Today's running started on the busy roads out of Portland, and passed out of Oregon and into Washington State, with some spectacular views of Mt St Helens on the way.

Linda Cval from the South County Spotlight newspaper saw one of our runners and stopped at our car to talk to us and take some photos.

Mark ran the scenic bridge across the Colombia River and into Washington State, where we were joined by runners from the local club Cowlitz Valley Runners. It was great to have local company on the road.

For one thing, having new friends to chat to made the miles fly by.

Secondly, they had worked out the route for us and had chosen some really nice smaller roads as well as a couple of trail sections - places we would never have worked out to run by looking at the road atlas.

The local team took turns running with us and together we covered around 32 miles, all the way into Winlock.

Firstly, though, we ran to Longview City Hall where we were welcomed to Washington State by Mayor Kurt Anagnostou.

From there we ran on to Castle Rock. We had been invited to an ice-cream social at the senior center - perfect refreshment for today which was the hottest we've had since starting up the West Coast.

We visited the Castle Rock Senior Centre two years ago, and it was great to revisit. Mayor Paul Helenberg was also there to greet us.

We had time to spend talking with our hosts....before moving on to the important part of the meeting - the ice-cream!

The seniors were happy to meet our team from all over the world, and they certainly made us feel very welcome in their home town.

Our last miles of the day took us to Winlock where we were met by members of the local Lions, Diane, Jeanie and Linda.

The World Harmony Run has been through Winlock a few times in the past, and they are such great supporters of the Run that they have named a street there Sri Chinmoy Street after our founder.

We met at the street sign, and took photos with the Cowlitz Valley team before they said goodby at the end of a great afternoon's running.

Thanks indeed to Keli Davenport, Dick Anderson, Dale Wernicke, David Chilson, Julie Nelson, Tom Rozwod and Dan Bowman for coming out to support and encourage us.

The Winlock Lions also invited us into the Winlock Community centre where they had a delicious meal waiting for us - lasagne and fruit punch, and a choice of 3 different types of cake.

They really inundated us with kindness, and we tried to repay it by singing our World Harmony Run song in as many different languages as possible. (I hope that was a repayment and not a penalty!)

We stayed overnight at Winlock High School. Thank-you once again to Winlock for being such stalwart supporters of the World Harmony Run for so many years.

– Kokila

Distance: 92 miles

Team Members:
Atulya Lee Berube (San Diego), Mark Collinson (England), Kshetragna Ulanova (Russia), Surya Smolennikova (Russia), Vladimir Salnicov (Moldova), Kokila Chamberlain (England), Drsalu Gruenstaeudl (Austria), Maria Manecke (Germany), Jeromy Cheatham (San Diego), Abhejali Bernardova (Czech Republic), Sukhada Korshunova (Russia)

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