Day 84 July 29, 2011 Wawa to Hammer Lake 61km - Mike's View

A 5:00am wake-up followed by a quick emptying and filling of the MCC.  Riley was on the road and running by 7:00am.

The morning passed rather quickly, only being interrupted by a bunch of cyclists riding in the opposite direction.  A number of them stopped to talk to Riley and applaud him on running the incredible distance.  A large group of cyclists passed us and did not stop to say hi as they rode from Victoria to St. John's. Sharon and Marya were the wife and daughter of a cyclist (who was riding on his own), and they stopped to chat with Riley and I.  Sharon was so excited about talking to him.  She had heard about him from other cyclists up ahead that had passed us, and ran into them.  They took a photo with Riley, donated to Step Into Action and then before going our separate ways, she warned us of the large hills to come…

Throughout the day I was listening to an audiobook called "Inside Delta Force", which is the first audiobook I have listened to.  The readers voice is incredibly captivating and so smooth.  As I was watching Riley run later on, I envisioned this voice narrating the story of Riley's run across Canada, and it made it even more epic than it already is.  As hard as I tried, I was unable to replicate it.

We finished the day on highway 17, at what looked like a driveway, but when we looked to see where it went, it turned out to be a boat ramp into Hammer Lake. You guessed it, we went swimming!

We drove back into Wawa to take a photo with the World's Largest Canada Goose and to check into a Motel.  Tomorrow is a rest/administration day, and it is always nice to have a calm, clean and slightly more spacious spot to set up. 

We had dinner at the restaurant/pub that is attached to the Motel.  As we were ordering a beer with dinner, we asked "What's on tap?"  The waitress’s response was "Nothing.  We forgot to order it.  We won't have anything on tap until Tuesday!"  Riley and I began laughing at the thought of this.  It wasn't ordered?  Who forgets to order the beer?  This would never happen in any other city!  She then told us that the owner had a heart attack and had to be taken to hospital.  That is why the beer had not been ordered.  Our laughing immediately stopped.  We just ordered 2 bottles of Canadian.  

Riley then went to order the Perogies for dinner.  They weren't ordered either.  "Pizza?" -"Nope."  

He settled on the French Onion Soup, Bruschetta AND Spaghetti.  I had a good old-fashioned hamburger.

Bed shortly followed dinner.

-Michael Downie

Day 83 July 28, 2011 Lake Superior Provincial Park to Wawa 71km

Welcome to the 70s!

The day began in the middle of a cloud. The beautiful vista that we had gone to sleep with was replaced by total fog. I was essentially running through a cloud the whole day.

I was a little disappointed about only running 50km yesterday and was determined to make it back to 60km today. I felt good but today was going to turn out to be the hilliest day of the trip. As I ran, I quickly became soaked, as, while not really raining, the 100% humidity of the cloud and light sprinkling combined to leave me drenched. I had to stop to change my shoes and re-tape my feet after only about 30km.

Mike was asking when I wanted to stop for lunch. Usually I stop around 30-35km although yesterday I had stopped at just before 40. Today I was feeling really good and was worried that if I stopped for lunch, that I would get stiff and have trouble getting started again on these hills. So I kept going until essentially Mike got hungry, at km 45. I walked as I ate and as there was no place for Mike to pull over I continued on to 49km before stopping for a quick break and to change into drier clothes.

When I started running again though, I still felt good and when 60km approached I decided to keep going to see how far I could get. The answer, 71km. Awesome!

That distance took me a little passed the huge Canada Goose that marks the entrance to Wawa.

I wonder if I can keep up this kind of mileage.

Day 82 July 27, 2011 Middle of Nowhere to Middle of Lake Superior Provincial Park 51km

I hit the snooze button for over an hour and a half this morning. That’s what kind of a day it was going to be.

It was a cool morning, which was a nice change. I felt more tired than usual today which was a bit of bummer seeing as it was super hilly all day. But again the scenery was astonishing as I entered Lake Superior Provincial Park.

