Day 22 May 28, 2011 Rogersville to Just outside Miramichi NB 30km

Way too late going to sleep = oversleeping and getting up late.

We woke up in the parking lot at 7am, much later than planned. The good news though is that it was good excuse to do laundry before leaving Miramichi, as I had about one day worth of running kit left. While waiting for our laundry Mike noticed a black Dodge Charger SRT8 sitting in the parking lot of the Laundromat. It looked a lot like the black Dodge Charger SRT8 that was in the parking lot of Sobeys when we had gotten up that morning. So Mike wandered over towards the car but it drove off as he got close. Very weird. So we’ve been looking out for black Dodge Chargers all day.

After laundry we began heading back toward Rogersville, but first we stopped for gas and to dump our septic tank and fill up with water. This RV is not exactly environmentally friendly. We filled up for gas less than 36 hrs ago and already had used up just over half a tank!

We finally made it to my starting point, and after a quick lunch it was already around 1pm. So I wasn’t going to be able to fit in another 60km today. I ran 20km and my left hamstring was tight and a bit sore, definitely worse than yesterday. I had downloaded new episodes of the Ricky Gervais show which helped ease the fact that my leg hurt and my pace was slow.

I took too long of a break after my first run, thanks to a long nap, and didn’t start running again until about 6:30pm. At this rate I was going to end up running until 8:30-9pm, which would mean that I wouldn’t get to sleep again until too late. Adding to the fact that my hamstring was sore I only ran 10km, with a view to giving my hamstring a break and trying to get into a better sleep schedule.

Mike made one of his favourite meals, chicken stirfry and thanks to filling up with water I was able to have a shower for the first time in a few days, and this time the water was hot!!!

I got to be early with the hopes that I would be able to get up early tomorrow. To help that process I set my alarm for 5:15, 5:25, 5:30, 5:31, 5:32, 5:33 and 5:34. Sarah would not be impressed.

Hopefully though it will work!

Day 21 May 27, 2011 Coal Branch to Rogersville 60km

5:30am alarm goes off…….6:30am get out of bed

So much for my early start. I’m having trouble getting out of bed. It’s making my days very long.

I started running around 8am and felt pretty good. The road was fairly flat and the weather was good, at least in the morning. My left hamstring and right shin started bothering me somewhere along my first run. Nothing bad, but I could feel it. Our first break was again in the middle of nowhere, off to the side on a dirt road that looked like it was rarely used but that had a surprising amount of traffic on it.  A familiar unwanted discovery was that the number of bugs had exploded and any time I stopped, or if I ran too slowly, they would swarm me. Not my idea of a good time. The front of our bus was littered with squashed flies!

By the time I took to the road for my second run fog had rolled in and by about halfway it was raining. The good news about rain… no bugs!  My shin got a bit better and my hamstring got a bit worse. The time flew by though as I’ve started listening to Ricky Gervais podcasts while I run.

Towards the end of the second run I was stopped on the side of the road when a car pulled over to talk to me. Kathryn Roberts from Coal Branch had driven past and turned back around to make a donation!

The third run was hard to get motivated for. I was tired, my legs hurt and it was raining. About halfway in I entered Rogersville. While running through I was stopped by teenager Cedric Leblanc who wanted to know why I was running and if he could make a donation.  I used this as an excuse to stop and stretch a bit while Mike took a video of a fox running along the road.

Thanks to the late start this morning, I didn’t finish running until around 8:45pm. Too late; I really need to start getting up earlier. We drove North to Miramichi, mainly because Google showed that it had a McDonalds and therefore WiFi. I thought it was going to be a little bigger than Rogersville, but I was wrong. It was way bigger. It looked at least as big as Moncton, with a huge bridge across the Gulf of St Lawrence.

We got more blister supplies, parked briefly in McDonalds to use their Internet, and then had a quick dinner and went to sleep in the Sobeys parking lot at 11:30pm.

Way too late to go to sleep, especially if I hope to get up earlier tomorrow.

