The 5th marathon - in 5 hours

Hugh is 10% of the way there. High fives all round then we shuffle about looking a bit embarrassed as we're English, or anglicised in the case of the Welshman.

The hottest day so far and some large hills to start with. A bit thick of me to include these in the route as I would have to run them but you can't avoid them in this part of the world and we shall see many more. Starting again at the beach in Foz D'Arelho we leant into the slope and up we went for a couple of miles, crampons at the ready. This was subsequently a day of long straight roads which sound dull but are great for running - relatively safe (even Portuguese drivers will concentrate long enough to see and hopefully avoid you) and allow one to plod along without checking the GPS every few minutes. Anyway, nodding gravely at a 150km to 1cm scale with a massive arrow telling me I will shortly be in the mid Atlantic is of limited help. Having said that I got Hugh and myself out of a tight spot behind a fish market and back on to the main road earlier, having worked out how to use the scale. I sense your derision but it's a start.

Straights road then, for up to 10km at a time. Perhaps the Romans were here? I shall consult the great historian Wikipedius and let you know. I left Hugh at 18 miles again and I think we both felt the old chassis is starting to take a few knocks. Mine feels like an Indian government bus I travelled on last year. Still we'll haul ourselves out once again tomorrow, having arrived at Sao Pedro de Moel, again on the coast, this evening. Hugh is doing well and his only injury is a muscle swelling in the left lower leg; painful but not incapacitating. Samia looks after him (and me) well and is very much of the preventative mindset - which is what we need as he will not have time to recover from serious injury. He is running the vast majority of this - was expecting to walk more but finds the rhythm of running easier. This is clearly a good sign.