Day 55 June 30, 2011 Day off Ottawa

What a difference a day makes

Initially we had planned to be in Ottawa on Tuesday and Wednesday, but after speaking with an anesthesia resident at the University of Ottawa, I was convinced that I could get more residents to volunteer if I came on Thursday instead of Tuesday. This still meant that I would go to Kingston on Wednesday but I would be in Ottawa on Thursday. This turned out to make a huge difference, but it had nothing to do with research.

Mike’s family friend works in the Governor General’s office and there was a possibility that I would be able to meet with the GG on Tuesday when I was in Ottawa. Having changed the date to Thursday, we managed to be in Ottawa for the arrival of Will and Kate, the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge. Needless to say, the GG was not interested in seeing us today!

The most exciting news though is that Sarah, whom I haven’t seen since Newfoundland, had managed to get the weekend off and had flown to Ottawa to join us! She arrived just in time too, because after dropping her bag in our hotel we walked down to the National War Memorial near Parliament Hill as the motorcade for Will and Kate arrived.

We watched in awe as a phenomenal number of cars and motorcycles, lights flashing drove up the memorial. The streets were absolutely packed, but Sarah and I managed to weave our way up to just across from the memorial and we were able to see Will and Kate as they walked through the crowd back to their cars. The entire time we were standing there, all I heard was people talking about Kate. Could they see her, what was she wearing, how beautiful she looked etc… Not a single person was interested in the Prince.

We have been following a charity through Twitter called Five Hole For Food, who go around to different cities in Canada and set up street hockey games. The entry fee to play in the game is a can of food, their goal to raise as much food as possible. We have been communicating back and forth and happen to both be in Ottawa so we were going to try and stop by to play. As we were walking to where they were set up though it started pouring rain, and by the time we got there, the “rink” (fences) was still there and set up, but everyone had left.

Sarah, Mike and I then met up with Darren Fielder, a friend of mine from camp who I used to work with. Darren had just moved back to Ottawa after living in Calgary for a number of years. Darren showed us around Ottawa after dinner and we watched the rehearsal for Canada Day on the stage in front of Parliament Hill.

Tomorrow I get back on the road towards Toronto.

Day 54 June 29, 2011 Day off Ottawa

Who knew Kingston would be so productive!

The drive down to Kingston was about 2 hours. Driving in a normal car felt totally strange after spending most of my time inside the RV. The purpose of my trip to Kingston was to meet with residents and staff at KGH for my research study.

I’m really enjoying going to all the different hospitals along the way and meeting other residents and staff. I feel like I get a small view into their version of residency.

I stopped by lululemon before leaving Kingston for what I assumed would be a quick visit, but they ended up having better selection than any other store I’ve been to. So I managed to clean them out of running shorts, and compression shorts in my size and picked up a number of running shirts. I also go to talk with the staff about my run.

The drive back to Ottawa took a little longer thanks to rush hour and by the end of it my legs were really stiff; nothing like sitting in a car for two hours.

The best part of my day though was finding out that Sarah is coming out to visit tomorrow for the weekend, which is awesome because I haven’t seen here since Newfoundland!

We had dinner with Siobhan and Ryan and after met some more of their friends, Kevin and Lauren and went to an Irish bar, our first Irish bar of two tonight.

Stayed out late for the first time on this trip. The streets of Ottawa were deserted on the walk home! Completely deserted. The only thing we saw on the entire walk home was a police car otherwise the streets were empty. It was a strange sight.

Tomorrow we might see Will and Kate!

Day 53 June 28, 2011 Ottawa to Perth 51km

Youngest running partner yet!

Shortly after beginning for the day a friend of mine whom I used to work, Andrea Gomes, showed up with her two children, Audrey and Spencer. Audrey, a very cute 3 year old, agreed to run with me for a little bit, though her pace was a little fast!

Today was going to prove to be a bit of a struggle. For some reason I had a really hard time motivating myself to keep going and I ended up walking a number of times, mostly, I think, just from being too tired to continue.

My wonderful sister came out and ran with me at times to help motivate me, and it definitely helped. At one point, the two of us were running down a gravel road between farms (one a bison farm) when a couple pulled up in beside us and gave us a donation. I tried to get his name but he told me I didn’t need to know it.

After suffering through the slow pace I finally finished 51km and was promptly rewarded with an hour and a half drive back to Ottawa. While Mike and Lauren took the MCC to get wrapped, I waked over to were Andrea works as a massage therapist, just a couple of blocks from our hotel. Andrea had offered to give me a massage this morning and I had immediately accepted. Afterwards my legs felt tired but a lot looser.

