We had a restful night and a delicious and healthy breakfast in the morning. Many, many thanks for the city of Gardelegen for providing our night’s accommodation.

From the city’s square we started our running with the mayor, who we met yesterday, leading the way with a huge smile and a bounce in his step.

We were escorted by a police motorcycle outrider for the first 50km, and he was very friendly and cheerful, even when his motorcycle had some problems and stopped dead in front of us. He simply shrugged his shoulders and smiled at us, but within a few minutes he caught up with us. As we entered Stendal we passed two large groups of children waiting for us outside their schools. As we passed with flags fluttering in the wind they cheered and clapped.

When we entered Stendal park we were greeted by over 50 children aged under 10 years old, the mayor, and local TV.

It put smiles on all our faces to see how joyful they were and full of so much energy. The children ran with abandon around the park holding the torch and the German national and World Harmony Run flags.

One sweet girl with lovely blue eyes spoke to Janos, and she told him in Hungarian that her parents were Hungarian, but she was born in Russia, and now lives in Germany.

The children chatted to the runners and tried very hard to speak English to us. Whilst the torch was passed from hand to hand by the children in a big circle, four children sang clapping songs with much laughter. They were so amusing as they sang four or five songs. They had to be pulled away by their teacher; they were such livewires!

At Tangermunde we were joined by girls from the local running club, and two young boys.

There we also met 71 years old Dieter Klemmat. He only started running 10 years ago and he said his worst marathon time was 3hr 54min, and his personal best is 3 hr 31 min. That’s very impressive for a man of his age. He is also German Masters at 5 km. The mayor ran with us also!

At Genthin a small group of children met us outside the Rathaus where the mayor greeted us. He mentioned that over the last four weeks the World Cup has created a sense of harmony in the country, but now the harmony party must come to an end after four weeks, but what has been created in Germany he hoped it would continue.

At Wusterwitz we got one of the best receptions as cheerleaders cheered us as we met the mayor.

In the garden we saw the ‘Friedenseiche’ (Peace Tree) that was planted there in the 1997 Peace Run. Throughout the day we had been so busy we hadn’t time to stop for lunch, so we were so grateful for the mayor for providing pizzas, salad, fruit and so many needed refreshments on such a hot day.

With full stomachs we continued our final 15km to Brandenburg running briefly with nice boys who we met whilst eating our pizzas.

At Brandenburg Plaue we met children from a youth club Flitzies wearing bright orange t-shirts. One young boy struggled to run the full 1km, so he got a lift in our van – I think he was happy watching, but the last 100m he hopped out.

After talking to the children we went on the playground slide where the children came down the slide holding the torch. Jadranka came down the slide rather too fast (perhaps she was slightly heavier than the chidren?) and forgot to try to stand up when she came to the end, but instead landed rather heavily on her bottom. All of laughed so hard we nearly cried.

We waved goodbye to these lovely children and ran the last few kilometres to Brandenburg Dom, a old red brick church with a towering spire. On the cycle path leading to the Dom we met a woman and her three children on their bikes. They were interested about the Run and we hope to see them tomorrow morning where we will start our running from the Brandenburg Dom.

Our day finally ended at a peaceful spot along one of the tributaries of the Havel where we stayed in accommodation of the Rowing Club Havel.

---

Distance: 119km

Team Members:
Daniel Schenke (Germany), Jadranka Grbic (Serbia & Montenegro), Janos Derekas (Hungary), Mark Collinson (England), Marlen Bernhard (Germany), Olesya Ilyasova (Russia), Ondrej Vesely (Czech Republic), Petar Mihaylov (Bulgaria), Petr Machacek (Czech Republic), Svetlana Gorshkova (Russia), Valentine Bebik (Ukraine), Zoltan Theobald (Hungary).

Harmonemail:
You can send a message to the runners or read the messages.

< Germany 9 July

Germany 11 July >