Day 147 September 30, 2011 Kelowna to Middle of Nowhere 66km

Holy hill!

Tyler was still feeling a little unwell and went home last night and actually went home the night we stayed in Vernon because he wasn’t feeling well and was worried about blowing his nose and waking us up. I could have told him that I can’t hear and Mike snores so loud that he wouldn’t hear anything. He apparently lay there in the bottom bunk trying to figure out how to clear his nose without making a sound for quite a while before giving up and heading home.

As a result Tyler had to get up pretty early this morning and was sleeping on the couch in our condo when I got up. We drove back to the start point and met Geoff and Jennay along with a bunch of their family and local firefighters. They escorted us all the way to their fruit stand, at which point they peeled off. At pretty much exactly the same time Kent and Dana pulled up and took turns running with Mike and I for about 30 mins; a great way to run out of Kelowna.

And then the hill began. We started climbing at the 15km mark and an elevation of just under 400 metres. It was a 6% grade, with not a single flat portion, that continued upward for 25km and an elevation gain to the summit at 1728 metres. I had felt really good when I started running this morning, thanks to the day off yesterday and this hill took most of that away.

In fact, I don’t think there was a single flat portion today. Once I reached the top of any hill it immediately crest and plunged back downhill. Needless to say my overall pace was a little slower than normal and it was dark by the time I finished running.

We spent the night in a brake check pullout, surrounded by semis all testing their airbrakes all night long. At least that’s what I was told; I slept through the whole night.

Tomorrow I should make it a little past Merritt

Day 146 September 29, 2011 Day off Kelowna

I love sleeping in!

I tried to sleep in until 10am but I was wide awake by 8:45am. Still, that’s about 4 hours more than I usually get to sleep in, and there was nothing that I had to do until 10am so I lay in bed and red my book. Awesome!

There are a surprising number of people that I know who live in Kelowna, something I was unaware of until I decided to run through. We drove up to Dana and Kent’s house and were served a delicious brunch. Dana used to be my family’s nanny and I haven’t seen her in ages. We spent a few hours eating and catching up and it was great to reconnect.

On the drive back from Dana’s we decided that we should probably get haircuts. My hair grows out of my head dead straight and likes to stick straight up when the wind gets at it. So the longer my hair gets the more ridiculously it stands straight up.

Tyler and Elaine had very generously lent us their car for the day so we could bomb around Kelowna and not use the gas guzzling beast that is the MCC. So once we were done with our errands we picked them up at their condo and went back to where we were staying to use its pool and hot tub. The strange thing though is that despite looking at the pool last night and it being in perfect working order, by this afternoon it was completely drained. One day too late I guess. The good news though was that the hot tub was still full and so we spent some time turning into prunes.

That night at dinner at Rose’s pub, which had a nice view of the water, we met up again with Andrew Best and Geoff Oliver. It was a great night with the best nachos I can remember having. For the first time ever I think, we ran out of chips while there was still cheese and sauces left. During dinner one of the other waitresses came by to say hi and it turns out it was one of the fire fighters who escorted us through Lake Country when we cause that massive traffic jam yesterday.

All in all a great day off and my last one now for the trip. Tomorrow I get to tackle my biggest single climb!

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!