Day 67 July 12, 2011 Orillia to Torrance – 51km
12 Jul
We got an early start on the morning as I was hoping to make up some distance for not making it to 50km yesterday, and I was anticipating similar heat to the past couple of days.
The humidity wasn’t nearly as bad, though it was still hot out. I managed to keep up a good pace and had run 35km when I decided it was time for lunch. I had initially wanted to eat while I walked but the flies were so bad that I jumped back into the safety of the MCC and ate lunch inside.
I felt pretty good in the afternoon but the flies were terrible. A passing motorist told me that I should get a cedar branch and hold it above my head while I run, and that would keep the flies away. I was skeptical but willing to try anything. Amazingly it worked for a while. I’m still not sure why it worked. She said that only cedar and another type of branch that I can’t remember would work, which suggests it has something to do with the tree itself. But a number of people have told me that if I hold something above my head that the flies will swarm the highest point, in which case I’m not sure it matters what type of tree it is.
Either way, it didn’t work forever and I had to jump back into the MCC about 3 times just to escape the swarms. I would wait about 5 minutes at a time, until the swarms disappeared and then continue running. They would eventually reappear and I only lasted about 3km at a time before the biting bothered me enough to hop back inside.
It didn’t last forever though, and near the end of the day I turned onto a larger highway and the flies fell away, as though there was some invisible barrier.
We drove to my Auntie Annie’s marina where we met Anne, and, after showing her around the MCC, she took us to her cottage. The lake is beautiful and reminds me a lot of Lake of the Woods. Almost immediately after arriving, Mike and I went for a swim and then relaxed in the hot tub, a great way to end the day.
We had a delicious dinner of steak and potatoes with cupcakes and sorbet for dessert. Too bad all our evenings can’t be like this!
The humidity wasn’t nearly as bad, though it was still hot out. I managed to keep up a good pace and had run 35km when I decided it was time for lunch. I had initially wanted to eat while I walked but the flies were so bad that I jumped back into the safety of the MCC and ate lunch inside.
I felt pretty good in the afternoon but the flies were terrible. A passing motorist told me that I should get a cedar branch and hold it above my head while I run, and that would keep the flies away. I was skeptical but willing to try anything. Amazingly it worked for a while. I’m still not sure why it worked. She said that only cedar and another type of branch that I can’t remember would work, which suggests it has something to do with the tree itself. But a number of people have told me that if I hold something above my head that the flies will swarm the highest point, in which case I’m not sure it matters what type of tree it is.
Either way, it didn’t work forever and I had to jump back into the MCC about 3 times just to escape the swarms. I would wait about 5 minutes at a time, until the swarms disappeared and then continue running. They would eventually reappear and I only lasted about 3km at a time before the biting bothered me enough to hop back inside.
It didn’t last forever though, and near the end of the day I turned onto a larger highway and the flies fell away, as though there was some invisible barrier.
We drove to my Auntie Annie’s marina where we met Anne, and, after showing her around the MCC, she took us to her cottage. The lake is beautiful and reminds me a lot of Lake of the Woods. Almost immediately after arriving, Mike and I went for a swim and then relaxed in the hot tub, a great way to end the day.
We had a delicious dinner of steak and potatoes with cupcakes and sorbet for dessert. Too bad all our evenings can’t be like this!
