Dear all, We just saw a marvellous sun rise straight ahead of us...it made us forget the early wake up call at 3h30 and our fatigue after a too short night. Even if our legs start becoming a bit stiffer, motivation in the team is higher than ever also because we discovered some magic tigergels and the 'verse broodjes' bought 'on the run' whilst passing a bakery near Oberzier did also their part. It is amazing what you drink and eat during such long journeys, and how many 'technical breaks' are made... (Sorry trees :-) Around 5, we had for the first time to get out the second bike (to allow runners to relay without minibus) to cross some fields and climb over fences whilst the bus was trying to drive around these natural 'obstacles'. We hope to meet team 1 around 11h (this relay was longer) after which we move in the direction of the beautiful Mosel valley... Regards Team 2
		End of Stage 4 We passed our first night on the way. Everything went fine except some issues with the navigation which led us to do about 12 km extra. This explains why we are now about 1h late on schedule. But this is still ok for planning considering we have about 6h spare time in Munich before the appointment for the presidential jogging. The weather being great, we had a nice clear night under the stars, but it was relatively cold. The runners did a great effort to try to stay as much as possible on schedule. During the night we made a nice stop in a petrol station with team 1 where we had super warm showers and very dietetic meal ... look at the picture ! :-) All runners are still in good shape thanks to the appreciated massages from Patricia. We are now on our way for the second day under the sun.
16.00 update from Team 2: Hello supporters, We are waiting for team 1 on a very nice place along the Mosel where we discovered an even nicer beer (and wine)garten which some of us had to visit after having passed so many along the route without being able to stop because of production pressure :-) We are about 1 hour behind schedule because of an unforeseen detour of 12 km (as Eric reported already): the discussion is ongoing whether it was due to a human error or a technical incompatibility between the Garmin and the TomTom GPS systems.... The 'moral' of the team is still perfect because we tend to forget all worries over a good dish of chili con carne from the hand of Renan, some 'omelette a la Francaise' from Eric and the inevitable surprise cake of Ragnar. And Patricia does a wonderful job by massaging all our sexy legs (well some are more sexy than others, we took a picture of a very tempting pair but there is much more :-) Now comes a very challenging shift in that the hills become steeper. That's why we decided to adapt the relay times from now on to the fitness of the runners (before it was always 10 minutes). Thanks to all those who keep sending us supporting e-mails, they are VERY appreciated. Patrick
		16.32 update from Team 2: We just got a nice stay in Treis along the Mosel. As you can see from the picture, team 2 had time to recover from a long relay partly in the night thanks to some Mosel wine in a sunny bier garden, and thanks to always appreciate Patrica's massages. We give here joined a puzzle : you have the legs and the head of somebody and you have to reconstruct the whole person. Have fun. We are about to collect team 1 and will feed them with nice pasta a la bolognese. The team spirit is still very high, and we prepare ourself for the second night. Eric from the Press center
Email from Patrick at 22.39 We are close to finish our 3rd shift and had some problems this time: Koen injured his knee half-way which means he will probably be replaced by Olivier as a runner tomorrow. Also we got a technical problem with the minibus since one of the fuses feeding the gps systems broke down. Ragi will try to fix during the last relay whilst we are running the last 3 kms. We also saw some deer passing in front of us in the middle of the dark woods which was quite an experience. All in all a very turbulent shift but the atmosphere is still there !
	Update from Team 2 Hello, We started off a bit after 6h this morning with a new runner Olivier who immediately got confronted with the democratic decision process in team 2 on deciding how long the runner runs: as soon as he or she is out, the rest of the team in the bus decides how many minutes (s)he will suffer...it must be admitted that some of us are better at influencing this process than others... Also, we managed again to buy some fresh croissants and 'broodjes' at a fuel station though it nearly ended up in a crash of our minibus with another bus that had frogs painted on the side : remember that our ladies still are looking for frogs to turn them into princes... We are now approaching Heidelberg and so far so good, we all have stiffer and stiffer legs (some of us nearly litterally fall out of the bus when it is their turn) but moral is better than ever.