Tomorrow I have to drive to Kingston for research. Not much of a day off…

Day 52 June 27, 2011 Navan to Ottawa 56km

Straight through Ottawa

So we spent the night in a butcher’s parking lot that said it was closed on Monday, but it started to fill up around 4:30am with cars.

I quickly found myself in urban Ottawa, which is not the easiest place to run through. My route had lots of turns and traffic lights, which makes keeping a steady pace hard. I quickly took a wrong turn, but only for a couple hundred metres. Mike and Lauren had a hard time following me, and didn’t see me pass them at one point and so kept waiting for a long period of time. This meant that I hit a large intersection while they were still behind and I didn’t know which way to go. I started running back a little bit and eventually saw them.

The weather was great all day, although maybe a little too hot. I ran through Vincent Massey Park along the Rideau Canal, which was a nice route. I continued on for 35km and had lunch at the entrance to another park. Again Lauren made delicious sandwiches.

I’m getting some pretty ugly tan lines these days. My hands are very tanned but my fingers, which curl when I run, are not. I have a triangle in the crook of both my arms that is white because my arms are always bent when I run. And of course there’s my sock tan. It’s really quite shocking at the moment.

I ran straight through Ottawa and out the other side, the urban part anyway. I got a popsicle at 50km, probably the best popsicle I’ve ever had! So good that I carried on for another 6km.

After my run I stretched at the side of the road. We drove to a shopping strip and Mike went to Canadian Tire to see if they could do something about our broken windshield wiper (they couldn’t) and I went to the pharmacy and got more blister supplies. Lauren stayed in the MCC and continued working on sponsorship material.

We spent the night in Tranquil Acres campground.

Day 51 June 26, 2011 Alfred ON to Navan ON 51km

Change of plans!

The running portion of the day was relatively uneventful. The weather was cloudy, but thankfully it wasn’t raining and my feet had improved dramatically since I’ve changed the way I tape them. Lauren again made some delicious sandwiches and I ate them while I walked. The afternoon was quite a bit hotter and I finished running about 15km outside of Ottawa.

I spent much of the next couple of hours trying to decide if I should change my route and instead of turning north and heading straight to Sudbury, whether I should instead run down into Toronto. I had initially planned not to run through Toronto because I would save about 300km by taking the Northern route, but Derek was trying to convince me and the more I thought about it the more it made sense. So after talking to Derek, my parents, and Dave, as well as Lauren and Mike, I decided to run down to Toronto. The main idea was that if the whole point of this run is to raise money and awareness of prostate cancer, it makes a lot of sense to run through Canada’s biggest city.

After all that Lauren’s friend Siobhan and her boyfriend Ryan met us in the Metro parking to say hi. Siobhan is in school to by a physio so we talked a bit about stretches but mostly Lauren and Siobhan caught up, as they hadn’t seen each other in a long time.

For the first time this trip, despite numerous good intentions previously, I finally soaked my feet in Epson salts. This is completely thanks to Lauren insisting I do it and essentially filling the bucket up (and by bucket I mean turkey tray) for me. My feet felt a lot better afterwards. Following the feet soaking Lauren massaged my calves, and was actually pretty good at it.

Tomorrow I enter (and exit) our nation’s capital!

Day 50 June 25th, 2011 Lachute QC to Alfred Ont. 51km - Guest Blog

Hi folks!  This is a bit of a special appearance blog by me, Michael Downie.  I am Riley's right hand man on the road.  It's hard to put a job title on what I do, as it is so broad and always changing, but the simplest way to put it is I take care of everything on the road except for the running.  I leave that up to the expert.

Anyways, on to our day.  It is amazing how the rain waits for Riley to be ready, and as soon as he puts on his runners, it then springs a leak in the clouds and pours on him.  Riley was running in the rain all morning, and I have to be honest, it was perhaps my first day in a while where I had absolutely no interest in running with him.

The rain eased just enough to allow us a few dry moments to photograph Riley as he ran across the bridge from Québec into Hawkesbury Ontario.  He just ran into his 6th province!  Incredible Riley, really incredible!

We stopped for lunch on the side of the highway in front of a farm with lots of wet horses in stables out front.  Since, we were on an angled shoulder, I dropped jacks (to level out the RV) and even extended the awning so that Riley could sit on the steps outside and not flood the MCC with water and sweat.  Lauren served us all up more of her amazing sandwiches.  Delicious as always!