I ran over Montreal River and we took some photos looking over the bridge as it plunged down to the riverbed. I’m not the biggest fan of heights and felt a little uncomfortable looking over the edge.

Around km 37, as I was slowly trudging up one of the endless climbs a silver VW Golf pulled over in front of me and out jumped Heather Levie, an old friend of mine. She and her boyfriend Travis were camping in the park and just happened to drive past me on their way to Orphan Lake. It was great to see her again! We tried to get Mike’s attention as he was only about 500m back in the RV, but he was busy making sandwiches and missed the whole thing.

While it’s annoying that Mike has no phone service and we have no Internet service, it is kind of amusing as the entire time we were in the Atlantic Provinces, Mike had great reception and I had almost none.

I continued on for another km or so and pulled up to a big scenic lookout where we stopped and had lunch. I probably should have kept walking instead of stopping to eat because after lunch I felt stiff and exhausted and was only at 39km. I had hoped to try and again make it to 60km but it was struggle just to get to 50km.

We went for a quick swim in Katherine’s Cove, a huge beach with clear cool water next to where I stopped. There were signs forbidding the likes of our MCC from spending the night so we drove around looking for a place to stay. We happened upon the pullout for Orphan Lake, and while we decided not to stay there, we did find Heather and Travis’ car, upon which I placed my card with the Steps to Action.

While driving around looking for a place to stay we came upon the sign below. I’m at a loss to describe what one of the pictures mean.

We decided to drive back to our lunch spot, the scenic lookout and try our luck spending the night there. We had purchased an overnight ticket at Orphan Lake although we weren’t sure the lookout counted as a place to park overnight. With no signs though we gave it a shot and the good news is, it wouldn’t be easy to try and tow the MCC!

So we had dinner overlooking Lake Superior. Beautiful.

Day 81 July 26, 2011 Batchawana Island to Middle of Nowhere 61km

We’re going dark

The run today was along the cliffs of Lake Superior. It was absolutely beautiful, and looking out over the lake reminded me of the ocean, it’s so big. It actually reminded me a lot of the Sea to Sky highway from Vancouver to Whistler. Part of what made the route beautiful also made it very hilly and I encountered some of the biggest hills I’ve had to date. But the temperature and humidity were perfect and it was a really enjoyable run. I’m still listening to Those In Peril by Wilbur Smith and it’s a great book, I highly recommend it.

Along the way today I met a guy from Quebec who was cycling from Victoria to Quebec. His daughter committed to suicide at age 12 and he was riding to raise awareness of suicide in youths.

We’ve been looking for a small cooler to put next the driver seat to store my water to keep it cold. We looked for it at the only store I passed today. We didn’t find a cooler but we did find a rock based weather system. I’ll let the photo below explain.

What’s really exciting is that I managed to run 60km back to back for the first time since the start of this trip! Awesome! What’s not awesome is that Mike has no service on his phone, which means that our Internet hub won’t work because they use the same carrier. I have reception but it’s sporadic. It’s the only time so far this trip that I have had reception while Mike has not. I may start to tone down my hatred of Rogers if it keeps up. So we’ve essentially gone dark and can’t update our Facebook, Twitter or blog. Hopefully it doesn’t last too long although there isn’t much between here and Thunder Bay.

I finished running right beside a random dirt road that opened up into a small clearing; our home for the night. With no reception/service we had lots of time to do stuff that has nothing to do with the Internet (read: we went to bed early).

I have to give a huge shout out to my Aunt Anne Riley for solving the blisters between my big toes. After visiting her in Muskoka she gave me a pack of wool to put between my toes. I was skeptical at first but I haven’t had any trouble with them since she gave me the wool and they are almost completely healed! Thank you Auntie Annie!!

We’ll see if I can keep up this distance tomorrow

Day 80 July 25, 2011 Sault Ste Marie to Batchawana Island 61km

Alone with my thoughts

So as I was leaving the MCC to start running I picked up my iPod and turned it on. To my surprise it was empty. Well, not really empty, but completely unreadable. Somehow the whole thing had been corrupted overnight. Fantastic.

