Day 145 September 28, 2011 Vernon to Kelowna 61km

Not everyone tolerates traffic delays

The weather here is much warmer than it was in Banff and although Firstar has sent me a ton of warm weather gear I haven’t really had much opportunity to wear it. In fact, I think I may have gotten a little sun burnt today.

The morning began with a staged photo op of Mike stretching my hamstring. I don’t think he’s helped me stretch once this trip but that’s the photo the photographer from the Vernon Morning Star wanted so who were we to say otherwise.

I continued running from the military camp and almost immediately found myself climbing up a steep hill that began to offer a beautiful view of one of the lakes in Vernon. I continued on for about half an hour before I entered Lake Country and was met by a number of people.

First there was my cousin Mike Riley, who had brought another cousin of mine Kit Riley by for me to meet. It was the first time we had met and he told me his own personal story about prostate cancer. Second there was Andrew Best, a good friend of mine from camp whom I haven’t seen in a number of years, and who lives in Vernon. Thirdly were a reporter and cameraman from CHBC news who did a quick interview with me. Finally there was our fire escort for Lake Country.

The run through Lake Country was beautiful and warm and at the start was two lanes wide. Eventually though we found ourselves merging into single lane traffic which meant that with the fire escort we were completely blocking traffic and no one could pass us. This continued for around 30 minutes and a long line of traffic had formed behind us. When we finally found a turn off where we could pull over we found out just how angry some of the motorists were. The first couple of cars drove by with continuous pressure on the horn and their middle fingers extended. At the same time as this was happing though a woman pulled over to tell us her story about her own cancer and to give us all the money she had on her at the time. It was a strange contradiction. The fire fighters weren’t bothered in the slightest. In fact, I think they were kind of enjoying it!

Shortly after leaving Lake Country we entered the Kelowna city limits and were met by the Kelowna fire department. The made a very generous donation and then the two trucks escorted us all the way through Kelowna right up to the bridge over to West Kelowna. During the escort Elaine joined Tyler and I and the two of them ran the entire 10km portion we were escorted. We were also joined by Sarah Greenwood, a friend of mine from high school who I haven’t seen in ages.

All in all a great afternoon run.

We finished running somewhere in West Kelowna where we were met by Jennay Oliver, the sister of my brother’s good friend Geoffrey. Jennay gave us directions to her fruit stand where we met Geoffrey and were given a tour of their fruit stand and surrounding orchards, along with massive scoops of free ice cream! By the time we left Geoff and his mother had loaded us down with fresh apples, pears, plums, squash, tomatoes and basil. Incredible!

The remainder of the evening consisted of dinner at Earls where I held myself back from ordering three starters in addition to my main course and falling quickly to sleep in our friends condo that they very generously lent us for the time we were in Kelowna.

Tomorrow is my first non-running day in 12 days, since Calgary, and the first time since I can remember that I have nothing scheduled to do in the morning and I can sleep in!

Day 144 September 27, 2011 Sicamous to Vernon 64km

I feel like I’m getting close now

Neither Mike nor I drink coffee and this is often a problem for the people that come and join us to drive the MCC. This was the case for Tyler. While we were filling with propane at the gas station Tyler hurriedly went to the nearby A&W and came out with a tall cup of coffee and a breakfast sandwich. He also had the biggest single piece of beef jerky I’ve ever seen. I really wish I’d taken a picture of it but it was easily the size of his face.

Mike started running with me but kept having to stop to answer the phone. Eventually he gave up and spent about an hour answering phone calls from Vernon and Kelowna. By the afternoon Tyler was running with me and we passed through an area of construction about 5km long. Earlier in the day we had met two family friends of Mike’s who had warned us about the construction. Once again though, the construction provided Tyler and I essentially a brand new empty two-lane highway all to ourselves for 5km. Perfect.

Over the past couple of days the same two cyclists have been passing me. Today, for the third consecutive day these cyclists rode past me. Three days ago it was in the morning during a steep uphill so we just waved at each other. Yesterday they passed me while I was running with the fire escort. Today they passed us while we were eating lunch. I haven’t had the chance to talk to them yet but I find it odd that I keep getting out in front of them. The only thing I can think of is that they are sleeping in and starting late. (And because I’m writing this blog from the future I can say that tomorrow I will see them again for the 4^th time!)

As we approached the Vernon city limits I was met by two fire trucks waiting for me by the side of the road. Two firefighters joined in and ran with Mike and I while the two trucks escorted us through the city. Tonight was the first time that I ended up running in the dark and it was even cooler to have a fire escort with lights flashing in the dark.

