Day 149 October 2, 2011 Merritt to Hope 71km

We were a little slower getting started this morning. Part of it had to do with the fact that my legs were sore from the past few days of hills and part of it had to do with the fact our battery died again. As happened to us in Dryden, nothing worked, included the starter for the generator, which usually solves the dead battery situation. We mulled over our possibilities and I even call a few of the boys to see if they had jumper cables but none of them would answer their phones at that early hour. Finally a Hail Mary attempt combining the auxiliary battery and the generator start worked, despite never working before, and we were on our way.

I managed to get 17km before the boys showed up. The first few kms were on a steep downhill, which immediately fed into a very steep uphill that continued for 3.5km. This time though I didn’t have Snowy to keep me company on the hill, so I slowly trudged up it listening to the same music I’ve been listening to for months.

Unlike yesterday where everybody seemed to run as much as they could all at once, today they took turns in cycles of about 3km each. This definitely seemed to work better and I could actually talk to people as we ran. A little before lunch my mum, dad and Sarah showed up, having driven in from Vancouver for the day. It was awesome having them there and they joined in the running rotation, although Sarah didn’t really rotate out, she just kept running.

The guys stayed until lunch, taking me past the Coquihalla Pass at 1278 or so metres. We said our goodbyes and then Sarah, Mike, Mum, Dad and I sat down for some lunch. The descent after lunch was hellish. It was about as steep as anything I’ve seen yet this trip and it lasted the rest of the run, all 26km of it. Ordinarily I don’t mind the downhill, but the pitch of this was really steep and my hips and knees started to ache and my quads started to burn. I had been scheduled to do 84.4km today but the terrain was too hard on my legs so I had to tap out at 71km. The two days after my descent from the BC border into Golden were the sorest my legs had been all trip and I hope my legs don’t hurt too much from this tomorrow.

I’m only a few km from Hope after which the hills disappear for good!