Day 20, May 26, 2011 Just before Moncton to Coal Branch NB 45km

Fundraiser or propane?


We left Duncan and Heather’s house early and set out for Moncton. I started on the highway for the first 9km before turning off onto Route 126, my road for the next few days. It looked like a quiet road, with two lanes, a small gravel shoulder, lined with houses, but there was tons of traffic on it. Not just cars, but big trucks too. It was a lot busier than I would have thought.

I felt good after having two days off and the two morning runs went quickly. It was hot and sunny (27C) for the first time this trip. I think I had about four litres of fluid during my second run.

Our propane was less than a quarter full and we had been trying to find a place to fill up for a few days now but no one seemed to fill RVs, only small propane canisters. So we decided before we got too far away from Moncton that we would try again.  We ended up on a tour of Moncton, with each stop directing us to another with no success. We did manage to get more blister supplies and food but no one seemed to know where to get propane.  Actually, people we asked thought they knew where to get it but each time we went to where they suggested we were turned away.

We did manage to stumble across Magnetic Hill, where you drive to the bottom of a hill, put your car in neutral, and your car rolls back up the hill. The hill was just a small part of the area, which was more like an amusement park. I had been to a similar hill in Ireland and it had worked quite well. We had stopped in the middle of a hill, put the car in neutral, and we rolled back up the hill. So Mike and I drove to what was supposed to be the bottom of the hill, but looked more like the top of a hill. Clearly it didn’t work that well. Maybe it was because we were high up in the RV. We tried it again facing forwards and it worked a little better.

It was getting pretty late and I still had another 15km left to run, but we still had no propane. There was also a prostate cancer fundraiser at a motorcycle dealership in Moncton, Toys for Big Boys, that Carol from Prostate Cancer Canada in Halifax had told us about that we were hoping to go to. Add in the fact that I wanted to see if I could get physio in Moncton and it became clear that we were running out of time.

In the end we found propane at one of the Home Hardware stores, but by then it was 7:30pm. We were already late for the fundraiser, and I wanted to get back and try to finish my last run.

We filled up with gas at what looked like a gas station but turned out to be Lyons Hunting & Fishing Country Store. We handed out some buttons and the Steps to Action and talked about route 126. The girl behind the cash register told us about pulling teeth out of dead black bears and how there are people that live along the 126 that they won’t sell bullets to because they think they’re crazy. Great, the road I’m running is full of bears and psychos.

By the time we got to the start point it was 8:30pm and the sun was starting to set so we parked, had dinner, and went to bed.

So much for 60, I’ll try again tomorrow.

Day 19 May 25 2011 Research Day at Dalhousie

I woke up at 530am to what I thought was a special tow truck come to tow us out of the park. After clearing the sleep from my eyes I realised it was just a street cleaner. Back to bed.

10am came quickly and I got ready for my first research day at Dalhousie. Having not being able to get in touch with Memorial University in St John’s, Dalhousie was going to be the first time I would be able to recruit people for the research study I’m doing along with the run. I walked to the Halifax Infirmary, which was only about 400 metres from where we had parked. I had been in contact with another one of the anaesthesia residents at Dalhousie and thought that I was only going to be able to recruit one, maybe two people to participate. I brought five pedometers though, just in case I got lucky and could get more people to participate. Thanks to Lauren though, I was able to get eight! Outstanding!  It was also fun to meet anaesthesia residents from another school.

The afternoon was spent exploring downtown Halifax on our scooter. It was definitely entertaining driving around, Mike and I, on a scooter that struggled to reach 15km/hr on the hills. Parking was a breeze though and we explored the wharf discovering, among other things, Theodore the Tugboat.