The final few km of the run saw us running up a fairly steep hill, past the new Vernon hospital where Tyler’s fiancée Elaine works, and ending in the parking lot of the military camp. When we arrived we were met by Lloyd from the local prostate cancer group and a number of volunteers. They had brought foam hands, a huge banner, and a number of shirts for us. It was a great reception.

We spent the night at the fire hall where they let us plug our RV in and provided us with some of the best showers we’ve had so far this trip.  Sean, another friend of ours from Camp met us at the fire hall and we all went out to dinner at Boston Pizza.

Tomorrow I should make it to Kelowna!

Day 143 September 26, 2011 Revelstoke to Sicamous 71km - Guest Blog Tyler Senft

Welcome to SIA Tyler

So, I drove out to meet up with Riley and Mike today. I found them running along the #1 hwy just outside Sicamous, BC. I threw my gear in the MCC and after a quick hello and a quick switch out of my jeans and into my shorts we were off running. 

The weather was not fantastic. In fact it was raining and cold but it was great to start running.  To my surprise after only a couple of kilometres Mike informed us that we were going to get a fire truck escort through Sicamous.  I am not sure how many of you out there have had a fire truck escort but it is pretty AWESOME!!  We got lots of honks and waves from passing cars. It was great!!  The fire escort took us just outside town. We still had about another 10 or so km to run so we just kept going.

This is where I started to really feel the burn.  My goal was 20km and I had just completed the 20km and started walking when I realized I was probably close to a half marathon distance and asked Riley as he was running away “how far is a half marathon?”  He replied “21 km” and I started going again. That was probably the longest 1km of my life.  Riley had another 4km to go which he did like a champ.  He is a machine!!!

After we were done running we headed back to the gas station where Mike and I played guess which car will be Clayton’s. Clayton was the firefighter who was going to take us to the fire station where we were going to spend the night.  Huge shout out to the Sicamous fire department, they were fantastic!!  After a quick shower and a quick first to three game of foosball, which I dominated (even though Riley might tell you different) it was off to the MCC for the night.

Nighttime consisted of lots of updating blogs, facebook, twitter, and checking messages. I informed Mike that I had made my first tweet when they first started and he was curious so he checked it out. Apparently, with one tweet I got one follower. I must apologise to that follower because I have not tweeted a thing since. I now have about six or so followers. I should probably figure out this twitter thing!!!  It was time for bed and I got the G.I. Joe blankets with the transformer pillow cover and sheets. I knew my dreams where safe!! 

It was a great first night with Mike and Riley.

(Editor’s note – If by “dominated” Tyler means he lost in foosball 0-3…)

Day 142 September 25, 2011 Day Off in Revelstoke 30km

So much for a day off

I didn’t set my alarm this morning, hoping to be able to sleep in until at least 9am, but the rain woke me up around 8am and I watched the video replay of Ireland’s domination of Russia at the Rugby World Cup. Dave got up and made breakfast tortillas while Mike and I puttered around the RV.

It was around 11:30am by the time we started to get ready to run, and the rain had decreased to a light drizzle. I started running, but only made it about 8km before my cousin Tyler showed up. Tyler lives in Kelowna and is scheduled to be joining us for the next week or so. He had initially planned to drive out today and have Dave drive his car back to Kelowna, but something came up and he’s not going to be able to join us until tomorrow. He still drove the 2 hours from Kelowna though to drop off my warm weather gear from Firstar and to pick up Dave to take him back to Kelowna so he can catch a ride back to Vancouver.

It was only 15km to the turn off to Revelstoke where two fire trucks and an RCMP escort met me. I love escorts! They took me through the town of Revelstoke, the police leading, followed by their fire engine, myself, the MCC and the 2^nd fire truck. I love seeing the confused looks on peoples faces as they try to figure out whether they should be stopping or not and the general confusion a runner surrounded by emergency vehicles and a big blue RV seems to cause.

Our escort said goodbye on the western side of the city limits and I continued on to 30km before heading back into town. The rest of the day was decidedly non-exciting, consisting of dumping, grocery shopping, laundry and dinner. Back at the fire hall, Gary was no longer on shift and it was now Jim who was looking after us. He gave Mike a tour of the fire trucks as I showered and even gave us some Revelstoke Fire Rescue shirts. I love staying at fire halls; they’re way better than snowplow pullouts!

Tomorrow it’s back to the mountains and hopefully to Sicamous

Day 141 September 24, 2011 Roger's Pass to Revelstoke 51km

Downhill hurts

It was cold at the top of Roger’s Pass this morning, but not nearly as cold as those mornings back in Banff. Mike and I started running and it quickly became apparent that my quads were going to be harassing me most of the day, my left one especially. It was really awkward running down the steep western side of the pass not being able to favour one leg over the other as they both hurt. My progress was slow and anything but steady and I quickly found myself losing time.