So I started running without my iPod, which was too bad because I’m really into my Wilbur Smith book Those in Peril.

Then Google maps struck again. I was running along route 17b, the old trans-Canada, when Google maps told me to turn right and head along a gravel road to the new Hwy 17 and then across. As soon as I crossed the highway I found myself on another dirt road. I continued along it and came out in the middle of a golf course, with Mike and the MCC right behind me. All the golfers on the course stopped and looked at us. I asked Mike if we were in the right place and he said we were so I continued along the golf course with Mike driving along the golf cart path behind me. Soon, as you can expect, the course marshal was behind us in his cart asking us where we were going. We showed him the map and he laughed and said that it was taking us on an old road that no longer exists. Thanks Google maps. We did get a funny video of golfers staring at us as we passed by their golf carts in our RV.

Otherwise it was a pretty nice run. I had lunch at 40km and continued running to 61km. We had mounted the GoPro camera on the driver side wing mirror and it took a photo every 30seconds for the entire day. We got some pretty nice shots and if you scroll through it quickly it looks cool. My feet felt good all day, and only my shins were bothering me. The temperature was nice and the humidity manageable.

After getting back to the Delta the girl that had checked us in, Angel, offered to drive us around the Soo to look at the locks and the bridge to the USA. The locks were pretty cool, the ones we saw were for pleasure craft but across the way they were so big that multiple tankers could use them at the same time. We also saw what is apparently the only functioning swing bridge in Canada!

Tomorrow I start the long stretch between Sault Ste Marie and Thunder Bay!

Day 79 July 24, 2011 Day Off Sault St Marie

Brilliant brunch, brutal dinner

I woke up at 8:40am, which may not seem like much of a sleep in but seeing as I’m usually waking up at 4am these days it was pretty sweet. The best part was that I didn’t actually get out of bed until 11am. Instead I lay in bed playing on my phone and reading my Jack Reacher book. So relaxing!

Brunch at the Delta was gigantic. I started with a ham, cheese, onion and tomato omelet for my first course. For my second I had shrimp, smoked salmon, pasta salad, some sort of cold rice dish, breakfast ham, sausages, a croissant, and perogies. For my third course I had a waffle, scallop pasta, more perogies, blue jello, and cranberry juice. Best brunch ever!

The rest of the afternoon wasn’t that exciting. We had to take our laundry to the local Laundromat, always a fun way to pass the time. We did managed to get some stylish new bathing suits and haircuts while our laundry was being done.

Mike is insisting (as I write this) that I describe our dinner in detail. I was going to sum it up as horrible but I will expand. It started with us walking around the Soo looking for a place to eat. We had enjoyed Docks last night but wanted to go somewhere different so we walked up two blocks to Queen St looking for restaurants. What we found was…nothing. Not only was nothing open, but also no one was around; like literally no one. We walked around taking pictures of the empty streets. It was bizarre. It looked like we were on one of the main streets; it was Sunday night and beautiful out, yet no one was around. We started walking east and ran into a couple pushing their daughter in a stroller. Mike asked if there was anywhere good to eat and the guy didn’t hesitate. He turned back east, pointed and said, “yes, go to the end of the street and Muio’s is on your right.” The way he said it suggested it was a great place to eat.

So we went down to Muio’s and our adventure began. It was packed, with a single empty table that we took. The waitress came over and gave us our menus, and we opened them. After a cursory glance there were a number of confusing things. First, a lot of things were broasted. I still don’t know what that means. There were no appetizers. The pasta came with “pasta sauce”. The pizzas were priced by number of toppings. They were all make your own pizzas and none of the toppings were listed. The waitress came back over and took Mike’s order. He tried to ask her for recommendations and she said it depended on what he liked and that everything was so good she couldn’t recommend anything. So he got pasta with chicken. When it was my turn I asked what kind of sauce came with the pasta. She said “pasta sauce”. I asked what that meant and she said, “Oh, it’s homemade pasta sauce”. I asked if it was tomato, or creamy, had meat…etc. She said it was tomato. I then asked what kind of toppings the pizzas had and was told “whichever toppings you’d like”. I gave up on that. There was only one pizza that had listed ingredients called Rocco’s pizza. It listed parsley, basil, and tomatoes as the ingredients. I asked if it was good and she said, “Yes, especially if you like spicy pizza”. I said, “Why is it spicy?” She looked at me like I should know and said, “Because there are hot peppers in it”. I looked back at the menu; hot peppers were not listed. That could have been a surprise if I didn’t like hot peppers. I ordered the pizza.