A little while later I found myself in the Running Room, while Mike went to LuluLemon. While in the Running Room I stocked up on carbohydrate gel, and got a blindingly bright yellow running jacket to better enjoy all the rain. There wasn’t much small talk between the cashier, and myself and Mike wasn’t there for the blatantly obvious segue, so I didn’t mention my run, instead just paid quietly and left. I then walked to LuluLemon to meet Mike. I had been in there for about 15 seconds when four girls came up to me to ask if I was the runner. They even gave me a free pair of shorts. Mike was just standing in the corner smiling. He was not impressed with my story from the Running Room.

It was getting late and we had a long drive back but we wanted to stop at Peggy’s Cove. Though I couldn’t remember having heard of it before I had certainly seen pictures of it and immediately recognized the lighthouse. It was really quite stunning and we explored the area with our giant foam hands in tow.

On the drive back we stopped at a Tim Horton’s near Halifax airport so I could do a radio interview. I’m starting to get more comfortable doing them, fewer ‘ah’ and ‘um’ moments.

I’m now back at Duncan and Heather’s house in Aulac NB. Tomorrow I start up again, and the plan is for 60km.

Day 18 May 24, 2011 Day off - Halifax

I woke up at 9am to Mike creepily standing over my bed holding out his phone playing music from the Contender.

We were one the road to Halifax by 11am after having done our own version of Cribs for the Mobile Command Centre.  I drove the RV for the first time other than my little spin in the parking lot. It wasn’t as fun as I thought it would be, essentially like driving a bus, and it took some time to get used to.

The drive to Halifax was about 2 hours, by which point I was well used to driving on the highway, but found it much more entertaining once I entered the city and had to negotiate tight turns in traffic.

We drove around looking for a place to park, eventually finding a perfect spot in the middle of Halifax Commons within walking distance of everything we needed. We headed out to meet Michael Kydd, our contact at Prostate Cancer Canada for the Atlantic Region. We had a great chat about our vision of the run, how he could help, and he was kind enough to set us up with a radio interview for tomorrow night, let us use his printers and gave us prostate cancer neckties, pins and promotional material. We also met George, one of their volunteers and a prostate cancer survivor who was kind enough to share his story.

We had also received a package from Dave, our campaign manager back in Vancouver. It was filled with our Steps To Action brochures, buttons with our logo, and a lot of anti blister and anti chaffing supplies much to my delight. Also included were two giant foam Vancouver Canucks hands that, while being great for watching the game, were constructed exactly like our logo. We can now give prostate cancer an even bigger finger!

Later that evening, with my Canucks Jersey, our foam hands, and Step Into Action buttons we met Carla, our waitress at Your Father’s Moustache.  We talked to her about the run and Step Into Action and we now had stuff we could give out. We gave her a button and the Steps to Action and she said we made her night!

You know what made my night? ADVANCING TO THE STANLEY CUP FINALS!!!!!!!!!! Our foam hands were put to good use at Bubba Ray’s Sports Bar where along with Mike’s friend Jenny we had a great night cheering on the Canucks!

It’s a good thing I don’t have to run tomorrow because 3am is not an ideal time to be going to sleep!

Day 17, May 23, 2011 Near Shediac to just before Moncton 32.43km

Soooooo tired.

I need to sleep more, 6 hours in not enough after 60km. I could barely get out of bed this Victoria Day.

Duncan and Heather had gotten up early to make us breakfast; scrambled eggs, ham, toast and orange juice. Delicious! We left late, around 8am for the drive back to my starting point. I really didn’t fell like running today. I felt exhausted and all I wanted to do was climb back into bed.

Instead, I changed into my running gear and set off at around 9:30am for my first 20km. Slowly. Very slowly. It didn’t help that there was a pretty strong headwind all morning. Today my feet felt fine but it was the rest of me that wanted to stop running, which I did at every excuse, to adjust my shoes, take photos (of a giant lobster billboard entering Shediac), anything. Just as I finished my morning leg Heather, Duncan and Eli showed up, right there at the km 25 marker sign on the highway.

