Day 140 September 23, 2011 Golden to Roger’s Pass 63km

It was much warmer today than previous days, perhaps because we’ve come down about 500 meters in altitude since yesterday, or maybe it’s just warming up. As I started running this morning my legs hurt a lot from yesterday. They actually hurt like they used to hurt back in the Maritimes so it looks like these hills will take some getting used to. My quads in particular were sore from the downhill and my calves were sore from the climbs.

Despite starting later than normal today I was making good time thanks to decreasing the time I spent on breaks. This was true all the way until about the 25km mark when my iPod stopped working. I tried everything I could think of to get it to work, pushing all the buttons multiple times, resetting it, restoring it, erasing it and replacing all my music, but nothing worked. So disappointing seeing as I had made a playlist specifically for the mountains so that I could play some epic music to help me get up the hills. The worst part about this is that I’m scheduled to run up Roger’s Pass at the end of the day today, planning to finish at the top. The good news though is that I gained an hour when I finally crossed into my fifth and final time zone Pacific Standard Time!

So instead of music I listened to the sound of big semi trucks whizzing by as well as the occasional bird chirping; definitely not the same. My iPod currently finds itself sitting in a bag of rice hoping against hope that it is water damage and that the rice will restore it like it did Dave’s blackberry.

By the time Roger’s Pass began I had resigned myself to the fact that I would be doing it without my epic playlist. The climb was steep and Mike and I gained over 500 meters in a little under 10km. There were a number of tunnels on the way to the top and not only was there not a lot of room on the shoulder when the semis blew by, but it was dark and loud.

I found myself at the top at 63km and after chocolate milk and some stretching we were parking in at the visitor info centre wondering if we had to pay to stay overnight.

We didn’t