She left before we could ask for drinks. When our food arrived she put the pizza down in front of me and I just stared at it silently. In the center of the pizza was a huge puddle of oil/grease. When I say huge, I mean I could have floated a toy boat in it. She saw me staring at it and said “Is there something wrong with it?” I felt like I had given her a hard time about the menu so instead of saying “Can I have a strainer”, I said, “No I’m just really hungry so I’m waiting for it to cool down”. I don’t think she bought it. Oh and there were green peppers in the pizza. Another phantom ingredient I guess I was supposed to know about.

Mike’s pasta sauce was also really watery and his noodles were floating in it. When we finished there was a lot of pizza and pasta left. She asked Mike if he wanted to take the rest home and he said, “No that’s okay”. To which she responded “did you not like it?” Mike responded “no it was goo…I mean it was fi… uh I’m just full”. I took my pizza to go to avoid the conversation but tossed it in the trash at the first opportunity. Too bad I couldn’t have brunch again for dinner!

Tomorrow I head North along the great lakes!

Day 78 July 23, 2011 Thessalon to Sault St Marie 51km - Mike's View

Running today was a countdown day, rather than just a running day, because we knew we would reach the city of Sault Ste. Marie followed by a rest and recovery day. All day, Riley and I were counting down to that 50km mark, where he could stop running and start relaxing!

Along the road, we ran into 2 separate cyclists that are riding across Canada this morning. One woman had her husband following with the car and trailer.

About 25kms into the morning, Highway 17 split into a divided highway, which caused a slight challenge, as Riley enjoys running against oncoming traffic.
As Riley ran on the other side, I would drive ahead to the next crossing (which happened approximately every 2 kms or so), and would wait for him, so I could hand him water.

It was a very hot and sunny day, where Riley had to come into the MCC a few times to cool down and reapply sunscreen.

Near the end of the day, we ran through Echo Bay and past what seemed to me like the Largest Canadian Loonie. It didn't say anywhere that it was the largest, but how many can there be?

Riley and I both agreed that we needed to stay in a hotel for our time here in Sault Ste. Marie. Setting our stuff down in the Delta hotel gave us a fantastic shower! Riley and I both took our time in the washroom and both came out spotless and clean shaven! Looking good and a little more relaxed (knowing we didn't have to run tomorrow) we wandered over to a restaurant on the water and enjoyed some of the tallest hamburgers we have ever seen.

Riley and I then retired to his room to watch the movie Gran Torino on his computer. I crawled into my large and extremely comfortable bed at 10pm, but was not worried, knowing that I can sleep in tomorrow.

-Michael Downie

Day 77 July 22, 2011 Blind River to Thessalon 61km

So many cyclists!

It was a lot cooler this morning although still quite humid as the morning run took place along Blind River, beautiful and calm at that early hour in the morning. I felt good for the first 15km and then started to feel really tired. I couldn’t quite figure it out but my pace had slowed significantly over the 5km from 15-20km. At the time I was listening to True Grit on my iPod so I changed back to music and my pace improved dramatically, back to where it had been earlier in the morning and I didn’t feel as tired. Bizarre.

I again had lunch at 35km, and then sun was slowly starting to make its appearance after hiding behind clouds for much of the morning. Unfortunately, I didn’t make the connection between the appearance of the sun and the fact that I had not put on sunscreen this morning.

