Day 13 May 19, 2011 Ferry to PEI

9 hours sleep! Awesome!

Today was errand day.

We woke up in the Pictou YMCA parking lot and after a quick breakfast headed to the local Laundromat to detoxify my running gear. Like the age old question of why hot dogs come in packs of 12 and hot dog buns in packs of 10, the change machine in both this Laundromat and the one in Antigonish only gives quarters when the washers only take loonies.

In between laundry, I went to the local pharmacist and stocked up on all manner of supplements with the view to turn my joints into Adamantium. We stopped at Sobey’s and met Marg, our cashier. Marg has 8 brothers and 2 sisters and a great sense of humour. You might wonder how we got to know Marg. Well anytime we meet someone, anyone, Mike tries to segue into talking about our run. And he’s never subtle. Today Marg asked how we were. Mike says, “I’m pretty good but Riley’s legs are sore” to which Marg replied “Why are your legs sore Riley” and then she couldn’t be stopped! It’s become a bit of a running joke, with Mike and I trying to insert stepintoaction.ca into everything. From writing it randomly on the bottom of bills to yelling it at construction workers as we pass by, we’re getting the word out.

After lunch at Quizno’s where we found a picture of Mike and I running in the local paper, we went to Canadian tire to get fuses to fix the turning signals and brake lights on our Mobile Command Centre. We also got helmets for if/when we ever figure out how to un-strap the scooter from the end of the RV. I then made a quick stop into Sportcheck to completely drain them of vanilla flavoured PowerBar Gel.

Finally, we made it to the ferry and across to PEI!!!!

I am currently sitting in the Visitor Information Centre parking lot about one km away from the ferry with WiFi for the first time in days trying to update the blog, photos, and e-mails.

Tomorrow….Charlottetown!

Video Blog #2

Hi there, thanks for dropping by.

I have decided to show you a number of never-seen-before, behind-the-scenes footage from the 'Step Into Action' campaign.
These are not necessarily the most exciting parts of the journey, but they are just as integral (if not more) than the actual run.

I normally have a difficult time getting the formatting right when adding videos, so I have uploaded the videos below and then listed and described them at the bottom.

Video          Description

  1                Preview of the Nova Scotia portion of the run.

  2               Dr. Riley Senft's power snack.

  3               Having to run along a set of train tracks to avoid the flooded road.

  4               Eating a high energy carbohydrate gel while on the run.

  5               Dr. Riley Senft giving a radio interview over the phone.  Not as glamourous as it seems.

Day 12, May 18 2011 Antigonish to New Glasgow 61.22km

A routine is developing

Every morning we wake up, and every morning Mike tells me about the dreams he has the night before. They never make sense, but he’s usually pretty excited about them. And he always seems to remember them.

Now that we have the RV I can start eating breakfast the way I want to. Instead of heading to a restaurant I can have granola with yogurt and fruit, and as my brother will be delighted to know, lots of eggs.

After bandaging up my feet again I took off in the cool misty morning. Once again Mike came along for the run. I’m going to make a distance runner out of him yet. The road from Antigonish to New Glasgow had a decent shoulder but there were a fair number of logging trucks to blow wind in our faces in addition to their pine scent. Mike lasted almost the whole run, but decided to take a 2.5 km break during the second half because of cramps in his legs. He ran 20km yesterday and 17.5 km this morning. Pretty good for someone who doesn’t usually run. There was no beaver buzz taken this morning though so not as much talking. In between the second and third 20km we stopped at a nearby Irving gas station in New Glasgow, where we learned how to fill our RV with water, and dump out the waste compartment.

The second 20km took me around New Glasgow where the drivers seemed less concerned about runners on the side of the road and so gave way less space when passing. A number of times I had to step off onto the uneven, steeply sloping side which was both painful on my feet and threw off my pace, which toward the end was really starting to slow down. Part of the problem was the sun had come out, which while helping contribute to my now pretty impressive sock tan, also made me sweat a lot more. By the time I finished and met up with Mike and Serg I needed 1.5L of Gatorade before I started to feel even remotely hydrated.

Mike again joined me for the third 20km as we left New Glasgow, and ran into Pictou towards the Northumberland Ferry to PEI. Mike ran 15 out of 20km bringing his two-day total to 53.5km. If you’re wondering how often he runs, he ran the sun run (10km) 2 years ago. I ran the last 5km alone down a straight road lined on both sides by flooded marsh. Just before the end there was a huge bald eagle sitting atop a tree directly in front of the low-lying sun on my left that had me wishing for a camera.

The entrance to the ferry line-up to PEI is not like the ferries I’m used to in Vancouver. I had no idea how close I was to finishing until I turned a corner and it was about 100m in front of me. Nova Scotia is done!

That night, after a hot tub and showers courtesy of the Pictou YMCA, and three hot dogs, we headed into the nearly deserted New Glasgow core to watch the Canucks demolish San Jose!

Tomorrow….PEI!

Day 11, May 17 2011 - Running through Antigonish 41.85km

Back at it

Today was the first day of running since blisters forced a two-day break. I put a ton of polysporin all over my feet almost, placed non-adherent dressing between all my toes, and then taped them all together. I was hoping that the polysporin would reduce the friction, which the non-adherent dressings would prevent my toes from actually touching each other, and the tape was to hold everything in place.

It worked pretty well. My feet still hurt, but nowhere near what they had been like two days ago. I decided that I would only do 40km for my first day back. After the morning 20km we drove into New Glasgow for an interview with East Coast FM in their studio. It was pretty cool. The actual interview only lasted about 10 mins so we were in and out in 15 mins.

We tried to find a place that would equip our RV with service for our TV so that we could watch the Canucks game, but there weren’t many options in town and all of them said it would take over a week.

