Day 73 July 18, 2011 Delamere to Sudbury 51km

Crack of dawn running

My alarm clock first went off at 3:30am and after hitting the snooze button numerous times I was finally up by 4am. It was the first time we’ve gotten up before the sun on a running day this whole trip, and it was a bit weird getting ready in the dark.

I took off running just as dawn was starting to make her appearance and, while not cool, it was way cooler than it had been during any of the recent running days. It was great running at that hour, with almost no traffic, and I got to watch the sun rise. The only minor nuisance were the few mosquitoes that hung around until the sun fully rose.

By 9:30am I had gone 32km and after Mike passed me a plate with two sandwiches I continued walking along the highway as I ate. I got a number of strange looks from passing motorists. I guess they weren’t used to seeing runners on the highway, eating sandwiches off a plate, at 9:30am.

After a short break I was back on the road and soon looping around Sudbury and onto Hwy 17 West, my home for the foreseeable future. By 12:45pm I was done for the day. Amazing! It was starting to get really hot, yet I was finished. I totally felt like I had won.

We decided that, as we are likely to be in the middle of nowhere for the next week on our way to Sault St Marie, that we would spend the night at the Holiday Inn in Sudbury. We also decided that, because we now had all this time on our hands, we should go see Harry Potter.

It’s now 8pm and time for bed. We’ll see if we’re able to get up as early again tomorrow, but it sure made for an infinitely more pleasant day today.

It also helped that my cold seems to have finally given up!