I have met a number of people cycling across Canada since I started this trip but over the past two days that number has dramatically increased. Yesterday I met Mike Hennessy, who was going the same direction I was, and passed two others who were going west to east. Today I met two girls who were going from Sudbury to a music festival at a lake just north of Kenora. Tomorrow morning I can tell you (because I’m editing this blog from Sault-St-Marie) that I’m going to meet Bill, who is from Nova Scotia and who started in Victoria and is going to Newfoundland and tomorrow afternoon I will meet Ann Fisher who is also riding across from west to east. Ann and her husband Brian, who is driving the support van, are both O.P.P. officers, and Ann is trying to raise awareness for impaired driving. Lots of cyclists!

As the afternoon wore on my feet started to get really sore, but the rest of me felt great. Were it not for the blisters on my feet I probably could have carried on for another 5-10km, but I was hobbling when I stopped at 61km.

We spent the night at a campsite with a huge red Muskoka chair, claiming to be the largest in Northern Ontario. It was huge, though I’m guessing from the claim that it’s not even the biggest in Ontario. Small towns across Canada sure are fond of having huge random items.

The campground was right on Lake Huron and Mike and I were swimming almost as soon as the MCC was parked.

We’ve already thrown the circuit breaker 4 times thanks to our air conditioning and the limited power at the campsite, but we’re determined to keep it going all night so we don’t cook in this oven!

Tomorrow I get to Sault-St-Marie and then a day off!

Day 76 July 21, 2011 Spanish to Blind River 51km

Heat, Humidity, Headwind

I think I just experienced the hottest day of my life today. I’m not exactly sure what the temperature was, but in Sudbury it was 44 C. When I started running at 6:30am it was already hot and humid. I don’t think it cooled down at all overnight.

I really wasn’t excited about running today, not in this heat, and I delayed for quite a while this morning before I finally resigned myself to getting started. It only took about 2km before I was covered in sweat. The humidity made it hard to breath and prevented sweat from evaporating.

I ran past an information station and got two cold ice teas out of the vending machine. I needed to wring out both my shorts and shirt almost immediately after. My shorts were so wet that water was running down my legs into my socks making my socks and shoes wet. It was incredible.

I tried to get around this problem by taking my shorts off and running in my underwear and changing my shirt to a shirt Sarah gave me that is designed somehow to keep you cool in the heat. Translation – it’s super skintight and absorbs all sweat staying soaking wet, yet light and keeping you cool.

I spent much of my run taking salt pills, drinking electrolyte solutions, and eating carbohydrate gels. It was so hot that it felt like I was running in a sauna. In the afternoon there was a fierce headwind and it too was hot. So not only was I running in a sauna, but it felt like someone was standing in front of me blowing a hair dryer in my face. Thanks to the heat my pace was slow and I needed frequent breaks to cool down so I didn’t finish running until 3:30pm

After a quick swim in what may or may not have been part of Lake Huron we drove to Wayne’s World McIver’s Campground where we are now in the process of going to sleep.

I’m really hoping tomorrow isn’t as hot as today.

Day 75 July 20, 2011 Mckerrow to Spanish 51km - Mike's View

Today was probably the least exciting day of the whole trip so far!

I am actually quite stumped about what to tell you. We started in McKerrow, and woke up at just after 4am, and Riley was on the road and running just before 6am.

It was a cloudy morning and the highway was very quiet. Toronto news kept saying that today and tomorrow are going to be some of the hottest on record since 1948! Luckily for us, we are quite a bit north of Toronto now, where it is slightly cooler. I think the fact that it was cloudy all day helped keep the heat down, however, it was VERY humid!

Riley's special lululemon wet-wicking, dry-tech (whatever they call them) shirts were just soaked the entire time! They used to be dry, when it was hot, because it would evaporate before Riley even had a chance to notice he was sweating. Riley stopped to wring out his shirt a few times today, as well as change his shirt completely at lunch.

Just as he finished stretching at the end of his run and was getting into the bus, it started raining. Only for about 5 minutes or so, but it was kind of like it was waiting for Riley to get in the MCC. We then drove back down the road about 3 minutes into Spanish, a small one road strip of a town. Kind of cute, in an old and dying kind of way.

