Sunday, October 6, 2013

So much weekend

The "cheering" for the Harvest Half went really well. I got a big hug with a shared selfie with Cori, seeing my buddy Nicole, and having Tina and Michelle recognize me enough to say hi.

Here's the shared selfie. And the group shot at coffee after. For those that saw some confusing Twitter traffic, this is the one I was referring to with me looking a bit demented. The word Linda used was crazed. You'd never know from Cori's nice smile that she's standing next to a suspected crazy person, and in the middle of a long race, where she did really well.


And one of Nicole with her buddy at the 7K mark.  

The meet up after, Tina, Tara, Michelle, Cori, Keith, Kev, and Susan. Lots of fun.

Yes, I admit, it is at a Starbucks. But lest I be drummed out of the Coffee Purists Club, I will point out I drank hot chocolate.

The rest of the day was spent puttering about the house, and watching Disc 3 of Elementary. I'm quite enjoying it.

Sunday I was up early for a planned (just) post dawn run. The sunrise was absolutely spectacular, leading me to dash out of the house in my slippers to get these shots. No post processing or anything. The colors were amazing! Times like this make me wish I had a better camera.



Sophia got here in good time, in spite of the paving happening on the main access road for us. After a coffee and a bit of stretching we were off. Here's the park map of where we ran, starting at the rivet, going over to bridge 1, and up the Hill of Death. I was disappointed to see they had removed the signs where that had been scribed in. Here is a photo of it. I was going to do a shared selfie. From there we ran along the south side of the park past the wetlands, then down into the park proper to just past bridge 7 at the right side of the map.

Along the way I had to stop for this shot. Alberta does not get the flaming reds of Ontario maple trees, but still, I find the yellows, golds, and russet colors to be extremely beautiful. The reflection in the wetland pond was brilliant.

Here's the more conventional RunMeter map.

And our pace and elevation. Funny how the Hill of Death barely shows up on this one, when it really is a major hill, and some of the tiny gentle inclines show up as huge hills. We took a bit of a walk break just before turnaround around 6 K.

I'm pretty pleased. We were out for a nice relaxing run, and chatted most of the way. There was a bit of a different between our electronics. Maybe we didn't start exactly the same time.
 

The time has come for new shoes! New Balance something or others. The staff at Strides were very helpful. I was the only customer, so had both of them making suggestions and telling me all about them various choices. They were only mildly appalled to find my old ones were more than a year old. I'd missed several new models and they didn't think the current ones were appropriate.


Lastly, a nice cat shot. How could I not share it with you all?






11 comments:

  1. hmm - yep. no matter how many times you say it, it still doesn't make it true. You so don't look demented. Just smiley! It was great hanging out with you!

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    1. It was! Call next time you are running in S Calgary...

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  2. It was so great to see you on the course. I certainly don't look very happy in that photo but I was feeling great!

    Gorgeous sunrise photos! The trees were just amazing down in Fish Creek. So beautiful running through there.

    Cute kitties! I'm pretty sure my cat would never cuddle with another cat like that!

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    1. This time of year is particularly pretty in Fish Creek, and the west end has one scenic view after another. Our kitties were adopted at the same time, so I think they bonded in the car ride home, and have been buddies ever since.

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  3. It was so great to finally see your actual mug in person. Gorgeous sunrise shots. Looks like a nice long run and I think I like your pace and would love to join you some time... Awww so cute: the kitties! Hey, where do the "Coffee Purists" get their coffee? I'd like to (need to) learn more.

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    1. This coffee purist gets beans delivered to the front door by Crickle Creek Coffee in Priddis. Grind, run through french press, enjoy. Grinder is important too. Now that I do this, I don't buy so much coffee anymore. Let me know when your feet are feeling up to running again and we'll work something out.

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  4. I want to steal your kitties. They're adorable.

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  5. Those sunrise pictures are absolutely spectacular. Also, we are in the same "older than a year" running shoe club.

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    1. Calgary does good sunrise and sunsets. I'm glad I'm not the only one, though I'm looking forward to tonights run in new shoes.

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  6. Those are amazing sunsets pics! I've never seen anything like that. And I love the kitties. Super cute and fluffy.

    You've done an Ironman so how hard can a stand alone marathon be? Ok, fine. I admit. It's hard. But you'll have to let me know which is harder, I've got an IM in 2014. Eek!

    BTW, I turned off the Skynet "captcha" thing and got a gazillion spam posts about European denim and African dudes who needed money for their kings or some such nonsense. Hence, you'll have to deal with Skynet taking over. ;)

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    1. The kitties ARE cute and fluffy, except for the pointy bits. Several people have told me that a marathon is harder on you than IM. We'll see. Which IM are you doing?

      The secret to not getting spam is disallowing anonymous comments. Since I did that several years ago I've had one, count 'em, one piece of spam, and I had to think about it.

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