By the time I got to the bottom of the steepest part it was 10km later and my quads were really sore. I took a quick break but the pain was the same when I started up again so I essentially limped through the rest of the day. I’m scheduled to have a day off tomorrow but I decided that it might be better if I had a shorter day today and then run a bit tomorrow, giving my legs some time to recover yet still getting ahead of schedule.

Dave has been slowly increasing his mileage each day he’s been out here, and he’s gotten a number of people to agree to sponsor him per km if he can do a minimum of 30km. When he started he had trouble running 3km, today he ran 10km total and I think he totaled around 39km and raised some money for Step Into Action at the same time.

We drove the 15km from my finish point into Revelstoke to the fire hall and were met by Gary, one of the firefighters. Gary was awesome and gave us warm showers, fresh water and even got one of his own attachments from home to help us plug into their electricity after ours started smoking (no better place than at a fire station).

We had dinner at the Village Idiot with two of Dave’s friends, Michelle and Aaron. After telling Aaron my story about my busted iPod he immediately ran to his car and got me his iPod to use for the rest of my run. Amazing! Not only that but Michelle made a generous donation to SIA. The icing on the cake was the dinner I ordered, a huge burger called The Kitchen Sink, which included in addition to the usual fillings a beef patty, cheese, bacon, chicken breast, corn, and a fried egg, with a side of perogies. I’m enjoying being able to eat like this while I can because in 10 days I’m going to have to cut my intake by about half, actually probably more.

Tomorrow I’m only running 30km so we get to sleep in!

Day 140 September 23, 2011 Golden to Roger's Pass 63km

Welcome to the top

It was much warmer today than previous days, perhaps because we’ve come down about 500 meters in altitude since yesterday, or maybe it’s just warming up. As I started running this morning my legs hurt a lot from yesterday. They actually hurt like they used to hurt back in the Maritimes so it looks like these hills will take some getting used to. My quads in particular were sore from the downhill and my calves were sore from the climbs.

Despite starting later than normal today I was making good time thanks to decreasing the time I spent on breaks. This was true all the way until about the 25km mark when my iPod stopped working. I tried everything I could think of to get it to work, pushing all the buttons multiple times, resetting it, restoring it, erasing it and replacing all my music, but nothing worked. So disappointing seeing as I had made a playlist specifically for the mountains so that I could play some epic music to help me get up the hills. The worst part about this is that I’m scheduled to run up Roger’s Pass at the end of the day today, planning to finish at the top. The good news though is that I gained an hour when I finally crossed into my fifth and final time zone Pacific Standard Time!

So instead of music I listened to the sound of big semi trucks whizzing by as well as the occasional bird chirping; definitely not the same. My iPod currently finds itself sitting in a bag of rice hoping against hope that it is water damage and that the rice will restore it like it did Dave’s blackberry.

By the time Roger’s Pass began I had resigned myself to the fact that I would be doing it without my epic playlist. The climb was steep and Mike and I gained over 500 meters in a little under 10km. There were a number of tunnels on the way to the top and not only was there not a lot of room on the shoulder when the semis blew by, but it was dark and loud.

I found myself at the top at 63km and after chocolate milk and some stretching we were parking in at the visitor info centre wondering if we had to pay to stay overnight.

We didn’t

Day 139 September 22, 2011 BC Border to Golden 81km

Beautiful British Columbia

I made the biggest rookie mistake when making my waffle this morning. I used to use the waffle maker in college all the time so there is no excuse for my lack of skill today. I was the first one to use the waffle maker this morning and I only sprayed butter on the bottom portion so once I excitedly came back to retrieve my waffle I found it stuck to the top. I carefully scraped it off into a crumbled mess, abandoning the top half. I’m not sure anyone will be able to use it. Otherwise the buffet was delicious and set me up for what was to be my longest day yet.

I started running just inside the BC border on a steep downhill. There were many signs during the morning warning truckers about the steep descent and it seemed to continue forever. I’d say a large portion of the first 30km was downhill. Unfortunately the pitch wasn’t such that I could take huge advantage of the descent and soon my quads started to ache. I haven’t really done any long descents yet on this trip so my legs really weren’t accustomed to it.

There was a great deal of construction on the way to Golden and I had been warned by a number of people to watch out for it. The truth is though that it’s actually nicer most times to run through construction areas because the big trucks have to move slowly and there is usually an area on the side that is blocked off from traffic that I can run along. So all in all I kind of like areas of construction.

