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Day 141 September 24, 2011 Roger’s Pass to Revelstoke 51km

26 Sep

Downhill hurts
It was cold at the top of Roger’s Pass this morning, but not nearly as cold as those mornings back in Banff. Mike and I started running and it quickly became apparent that my quads were going to be harassing me most of the day, my left one especially. It was really awkward running down the steep western side of the pass not being able to favour one leg over the other as they both hurt. My progress was slow and anything but steady and I quickly found myself losing time.
By the time I got to the bottom of the steepest part it was 10km later and my quads were really sore. I took a quick break but the pain was the same when I started up again so I essentially limped through the rest of the day. I’m scheduled to have a day off tomorrow but I decided that it might be better if I had a shorter day today and then run a bit tomorrow, giving my legs some time to recover yet still getting ahead of schedule.
Dave has been slowly increasing his mileage each day he’s been out here, and he’s gotten a number of people to agree to sponsor him per km if he can do a minimum of 30km. When he started he had trouble running 3km, today he ran 10km total and I think he totaled around 39km and raised some money for Step Into Action at the same time.
We drove the 15km from my finish point into Revelstoke to the fire hall and were met by Gary, one of the firefighters. Gary was awesome and gave us warm showers, fresh water and even got one of his own attachments from home to help us plug into their electricity after ours started smoking (no better place than at a fire station).
We had dinner at the Village Idiot with two of Dave’s friends, Michelle and Aaron. After telling Aaron my story about my busted iPod he immediately ran to his car and got me his iPod to use for the rest of my run. Amazing! Not only that but Michelle made a generous donation to SIA. The icing on the cake was the dinner I ordered, a huge burger called The Kitchen Sink, which included in addition to the usual fillings a beef patty, cheese, bacon, chicken breast, corn, and a fried egg, with a side of perogies. I’m enjoying being able to eat like this while I can because in 10 days I’m going to have to cut my intake by about half, actually probably more.
Tomorrow I’m only running 30km so we get to sleep in!

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

26 Sep

Welcome to the top

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

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

26 Sep

Welcome to the topIt 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 actual…

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

26 Sep

Welcome to the topIt 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 actual…

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

26 Sep

Welcome to the topIt 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 ac…

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Day 139 September 22, 2011 BC Border to Golden 81km

26 Sep

Beautiful British Columbia

I made the biggest rookie mistake when making my waffle this morning. I used to use the waffle maker in college all the time so there is no excuse for my lack of skill today. I was the first one to use the waffle maker this morning and I only sprayed butter on the bottom portion so once I excitedly came back to retrieve my waffle I found it stuck to the top. I carefully scraped it off into a crumbled mess, abandoning the top half. I’m not sure anyone will be able to use it. Otherwise the buffet was delicious and set me up for what was to be my longest day yet.
I started running just inside the BC border on a steep downhill. There were many signs during the morning warning truckers about the steep descent and it seemed to continue forever. I’d say a large portion of the first 30km was downhill. Unfortunately the pitch wasn’t such that I could take huge advantage of the descent and soon my quads started to ache. I haven’t really done any long descents yet on this trip so my legs really weren’t accustomed to it.
There was a great deal of construction on the way to Golden and I had been warned by a number of people to watch out for it. The truth is though that it’s actually nicer most times to run through construction areas because the big trucks have to move slowly and there is usually an area on the side that is blocked off from traffic that I can run along. So all in all I kind of like areas of construction.
I thought that I was going to enter my final time zone today but it’s actually past Golden so I think I should make it tomorrow. I’ve been on the look out for wildlife since I entered the mountains but so far the only thing I’ve seen is a couple of elk. It could have something to do with the huge fence that runs parallel to the highway.
As I approached Golden I was feeling really good and despite the ache in my quads from the downhill my legs weren’t tired so I decided to see if I could make it past my previous high of 75km. I also have had no service on my phone all day so each time I stopped to get water I didn’t have the distraction of checking my phone so I found myself about an hour ahead of where I normally would have been at that mileage. Dave hopped out of the RV and ran with me for the last little bit and I managed to keep going to 81km. AWESOME!
I was pumped to have broken into the 80s, so to celebrate we did what we always do… found a parking lot, this time Sobey’s, made dinner and then went straight to bed.
I hope my legs still work tomorrow

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Day 139 September 22, 2011 BC Border to Golden 81km

26 Sep

Beautiful British ColumbiaI made the biggest rookie mistake when making my waffle this morning. I used to use the waffle maker in college all the time so there is no excuse for my lack of skill today. I was the first one to use the waffle maker this mo…

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Day 139 September 22, 2011 BC Border to Golden 81km

26 Sep

Beautiful British ColumbiaI made the biggest rookie mistake when making my waffle this morning. I used to use the waffle maker in college all the time so there is no excuse for my lack of skill today. I was the first one to use the waffle maker this mo…

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Day 139 September 22, 2011 BC Border to Golden 81km

26 Sep

Beautiful British ColumbiaI made the biggest rookie mistake when making my waffle this morning. I used to use the waffle maker in college all the time so there is no excuse for my lack of skill today. I was the first one to use the waffle maker this mo…

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Day 138 September 21, 2011 Sunshine Village, Banff to BC Border 62km

24 Sep

Goodbye Russ, hello BC!The morning began in the Safeway parking lot with the smell of freshly cooked bacon. Today was Russ’s last day and he had gotten up early and cooked a delicious breakfast of a gourmet omelet with ground beef, green peppers and …

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