Day 103 August 17, 2011 Falcon Lake to Steinbach 71km

Not quite the day I was expecting

When Derek and I started running at around 8am there was already a fierce headwind; welcome to the prairies. The headwind would continue for the entire day, my new nemesis now that I’ve left the hills behind.

I was running well, and my pace was good despite the heavy headwind. I had a quick break at around 11:30am when Mike and Derek changed spots, driver for runner. As I passed the 31km mark, Mike commented that while he was driving along the highway he noticed that despite the fact that the MCC is straddling half the shoulder and half the right hand lane, that cars and trucks seem to like to wait until the last possible second to switch from the right hand lane to the left hand lane to pass.

About 90 seconds after that comment we heard a screech followed by a loud bang and looked back to see a cloud of dust followed quickly by a black Nissan sedan, its side damaged, come hurtling out of control in an arc from the left hand lane across our path about 15 feet in front of us and into the grass ditch on our right where it came to a stop.

I looked back at Derek who so calmly pulled the MCC over fully onto the shoulder that I wasn’t sure if the car had hit the MCC or another vehicle behind us. The driver of the Nissan, a 41-year-old named Ken, emerged from the car uninjured. All told, it could have been a lot worse.

An ambulance and two RCMP vehicles arrived shortly thereafter. Ken’s car was severely damaged. To add insult to injury Ken had purchased his car new yesterday and was driving back from getting it insured to pick up his parents to take them for a ride. The MCC fared better. The scooter took most of the force of the impact and was damaged beyond use, along with the trailer hitch it sat on. The light board was damaged such that only the French display now works, and the rear left compartments were damaged preventing us from opening the hatch doors to our septic tank.

The whole process took about 3 hours, putting me nicely behind schedule. I used part of the time to eat lunch and do a phone interview with the Winnipeg Free Press. During the commotion my mother, sister and Sharon arrived on their way into Winnipeg. Lauren managed to lock the keys in the car after they stopped and it took the tow truck drivers a while to get the door open thanks to the cars security features.

We managed to give out buttons and the Steps to Ken, the RCMP officers, and the ambulance attendants so we were making the most of our down time.

A bit of a gong show but I finally managed to get running again around 3pm. Not long after I had started running again but I was joined by a group of fellow anesthesia residents from my program who had driven out to run with me. It was great to see them all after 3 months and we shared some stories of my time and theirs as we ran. As awesome as it was to see them all, it put me further behind schedule.

The rest of the day dragged on as I still had a lot of mileage left and didn’t make it to 70km until 9:15pm, as the sun was setting. I quickly stretched and we drove into Winnipeg. It was a bit strange to be back, but I took a long hot shower and after a quick dinner fell quickly to sleep in my own bed for the first time in 3 months!

Tomorrow I should make it to Winnipeg!