I thought that I was going to enter my final time zone today but it’s actually past Golden so I think I should make it tomorrow. I’ve been on the look out for wildlife since I entered the mountains but so far the only thing I’ve seen is a couple of elk. It could have something to do with the huge fence that runs parallel to the highway.

As I approached Golden I was feeling really good and despite the ache in my quads from the downhill my legs weren’t tired so I decided to see if I could make it past my previous high of 75km. I also have had no service on my phone all day so each time I stopped to get water I didn’t have the distraction of checking my phone so I found myself about an hour ahead of where I normally would have been at that mileage. Dave hopped out of the RV and ran with me for the last little bit and I managed to keep going to 81km. AWESOME!

I was pumped to have broken into the 80s, so to celebrate we did what we always do… found a parking lot, this time Sobey’s, made dinner and then went straight to bed.

I hope my legs still work tomorrow

Day 138 September 21, 2011 Sunshine Village, Banff to BC Border 62km

Goodbye Russ, hello BC!

The morning began in the Safeway parking lot with the smell of freshly cooked bacon. Today was Russ’s last day and he had gotten up early and cooked a delicious breakfast of a gourmet omelet with ground beef, green peppers and cheese, along with a side of bacon.

It was incredibly cold again this morning, and I had multiple layers, gloves and my toque on to try and stay warm. It took a good three hours though before it warmed enough to start shedding some layers.

During the run today Duncan, one of the RCMP officers who escorted us through Medicine Hat pulled up behind us to say hi. Apparently he works all over Alberta and today they were having a big traffic blitz in the park with about 8 cars. Sure enough I spent most of the day being lapped by multiple police cars and seeing a number of cars pulled over and not only being ticketed but a number also being searched.

At one point during the day I was getting a little annoyed with myself because I was running downhill and yet I found it really hard to keep up a decent pace. I stopped for a break on the side of the road and Russ wandered out over to me with something to drink. As I was talking to him he informed me that I was in fact running uphill, not downhill and on closer inspection (placing the water bottle on the ground to see which way it rolled) he appeared to be right. Just to be sure though I asked the RCMP officer that stopped to see if we were all right. That made me feel a lot better about my pace, I was running up Magnetic Hill.

Russ wasn’t able to make it all the way to the BC border because he had to get back to work and so we were still about 10km from the border when his dad showed up to collect him. We took pictures in our Flames and Canucks jerseys and then he was on his way.

10km later after cresting a hill and listening to the opening of U2’s Where The Streets Have No Name the sign for BC came into view. One of the most beautiful sights I’ve had on this trip and just like that I was done with Alberta and into my 10^th and final province. Awesome!

After a short celebration and the remainder of today’s run we all drove back to Lake Louise to stay at the Lake Louise Inn, which a friend of ours had organized for us to stay in.

A quick dip in the pool, hot tub and steam room and a delicious pasta dinner and I now find myself in a very comfortable bed updating my blog.

Tomorrow I enter my final time zone and will hopefully make it to Golden.

Day 137 September 20, 2011 Foot of the Rockies to Sunshine Village, Banff National Park 68km

Welcome to the mountains

Today was freezing, literally; it was -3! I wore tons of clothes this morning, including a bella clava thanks to the biting wind. Mike started running with me this morning and refused to allow me to say I was in the mountains until they surrounded us on all sides (but I told myself I was anyway way before that).

As the morning wore on it actually got colder thanks to the massive headwind. I’m not sure how long this headwind is going to last but it can’t last forever in the mountains I don’t think and I’m looking forward to it ending.

Yesterday towards the end of the day I came upon Scott Lake Pass, which was a bit bizarre seeing as I had only climbed a short hill. There was a sign reading 1410 meters, which means that Calgary is already pretty high in elevation. The strange thing is that this was the only sign I saw all day yesterday and today with an elevation marked on it but my watch had me at higher elevation at other points during today.

As I came into Canmore Alex Bauer, a friend of mine from high school cycled up to meet me. I ran and he cycled and we caught up a bit before he had to head back for work. It was great seeing him again.

Alex left right at the exit to Banff National Park, and shortly after entering another friend of mine, Katrina Donald, drove by. She wasn’t able to stop but gave a good honk. There was a nice path that ran all along the side of the highway allowing me to run an not have to pay attention to traffic, which was a nice change. I did have to pay attention to cyclists though and there were a ton of those.

The stretch after lunch took a long time and I had to take frequent breaks. The afternoon definitely dragged on so at one point Dave, Russ and Mike snuck off to get ice cream for when I was finished. Russ jumped out and ran with me towards the end, as did Dave, but I only managed to make 68km despite wanting to get to 70km. A little disappointing but close enough to my goal that…

Tomorrow I should make it to BC!