The early bird… At 8am a local reporter came by to take an interview. At 9 o’clock we started running; leap-frogging our last few kilometres to the Latvian-Lithuanian border, which we crossed with banners flying. Our Latvian girl Annette stayed back, waving at the border. She was such a big help to us in Latvia, working as our translator at ceremonies and on the road. Still, three Latvian girls crossed the border with us: Anastasia, Baiba and Ieva.

A few hundred metres after the border, a local sports club from the region of Pasvalys gave us a very nice welcome with shiny eyes and lovely folk-tunes. Here we also met Bronius, a very nice guy from Lithuania, who also ran with us in 1999 through his country. He joined our team spontaneously, to go with us from the north to the south border.

The sportsmen and three sportswomen supported our team for quite a distance: from the border to Pazvalys for a homely ceremony and second breakfast, and onwards. After some more running they invited us for a good lunch at a cosy restaurant.

On our way we got new energy from local people, offering us their friendship, singing us folk-tunes, and serving us honeycombs and home made bread. On the road we also met the lovely sports representative from Panevezys, who brought us a nice puffy cake. She had been waiting for us for four years and was so glad to see us. She popped up again another two times today with boundless enthusiasm and contagious joy, and eyes alight like anything.

A dozen cycling locals accompanied us into Panevezys, the last city for the day. Here we received a warm welcome. Some youngsters sitting in a nearby park spontaneously joined the ceremony and played and sung some modern tunes for us.

We got accommodations in a sports hostel, and afterwards were invited to a great dinner in a restaurant.

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Distance: 60km

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