For dinner, I made a beef and vegetable stir-fry, served on rice with an orange ginger sauce, and if I may say so myself, it was Delicious! But of course, with 2 huge mouths to feed, I underestimated, and had to make a smokie for each of us as well. Riley was still hungry after that and ate an entire cucumber! It's good to see him finally eating more than me!

The time is now 5:35pm, and the plan for both Riley and I is to roll into bed and sleep deeply until our alarms wake us up before 4am again tomorrow.

-Michael Downie

Day 74 July 19, 2011 Sudbury to McKerrow 61km

Back to 60

It was a harder getting up this morning than it was the morning before, and Mike and I moved a bit slower as well. By the time I started running it was 6:15am. The morning went pretty fast and soon I was again walking down the side of the road with sandwiches in my hands. By this point I was soaking wet courtesy of the insane humidity and had to wring my shirt and shorts out before I could keep going. I was feeling pretty good so I decided that I would try and make it to 60km today. It’s been a while since I’ve gone that far because I usually am fairly useless the following day but I figured I’d give it a try.

Part of the day was spent on a divided highway. I like to run on the left side of the road facing opposing traffic so I can keep my eye on the motorists that don’t watch the road and so I don’t have to worry about cars passing me from behind. Today that meant that anytime I wanted water I had to cross a huge meridian filled with trees/boulders/weeds/water/millions of grasshoppers. After the 3rd or 4th time I gave up and ran on the right side of the road with Mike driving directly behind me.

I felt good at 45km. I felt ok at 50km. I did not feel good at 55km. The last 5 km were torture and my feet, especially my right one was on fire as I hobbled slowly to the end. I’m sure you could walk faster than I was “running” at the end. Mike got ice from the gas station and I tried to soak my feet in an ice bath but I could only do it for about a minute at a time, it was too painful to put them in longer. That’s another thing I don’t really understand because I’m sure I can keep my feet in the snow much longer than I could keep my feet in that ice bath. I think next time I’ll add more water.

The good news is I finished right in front of an ice cream shop, and after dinner I had a huge mint chocolate chip one.

We got to bed at 6:30pm and while Mike fell almost instantly asleep, I took about 2 hours myself, which is strange because I can normally fall asleep instantly and I was completely exhausted anyway. So while I waited I finally got a chance to read one of the six Jack Reacher books I’ve brought.

Hopefully today’s distance won’t hinder my running tomorrow.

Day 73 July 18, 2011 Delamere to Sudbury 51km

Crack of dawn running

My alarm clock first went off at 3:30am and after hitting the snooze button numerous times I was finally up by 4am. It was the first time we’ve gotten up before the sun on a running day this whole trip, and it was a bit weird getting ready in the dark.

I took off running just as dawn was starting to make her appearance and, while not cool, it was way cooler than it had been during any of the recent running days. It was great running at that hour, with almost no traffic, and I got to watch the sun rise. The only minor nuisance were the few mosquitoes that hung around until the sun fully rose.

By 9:30am I had gone 32km and after Mike passed me a plate with two sandwiches I continued walking along the highway as I ate. I got a number of strange looks from passing motorists. I guess they weren’t used to seeing runners on the highway, eating sandwiches off a plate, at 9:30am.

After a short break I was back on the road and soon looping around Sudbury and onto Hwy 17 West, my home for the foreseeable future. By 12:45pm I was done for the day. Amazing! It was starting to get really hot, yet I was finished. I totally felt like I had won.

We decided that, as we are likely to be in the middle of nowhere for the next week on our way to Sault St Marie, that we would spend the night at the Holiday Inn in Sudbury. We also decided that, because we now had all this time on our hands, we should go see Harry Potter.

It’s now 8pm and time for bed. We’ll see if we’re able to get up as early again tomorrow, but it sure made for an infinitely more pleasant day today.

It also helped that my cold seems to have finally given up!