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?