Compact Camera Weighing Me Down?

July 7, 1983, Thursday

I left Obama Lodge a few minutes before 7:00am. Unfortunately, I had to cover ground that I had already gone over yesterday due to the fact that the town is a bit removed from my route. I wasted about 40 minutes getting back to where I left off.

It was another long day with 55km to cover under the hot sun to Tsuruga. Again, my back started hurting as soon as I began the run. Now I am serious about getting rid of a lot of things in the backpack, although I am already down to my bare necessities. Maybe the camera will go next? It really isn't that heavy. It's one of those compact Olympus XA cameras (see photo). I really like it and would hate to part with it.

For some reason, I felt terribly lonely on the road today. Ultrarunning is such a mind game. You just need to push on no matter what or how you are feeling. On a brighter note, I did meet a young Japanese man who is cycling from Kyoto to Wakkanai near the tail end of today's run. We exchanged some stories on what we had experienced so far. It is encouraging to meet people like him along the way, although I was a bit envious of his ability to eat up the long distances on the bicycle. Smart guy.