Day 118 September 1, 2011 Balgonie to Regina 51km

Mike and I ran the remaining 25km to the Regina city limits where we met Harold and Scott from the Regina Fire Department in the parking lot of the CTV building. They were going to escort us into town in their brand new fire engine.

During the run through town, Mike and I ran out in front of the MCC with the fire truck behind to block traffic with lights flashing. It was tons of fun and caused a lot of waves and honks from passing motorists.

On the way through Regina we met up with a friend of my mother’s Karen, a local schoolteacher, and one of her students Clarence. The two of them joined in and we continued on towards city hall. The run through the city was great and we had a good opportunity to chat with Karen and Clarence.

We arrived at City Hall around 1:30pm and were met by a number of media, the local prostate cancer Canada group, a number of police officers and Mayor Pat Fiacco. I did a number of interviews, we took some photos and then we were ready to go, but just before we left 5 figure skaters that were participating in a local conditioning camp came to join us. They included pairs, singles and dance skaters.

As we started the run through the town, Mike and Chris switched places, with Mike behind the wheel and Chris out on the road. I started off running with Mayor Fiacco and we talked about the run as well as his participation in the Penticton Ironman and the Olympics in Greece as a boxing official.  We had a five car police escort now in addition to the fire truck and they had us rolling through every intersection and red light completely unhindered. It was great!

We continued out through the city and onto the highway, where the police actually had all of highway 1 shut down for us to run, with cars backed up behind us. During the run I spoke with Paige, one of the pairs skaters who is from a small town in Saskatchewan, about the different types of farming equipment. She filled me in on the names of the big trucks I’ve been watching for months and we talked about her skating.

Our escort along with the mayor and skaters left us just beyond the city limits. But before leaving, Paige and Rudy gave us a demonstration of one of their lifts, with Rudy walking about 50 metres back and forth with Paige effortlessly above his head. Remarkable!

We stopped for a late lunch and by the time we got going we only managed to do an additional 5km. It was the end of 10 days in a row, my longest stretch yet and I was exhausted.

We drove back to the Hill’s condo, had showers and did laundry. We had dinner at Bushwakkers and then I went home to sleep while Mike and Chris went out to explore a little more of the Regina nightlife. The one thing I did notice is that it was Thursday night and the nearest CFL game was on Sunday, yet everywhere people were wearing their ‘Riders jerseys.