I stretched a little and we all drove into Shediac to check out the world’s largest lobster. It really was huge, and like all the world’s largest things, a little random. I had decided that I was only going to do 40km today, thanks to successfully stalling all morning, and utter exhaustion. So we had some tortellini and a quick 40 min nap that I would have liked to stretch into hours.

Driving back to km 25 I was dreading the afternoon run, but I had stalled as long as I could and so got back into my running gear and headed out. Duncan and Heather had left signs for me on the km 25 sign and the km 24 sign as encouragement.

The highway from Shediac was busy and noisy and the headwind was draining, despite being at an angle. It only got worse when I turned off onto the highway to Moncton and directly into the headwind. My pace slowed, each step became a challenge and all I wanted to do was stop.

I did stop, at 32km, 8 short of today’s revised goal. I was disappointed that I couldn’t finish but I was completely out of energy.

I sat quietly during the drive back to Heather and Duncan’s thinking about how I hoped I didn’t have many other days like this where I was too tired to finish. Luckily I have the next two days off as we are driving into Halifax to meet with Prostate Cancer Canada and so I can do research at Dalhousie.

Two cheeseburgers later it was 9:30pm and I was saying goodnight to Duncan and Heather (and Eli, their very cute 1 year old son) after once again enjoying their hospitality with dinner, laundry, shower, WiFi, and a warm bed.

So tired, and so happy to be going to bed!

Day 16, May 22 2011 Confederation Bridge NB to Near Shediac 60km

Just the two of us.

Serge left us this morning for the drive back to Quebec City leaving Mike and I to fend for ourselves with the RV. After breakfast I took a quick spin around the parking lot, just to see what it was like as I had yet to drive our Mobile Command Centre.

We took some pictures at Confederation Bridge and I started out running.  It was a cool morning, the road was straight, slightly downhill, and my pace was quicker than it had been in a while.

I had decided to change the distances a little to make the afternoon run easier. So I ran 23km during the first run, 22km for the second run, and then only had 15km left at the end of the day, which was great.

60km took me to the far end of a little bridge near Shediac where I seriously contemplated jumping in the nearby ocean. 10 mins later I had finished stretching and we were headed to Aulac, a small region outside of Sackville NB, to see Duncan and Heather Dixon, friends Mike and I used to work with at Camp Elphinstone near Gibsons BC.

It was a fun night consisting of BBQ T-Bone steak, old stories, a little too much beer, and a place to do laundry, shower and a real bed to sleep in. Before long it was midnight, which these days is waaaaaaaay past my bedtime.

I hope I don’t pay for it tomorrow.

Day 15, May 21 2011 Charlottetown to Confederation Bridge 45km

Blueberry pancakes!

After breakfast graciously cooked by Debbie, we headed back to the high school I finished at yesterday. I started out on my own while Mike and Serge headed out to find somewhere to empty our RV waste. It was drizzling at the start and raining hard by 5km. Another shortcut by Google maps found me doing what seemed like hill workouts in the mud.  Nothing was flat; each steep uphill was followed by a steep downhill. At least it was keeping me warm.

Mike and Serge couldn’t follow me on those roads so after dumping they met me when I came back out onto the paved road. I took a left hand turn, ran 100 metres and missed the right hand turn onto the dirt road I was supposed to take. I continued on another 3 km, and would have continued the remaining 2km after that had a large German Shepherd not decided that I had come far enough along his road. The RV had driven ahead and stopped, waiting for me, and was less than 80 metres away but the dog wouldn’t let me get by. And the RV couldn’t reverse because we were towing Serge’s car. So Mike had to drive ahead to find somewhere to turn around. They ended up having to detach Serge’s car so they could turn around. This took about 20 mins, by which point I had been chased about 800 metres back down the road. It’s too bad I wasn’t carrying my bear spray at the time!

I took out my phone to see where I was and realized I had made a wrong turn so started walking back the way I had come while waiting for Mike and Serge to come back. It was still windy and pouring rain, and by the time they arrived my whole body was shivering.