Report from the end of stage 8 We have now successfully finished our second night under a sky full of stars ..... on top of the ones running ! We have now stabilized our delay to about 1,5 h. We are at the 600KM point. On the runner side, Willem Van der Klugt (team 1) if suffuring from the stomac, but he wants however still stay in the run. IN team 2, Coen De Jong had to give up to to knie injury. That's really sad. Olivier Kricorian replaces now Coen in team 2. On the technical side, we had electrical problem in the minibus which was preventing us to upload our GPS and our batteries for the bike light. But thanks to the magic of Ragi, we have been able to lay down a cable direcly from the battery of the minibus to the dashboard of the minibus so that we could reconnect our loader to 12V. And all of this in 5 mn in the middle of the night ! We had also problem with the saddle of the bike. That's why we have just prepared a replacement bike that will be swapped with the current one at the next team exchange. Besides, we have people often forgetting to hand over the mobile phone to the next team. Thus, the current relay of the team 2 does not have a mobile phone wuth the bike. That's why, as can ben seen on the new pictures, we have scotched the mobile phone on the saddle of the bike ! :-) The general enthusiasm is still very high. But the most important information of the night, was of course, the victory of France against the All Blacks ! Eric from the mobile Press Conference Center Team 2 finished their relay in group to make sure that also some pictures of them were made in action (more are being posted)because the ones displayed until now gave the impression that we are just eating, drinking and sunbathing... Well, we do eat and drink regularly to avoid physical dips because this relay run is after all hard work and with every shift the legs and knees get heavier and heavier so a good massage from Patricia is now definitely a must. Discussions are ongoing between team 1 and 2 on who has the nicest 'road menu' but we think we'll win that contest easily: we have 2 cute ladies in the group, see the sun rise and set and can sleep between midnight and 6, or at least try to sleep because some hours of this break are always filled with washing ourselves, eating and transferring to the next relay place. Here a special word of thanks and admiration must be placed for our support team who even in the middle of the night always manages to prepare a delicious meal and make sure we have nothing else to do than running, and of course :-) eating, drinking and getting spoiled by massages as you can deduct from the pictures. Thanks to all of you who support us via e-mail or sms. It is highly appreciated and really motivating for all participants Patrick
		The exact sequence of these photos can not be guaranteed.
Message from Team 2 Dear supporters, We started running again at 18h30 after a reconforting break aside a pitoresk little lake. We just climbed up to the 'Bayerische Platte' (610m altitude) and thanks to some good massages and an impressive set of creams and gels cooling and warming all aching body parts (which is for most of us the legs and the knees but there might be some exceptions :-) . The atmosphere in the minibus is super as always and we have now reached the stage of philosophical life discussions making it sometimes very useful to escape from the bus for a short run... Thanks again for all your support. It is very very much appreciated. If things continue like now, we might already arrive in Munich around 13h.
	Message from the end of stage 10 Hello supporters, We just completed our shift bringing us at 750 km from The Hague with another 140 km to go to shake hands with our Munich colleagues. Our shift went quite smoothly though Nicolas (who normally bikes) had to jump in as a runner because we lost the minibus for about 40 min due to a famous German 'Umleitung' in a village leading to him and Olivier alternating as runner/biker. Luckily the GPS on the bike helped them to continue whilst Ragi was using all his navigation skills to get the bus back on track in the Bavarian hills (sometimes Paris-Dakar experience helps...) Best regards to all of you and have a good start of the day tomorrow, we are on our way but might be a bit late for work :-) Patrick
		News from Team 1 Team 1 is now running its last night shift between midnight and about 6.00 am. This is even their last shift of this Relay Run. I guess they are happy to start to see the end. Team 2 is now sleeping ... shuuuutttt ...recovering from their previous shift at the beginning of the night.They need have to have some rest before their last shift that will drive them until EPO Munich. All runners seems to be still OK since our last news. It seems that the more they run, the younger they get : look at Marta an Nathalie ! We found a nice spot yesterday afternoon for the swap between team 1 and team 2 : a sunny place near a small lake.It was almost paradize ! As you can see, Patrick still manages to keep up to date with daily business even within the effort ! He can try to hide its gadget, but it is clear that he is not checking the route on a Tomtom, neither is he having some fun with a gameboy : he is playing with his Blackberry ! Thanks for the support SMS's of phone calls we got from some of our supporters. They were greatly appreciated by all of us. Expected arrival time in Pschor is about 12.00 today Monday.
Message from Team 2 on the Last Stage Hi supporters, We left our camping spot at 7h for our last shift to Munich which means we should arrive in the Pschorrhofe building around 13h and not 12h as announced by our dear colleague reported Eric. We had a relatively good night of sleep and the fact that the end point comes into sight gives us all wings. All runners are OK though our legs get heavier every day... Now we'll try to buy some Brezen on the way because the combination of bread and salt is ideal for runners. The beer which is normally going with it will be consumed for sure later today. Groetjes Patrick
		Relay Run approaching Munich We are right now approaching Munich. Team 2 is currently running. Team 1 is heading to Munich Pschor in the campers. Team 1 and team 2 will join at Theresen Wiese for some kind of pre-finish so that we arrive all together at Pschor around 13h00. Later, around 15h20 we will all leave Pschor for going altogether to Isar. The President should join us along the way a little bit before Isar. And ..... that's all folks ! Eric for his last report from the mobile press center P.S.: Joined a picture of the last breakfast ... hard tme for Alain
Congratulations to All Participants End of Blog