Do the math

Alas, it's becoming more difficult for me to meet up with my regular running buddies. Besides C.B. getting ready to leave for the States for six months, M.B. has moved 10 miles out of town. It was so easy to schedule runs with M.B. when she lived a mile from my house right on my regular route! Last Saturday, I looked up directions to her new place and biked out there. I figured it would take me approximately three quarters of an hour, and in fact I got there in exactly 45 minutes. M.B. showed me around, then we looked at my map to find a suitable course. We saw that her village and the closest two others formed a neat triangle, so we decided to connect the dots. When I stopped my watch at the end of our run it read 45 minutes. After visiting some more and eating a delicious cookie, I cycled back to Lausanne. Another 45 minutes had gone by. I hadn't kept track of the time we spent touring the new house and chatting, but I got home precisely 3 hours after leaving that morning!

Gotta run...

Earn it!

The other day, wanting to show M.E. (Son 2's girlfriend) some fun places to run, Son 2 and I were hesitating between heading to the Pontaise track and the Sauvabelin tower. I checked out the clarity of the mountains on the EPFL panoramic webcam and saw that it was a great day for the tower run. We warned M.E. that there was a 140-meter climb to get there, then another 30 meters to the top of the tower. When we got all the way up, she agreed that it had been well worth the effort. We lingered long enough to point out different mountains and monuments, and watched planes land at the Blécherette airport. Not only did we earn the fantastic view, but we also earned the 3,5 kilometers of downhill run home.

Gotta run...

A travers Romanel 2011

Two things might have prevented me from running yesterday's 10K; the driving rain and the previous night's excruciating abdominal pain. But the pain was gone in the morning and the rain let up an hour before the 8 p.m. race time; so Husband, Son 2, his girlfriend and I headed for Romanel. Though Romanel often has bad luck with the weather, there seemed to be fewer runners than usual. But there were plenty of spectators. I saw many familiar faces at their usual spots along the 3-lap course. Several injured runner were there to encourage us too. Even though I was a minute slower than last year, I was satisfied with my time considering the circumstances. If anyone from the emergency room had seen me running, they probably would have thought I must have been faking the pain the night before!

Gotta run...

Where the sidewalk ends

The sidewalks in our neighborhood have been torn up for weeks. But when I'm tempted to complain about how treacherous that is for runners, I try to remember that in most other places I've run you're lucky to find roads with a decent shoulder. Or there are those old neighborhoods with cement sidewalks that most runners shun to spare their knees. So if I have to watch my step for a while, that's all right. I guess I could always run in our brand new bike lanes. Those were added when they resurfaced our streets that were torn up for over a year. Run safe!

Gotta run...

No two the same

We were in Ardèche, France, last week for our annual church retreat. I got out twice for my regular 8 kilometer run. The first run was on the busy holiday afternoon. It was quite foggy and I had to deal with scores of motorcycles hugging the shoulder on every curve. It was slightly stressful. My second run was early Saturday morning. The sky had cleared and I think I saw a grand total of three cars. It was very peaceful. I was relieved to get back to the retreat center the first day, and sorry I didn't have time to keep on running the second. Little things can sometimes make a big difference.

Gotta run...