So we drove back to Antigonish to start the second 20km. Mike took a Beaver Buzz energy drink, joined me for the afternoon 20km and couldn’t be stopped, trying to push the pace as much as he could. He conducted a 2-mile (20 mins), at pace, interview during our run, and already knowing the answers to the commonest questions, tried to dive deeper, revealing all my inner secrets. Too bad there was no one around to record it. 

Day 10 May 16, 2011 Antigonish - Blister Day number 2!

First I suppose I should mention that my awesome little sister turns 24 today, leaving her early twenties behind for good. Happy birthday Lauren! I would call her, but she's in Turkey.

As expected my feet weren’t co-operating again this morning so instead the three of us, Mike, Serg and I, started to collect stuff to stock our RV; food, plates, soap, bedding (Mike insisted on Transformers bedding), and other odds and ends. Serg then showed us around the RV and how everything worked. We’ve decided to call it the Step Into Action Mobile Command Centre.

Currently we are parked in the parking lot at the Antigonish McDonalds, hijacking their Internet to update our blog and tie up other Internet related jobs as our internet access here is sketchy.

Hoping to get a better night sleep tonight now that we have proper bedding, have figured the heat out, and I don’t think I’ll have to hang my feet off the end of the bed while I sleep.

The plan is to start slow tomorrow with 40km and work back up to 60km if my feet will tolerate. I’ve got my fingers crossed!

Day 9, May 15, 2011 Antigonish Blister Day

My feet weren’t better this morning

The left one was worse. The redness around the blister was larger and a red streak had developed up my foot. The pressure was intense. I could barely put any weight on it. I had had to sleep last night with my feet hanging off the end of the bed to avoid any pressure on them.

Yesterday I had been wondering if maybe I should take today off to let my feet recover, but they had decided for me. We drove to St Martha’s Regional Hospital at around 7:30am and found it almost deserted, which was a good sign for us. After waiting only about 20 mins my blister was being lanced releasing large amounts of pus. Instant relief! I left about 30 mins later with a dramatically better walk, a script for penicillin and $80 in donations from the ER staff!

After using the local Laundromat, we drove around St Francis Xavier University. Antigonish is a small town of 4,000 that doubles in size when St FX is in session. There was no one around this morning and we had free reign around the beautiful campus.

The best part of our day was when Serg arrived with our RV! The moment we had been waiting for. No more stretching and napping in rental trunks and no more hour long commutes back to our start points. As soon as Serg arrived we had to drive 3 hours back to Sydney to return our rental car and then 3 hours back to Antigonish. A long haul for sure but we made it back in time for the Canucks game!  We again ate at Boston Pizza but unfortunately Mike’s favourite waitress was no where to be seen.

I’m still hobbling around and having trouble walking this evening so I’m going to have to take tomorrow off as well. Looks like my schedule is going to have to be adjusted already.

Day 8, May 14, 2011 Middle of No Where to 20km outside of Antigonish NS 58.82km

The day started early at Tim Horton’s. I’m starting to get the hang of how much to eat. Yesterday I don’t think I ate/drank enough so today I got a breakfast sandwich and two bagels with cream cheese and drank a litre of Gatorade before starting my run.  The run started where yesterday’s had ended, in the middle of nowhere. My feet were on fire for the start of the first 20km thanks to my increasing inventory of blisters but eventually became desensitized. I got off the dirt roads and back onto pavement. Mike and I were commenting on how we each really needed to find a washroom, and for me it was becoming difficult to run. Honestly, when I felt that I couldn’t run anymore and wanted to jump in the car to drive to a gas station, I turned a corner and there was a random outhouse on the side of the road. Not near a construction site, not near someone’s house, just on the side of the road. Fully stocked complete with hand sanitizer. Amazing! Mike nicknamed it the Miracle Hut. I felt pretty good after the first 20km until I took my shoes and socks off and looked at my blisters.  They were forming on top of each other now and the one on the inside side of my left foot below my big toe was starting to look a little red.

After eating two sandwiches and trying to sleep in the trunk I started off on the second 20km. My feet were again on fire for the first couple of kilometres until I adjusted to the pain. Soon I was crossing out of Cape Breton on the Canso Causeway, a land bridge with no shoulder requiring me to run on the train tracks. Besides being slow, this played havoc on my blisters. Thankfully it was only about one km long.  The rest of the leg was up and down but fairly straight and I was soon cresting the top a hill to finish 40km.

Mike and I then drove into Antigonish for a quick stop at the local pharmacy to try and find something to deal with my blisters. After chatting with the pharmacist who suggested I should stop running, we left with tape, blister pads, and polysporin. There wasn’t much time to get back and stay on time so we had a quick 2^nd lunch and I worked on bandaging up my feet. I clearly didn’t do a good enough job because as I started on the 3^rd 20km I could barely walk and had to skip for the first little bit as my feet got used to the pressure. They eventually did, but it required me to adjust my running style, which eventually caused my legs to get really sore. I started playing games in my mind to convince myself to keep running. I tried thinking about anything other than the pain from my blisters, and it worked for a while but my pace was starting to slow to less than a walk. I was getting all of the pounding from running but none of the speed and found that walking was not only faster, but also less painful. I decided to try and walk for 800 metres but only lasted about 100 and had to stop at 58.82km. So close!

We had dinner at Boston Pizza in Antigonish. The waitress was flirting heavily with one of us, we just couldn’t figure out with whom. Probably Mike because I wasn’t making much conversation, just sitting there with my throbbing feet watching sumo wrestling on the bar TVs. Back at the hotel now having soaked my feet in the tub, and washed my running gear in the sink, I hope my feet are better tomorrow morning otherwise I’m not sure how I’m going to run.