After the morning run we drove to visit Anne of Green Gables and had tortellini at Cavendish Beach. It was super windy and cold but Cavendish Beach and its red sand was really nice.

The afternoon run started where I should have turned off during the morning run. It was a dirt road and so Serge took the RV ahead to the bridge and mike followed me in the scooter. Mike quickly discovered that the scooter maxed out at 78km/hr downhill and about 35km/hr when going uphill.

The run to Confederation Bridge was mostly downhill, and the only exciting point before the finish was yet another dog encounter. This time, a sort of Rottweiler mutt ran more than 100m across his yard, up the huge embankment on the side of the road, and tried to cross traffic to get at me.  I hopped on the back of the scooter and we blew past him. Soon after I was at Confederation Bridge.

Instead of immediately driving across, we headed back to Charlottetown so I could get fitted for a suit for a friend’s wedding, and then bought a new quilt that was a little less cardboard than my previous one. No cartoon characters unfortunately but bright coloured stripes.


We stopped just before Confederation Bridge to fill up with gas after going over 80km with the low fuel light on. Serge was sure we were going to run out before we made it but Mike and I had faith. We filled up at the Irving station and bought a copy of the Charlottetown Guardian with a photo of me running on the front page. Mike put the paper down with my picture facing up on the counter and asked the lady behind the cash register if she recognized the guy in the photo. After a long look she replied "Nope, he's not from around here." Mike asked if it was easy to make the front page to which she replied "It is if you're a criminal, that's who's usually on the front page. If you go to jail you'll definitely make the front page." Mike pretended to look at the photo and said "what if you were raising money for charity, would that get you on the front page?" She replied "Maybe, but you'd have to raise a lot of money, probably $1,000!" Awesome!

Driving across Confederation Bridge just at sunset was pretty cool, all 13km of it. We immediately pulled off the road in New Brunswick and spent the night, our last with Serge, in the Visitor Information Centre parking lot.

Tomorrow we begin New Brunswick!

Day 14, May 20th 2011 Wood Island Ferry to Charlottetown 60km

The day began in the Visitor Information Centre parking lot.

A bowl of cereal and three hard boiled eggs later I was starting out at the ferry terminal. The first 20km had me on a country road through the middle of PEI. Rolling hills and very green it reminded me of ireland. My run went pretty well, although the middle of my left foot is now starting to hurt. I wouldn't mind if one of these days I get out to run and my feet feel like normal. The weather was also the best so far, 15 degrees and sunny. A great morning.

After the morning run I had an interview with The Guardian Newspaper. Much easier than doing a radio interview with a tape running as it was more like a conversation. Otherwise the time passed far to quickly and I was soon out running again.

About one kilometre into the second run I came across three cyclists who were cycling across Canada, albeit in a fairly circuitous route. Keith from Idaho, Michaela from Alaska, and Mary from Utah. It was great meeting other people on a cross country journey, and after swapping stories we continued on our way. The second run took me off the country road and back onto the trans-Canada. PEI is nice. Really nice. Clean, friendly, and beautiful.

After the second run ended we headed to Sobey's to stock up on chocolate milk, my preferred post run recovery drink. I tried unsuccessfully to get some sleep before heading out for the final leg.

The third 20km was tough, but Mike was running with me so it passed by faster. As we crossed the Stratford Bridge a photographer popped out and started taking our photo for tomorrow's newspaper. Pretty cool, although by this point my feet weren't making it that high off the ground so I'm sure it will look like I'm speed-walking. The final leg took me through Charlottetown and I ended at a local high school.

We then immediately headed to Debbie and Matt's house who are friends of my mother. A warm cooked meal, hot shower, washing machine and soft bed. A great way to end the day.

I'm currently watching the Canucks game but it's 11:15pm and I've to go to bed, plus we're down 0-3 so it may be for the best. The Mayan calendar suggests the world is going to end tomorrow so Mike decided it's pointless to update photos tonight. If we're still alive tomorrow he'll put some up!

Tomorrow I should finish PEI!