From Innsbruck we ran in the rain (our wishes for sunny weather failed to become true) to Landeck 21 km away. At the Rathaus we met the vice mayor. He mentioned that 61 years ago today the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, and it was pleasing for him to see initiatives like the World Harmony Run. He said that in the news you so often see people being divisive and separating, so it was refreshing to see something about bringing people closer together. He provided us with a great breakfast, which we heartily ate. Once again we ran through the rain and the low cloud with views of church spires up on the mountain slopes.

From Pettneu young children from Arlberg Runners Club ran the 7 km to St Anton a. Arlberg.

They ran with so much joy in the pouring rain.

And the flame of the torch burnt bright in the rain.

At St Anton we ran into a huge marquee with a brass band playing and hundreds of people, where there was a celebration of 125 years of the fire brigade.

We ran with the children up on stage and then sung the World Harmony Run Song with a terrific applause.

We ran up the steep hill to meet the famous Karl Schranz, one of the great Austrian ski champions. He was keen to meet all the International Team members and we were very pleased to meet such a great sportsman. He gladly ran with the torch with us.

From St Anton a. Arlberg (1284m) we ascended the 7 km to Arlbergpass (1793m) and the weather began to close in and get wetter and colder - but at least it wasn't snowing.

At the top we ran through the St Christoph ski resort and headed to Stuben, where at the Hotel Post a representative from the Tourist Information, filmed by a television cameraman, received us.

There we had tea to warm us up and fruit to revive us.

At Dalaas the youngest mayor in Austria (25) warmly received us and commiserated that the rain and the low cloud could not reveal to us the magnificence of the beauty of the towering mountains. Since we crossed from Slovenia into Austria, so much of the mountains have unfortunately been shrouded in low clouds. But to make up for the absence of not seeing the whole of the mountains the mayor presented us with a photograph book of the valley. There were some amazing and stunning photographs. After putting the World Harmony Run t-shirt on he set a good pace with the torch.

Similarly at Bludenz the representative of the town presented us with a photograph book of his town.

At Bludenz local runners joined us for the 10 km to Nenzing.

At Nenzing we met the vice mayor outside a modern architectural Rathaus.

On the road to Frastanz, Letze Mark met some wonderful young boys on their bikes. As soon as they saw him running towards them they said, "Wow!" in astonishment. It didn't take much to encourage them to ride their bikes as he ran. They were great boys (Imran, 12; and two brothers Ali, 11 and Mohammed 10) and were originally from Turkey. Mark passed each of them the torch and they were full of joy as they held the torch aloft riding their bikes as fast as they could whilst Mark ran along side them. Moments like this on the World Harmony Run are priceless and very touching, as they affectionately shook hands with Mark. Imran gave him such a broad and loving smile it touched Mark's heart.

Our final meeting in Austria was a lovely meeting with a Tibetan monk in the monastery at Letze. As we arrived with the torch he was overjoyed to see us and when we passed him the torch he gently held it.

We spent some silent moments in the monastery's peaceful meditation room.

The monk then kindly invited us for tea. With the monk we walked around the 'stupa' (religious monument) with the torch. With the mountains in the background and now the sun shining it was a perfect end to our Run in Austria.

We crossed the border into Liechtenstein and our first meeting there was in Vaduz where we met boys from the local youth club. At first they were apprehensive about running with the torch, but they soon opened up and enthusiastically ran with us.

At the end of the day we said goodbye to all of our Austrian runners, especially Martin, Pratul, and Dipavajan from the International Team. We will certainly miss Pratul who ran so much (he never ran less than a marathon a day), especially the steep ascents.

Our accommodation was planned in an underground bunker, but with a fortunate twist of fate (or faith) Pranam, our Switzerland and Liechtenstein country co-ordinator found a monastery for us to reside for the night. When he visited the monastery today he first spoke to one nun who said it might not be possible to offer accommodation, but then had a rethink, and was assisted by a second nun who discussed the options. They were joined by a third nun who had just seen the runners on Austrian national television - what a coincidence! Within a few minutes they remembered there was a free dormitory and they could accommodate the boys and the girls very easily. They were ever so kind and said we could pay as much or as little as we could afford. Their generosity was very touching. When we arrived at the monastery's grounds we instantly felt peacefulness and a sense of joy - as if immediately our hearts expanded.

The girls brilliantly cooked the delicious evening meal and we all felt truly at home, and chatting and laughing about some of the funny events that have occurred on the World Harmony Run. We are thinking abut compiling some of these funny stories and photographs, and putting them on one page of the website, so watch this space.

With a lovely sense of calmness throughout our dormitory we drifted soundly off to sleep, but a few though already started to snore as I was writing.

Tomorrow promises to be an opportunity to do plenty of running in one stretch - 30 to 40 km for those in training for the New York Self-Transcendence marathon on 25 August.

Distance: 125km

Team Members:
Anete Klavina (Latvia), Anne Schulze (Germany), Dipavajan Renner (Austria), Mark Collinson (England), Martin Prettenhofer (Austria), Ondrej Vesely (Czech Republic), Petar Mihaylov (Bulgaria), Petr Machacek (Czech Republic), Pratul Halper (Austria), Sandro Zincarini (Italy), Terezia Hammel (Hungary), Veronika Kuliskova (Slovakia), Zoltan Theobald (Hungary).

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