The sun was shining brightly and high in the sky on this longest day of the year – the Summer Solstice in the northern hemisphere, which meant we would have the most hours of daylight. At breakfast it felt it was going to be a great day, and Petar made the comment that it felt so good and special it must be his birthday; even though it wasn’t! We all joked that there must be another Petar in a parallel universe.

We joined the children from yesterday who ran with us at Türi park. They were eager to run on such a glorious morning, and full of smiles. They ran with us to the border of Türi and we said our fond farewells, and as always we vowed to see them next year.

On the road people continually cheer us on, and we give them brochures about the Run.

With all the girls in the local Estonian car and all the boys in the Harmony Run van we quickly covered the distance to the small town of Kehtna, 38 km from Türi. At Kehtna we met a group of young boys, and although shy at first they soon opened up once they ran with us out of Kehtna.

They hung a tag around each runner’s neck, with the town’s emblem commemorating the World Harmony Run visit. After the brief ceremony we ran off on the road to our next destination, Rapla.

The boys ran with us with so much joy and energy out of the town. At the edge of Kehtna we applauded them. We were all ready to continue running when we realised we had lost Petar. No sooner than we were ready to drive back to Kehtna to find him, the car from Kehtna brought him back to us. We put his Kehtna tag to good use, and wrote on it, “My name is Petar. If found please return me to WHR”. We all laughed so much.

At the edge of Rapla we met some local children who ran with us. A few of the young girls found it difficult to keep up, but they persevered and ran to the front to hold the torch. One of the young boys really enjoyed our theme tunes music of the World Harmony Run from the van’s loudspeakers, and said that it made him want to run faster.

In the centre of Rapla we met the mayor who gave a loving and heartfelt speech.

We all considered it to be so moving and captured the essence of the World Harmony Run that his full speech is below:

“Welcome to Rapla, the participants of the World Harmony Run. To point out the importance of your act, I would say, this is a small step for humans, but a huge step for humankind!

The world is full of wars and problems and it will never be accomplished as we imagine. It is necessary to remember the danger surrounding us. Unfortunately lots of problems result from the activity of people. The society has realised, what draws the attention is the world’s weaknesses. All the actions are convenient for that, may it be a message through running, through media or by word from the Presidents. Everybody has its own way acknowledging that. We hope there is no alternative for the victory of common sense. We can ask: to whom the bells toll? Tomorrow the bell can toll for us.

It is a noble mission held by wise, strong and people with high morality. In this case the message appears in running.

Thanks a lot for starting this activity to the founder, supporters and the organizers. I specially thank You, the messengers! Estonia and Rapla community are good and peaceful place for living, but we still care about the rest of the world as well.

I wish You, happiness, health and strength in Your mission for harmony!

Thank You!”

We covered the 50 km from Rapla to Tallinn city border quicker than expected.

This gave us an opportunity to drive to a nearby lake and swim and relax.

Back at the Tallinn city border we met enthusiastic children and local runners who ran the 2 km to the Hansapanga Run (a regular 4 km team race event). At the venue Mark gave an interview to national television.

Afterwards about 10 experienced runners ran with us the 10 km through the scenic, old part of Tallinn and down to the City Harbour.

Although tired and hot we all enjoyed this run and we rewarded each runner with a World Harmony Run t-shirt and some much needed bottles of water. This group of runners then had to run the 10 km back to the Hansapanga Run venue. We waved and cheered them as they ran off into the distance.

The longest day of the World Harmony Run was fully complete with a wonderful, tasty meal prepared by such amazing cook Tiina – many, many thanks. This is our last full day in Estonia. Tomorrow we take the afternoon ferry to Helsinki. Tomorrow is a rest day for the Team – that is no running, but it is not total rest as we have many chores to do – fully clean the van, buy more supplies, report writing, prepare photograph DVDs for countries we have passed through, update our web page, sort out visas for the Scandinavian countries for Valentine and Jadranka, and get much needed haircuts for the boys!

Our time in the Baltic States has been truly memorable. We stayed in some of the best accommodation on the Run, located in amazing and awe inspiring natural surroundings. In Estonia running has been a delight and so have the people.

In Estonia, a great big well-done and eternal thanks to Merle, our Estonia country co-ordinator, and Shobhini, and for Tiina for taking care of us with her superb cooking.

At the end of the day we sadly said farewell to our Lithuanian runner, Arturas. We hope to see him next year.

Tomorrow we all look forward to joining the other International Team who has been running in Russia. Two teams will now become One for the remainder of the run through Europe.

Distance: 114km

Team Members:
Arturas Rasimavicius (Lithuania), Gints Peleckis (Latvia), Ieva Kurzemniece (Latvia), Jadranka Grbic (Serbis & Montenegro), Jirka Albrecht (Czech Republic), Mark Collinson (England), Ondrej Vesely (Czech Republic), Petar Mihaylov (Bulgaria), Valentine Bebik (Ukraine).

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