As we were eating lunch, the rain had started to ease, giving Riley hope that the afternoon run may be a little better for him.  He was wrong.  The skies weren't easing up, they were reloading before unleashing everything on him just as he stepped out from the MCC again!  It really was amazing.  

During the afternoon downpour, our windshield wipers started to work much more aggressively until they were flying off the side of the windshield before they eventually self destructed and decided to stop working all together.  That's right. Stuck in a downpour, with no windshield wipers.  At least I only had to drive at 10km an hour.

Once Riley had stopped running, Lauren and I had looked up a camping site for us to stay in that night.  It was a few kms down the road, but we really needed to dump and fill with water.  When we arrived at the office, Lauren said that this time she would go in and do the talking.  She came out shortly after with a smile on her face and a complimentary spot for us to stay in for the night.  Well done, Lauren.  We followed the gentleman to our camping spot, and this must have been the biggest RV park I have ever seen!  There must have been hundreds of spots, as well as a farm, restaurant, 2 laundry facilities, a pool, trampolines, playgrounds, basketball courts AND a man-made lake!  The large lake in the middle of the grounds had a beach area, as well as 2 rope swings and 2 fountains in the middle.  Very impressive.  Sorry, I'm rambling… So after parking in our spot, the owner asked Riley if having sex reduces your chance of Prostate Cancer.  Riley, being the doctor clarified the statement and explained that it was sexual activity decreases the chance of Prostate Cancer.  The owner, with a big smile on his face, immediately pulled out his phone and made Riley tell his wife.  

It was finally time to show Lauren how to hook up the RV and dump the sewage.  She ran back into the RV, then came running back out with big blue rubber gloves (having heard the horror story that happened to me just a few days prior).  Riley and I decided to enjoy this moment and made sure to warn her about all possible outcomes of this procedure.  Now extremely nervous, she readied her stance and prepared for the worst.  Once Riley and I had dragged this on long enough, we pulled the handle and Lauren was immediately disappointed by a simple woosh and slight pull on the hose.  Oh well, Riley and I enjoyed it.

The walk to the RV Park restaurant was full of conversation that went a little like this "Wow, look at the size of that one!"  "Whoa, check out the extensions on that one!"  We have officially become RV fans!  Dinner was a fully loaded hot dog and cheeseburger each for Riley and I, along with a large shared Poutine.  Not so healthy, but they actually didn't offer anything else on the menu.  More of a snack bar than a 'restaurant'.

Riley relaxed this evening as Lauren happily massaged his calves.  

Hopefully tomorrow brings better weather.

Day 49 June 24, 2011 Montreal to Lachute 51km

Again I get new people to run with!

We woke up early in the hotel and I used the shower for the last time. I got up at 5:15am but Lauren got up at 4:45 and walked to Tim Horton’s to pick up some breakfast for all of us. She’s awesome!

I taped my feet while Lauren and Mike took the scooter to go pick up the RV. My blisters are not bad at all today; the two days off have given them a chance to heal. I hope they stay that way.

We had a longer drive out to my start point along route 158 than normal. It started pouring rain on the drive out and only got heavier when I started running. I got about 5km into it before Alex, a friend of my brother’s from London School of Business and his friend Mo showed up to run with me.

Alex ran first and we talked about his experiences at LBS and what his plans were now that he’d graduated. Then they switched and Mo ran with me for a while. We talked mostly about the run and what it was like. The two of them had a wedding to go to so they left around 10am, both of them soaking wet!

It continued to lash rain all morning and my feet were soaked. I had to change my shirt because I wasn’t visible enough according to Lauren and Mike. So I put on an HBC jersey from 1999, which was fluorescent yellow. It was a little small but very bright. Lauren spent the morning cleaning the MCC because she thought it would be therapeutic, and because it’s pretty dirty.

By 30km my feet were starting to get a bit sore thanks to running in wet shoes, but otherwise I felt good after having 2 days off. I had to change my shoes and re-tape my feet a number of times during the day because it was so wet outside. I stuffed newspaper in the two pairs of shoes in the MCC to dry while I wore the third, and continued rotating.

Lauren made two of the best sandwiches I’ve had in a long time for lunch! Then I got back out and ran the last 20km. I am now listening to Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell and so far it seems pretty interesting.

The day ended in Lachute, a small town seemingly in the middle of nowhere.  There wasn’t much to the town, and we ended up sleeping in the back of a gas station parking lot.

Tomorrow I finish with Quebec and enter Ontario!