actually, only 57 minutes... got a little lost. no idea about distance. have a nice post to write, but not tonight, not on this funny french keyboard!
Update: Ugh. The home I'm staying in has broadband, but something changed and I can no longer hook my laptop up to it! Typing on a french keyboard is painful (the 'q' is where the 'a' is, 'm', is way off to the side, you have to hit shift just to type a '.' or any number. talk about crazy!)
After taking a week off I planned to ramp back up into running slowly; I thought maybe do a few 3-5 mile runs for a week before trying anything longer. Last night didn't quite go to plan...
I didn't leave work until after 6 so by the time I'd gotten home, undergone a little glucose therapy to get ready to run (these delicious little butter cookies from Nantes! I'm going to have to start importing them), and changed it was already 7. It gets dark between 7.30 and 8, so I thought I'd do 5, maybe 6, miles tops. I ran down to the river path, avoiding the detour through farm fields that I took last time, and got to push a bit further down the beautiful wooded dirt trail that runs alongside l'Isère. The scenery was stunningly beautiful: the sun had finally come out yesterday afternoon and burned off the cloud cover that's been hanging over us all week, and for the first time I could see the peaks of some far-away mountains over Grenoble (Chartreuse, the giant massif in the photos from last time looms over Meylan; I live in its shadow). I ran down to the end of the trail, looped around, and saw another beautiful scene: Grenoble and Meylan, a giant dark trough separating me from the lights of the cities, built up on the hill. It's weird, the Isère valley is quite wide here, but from where I was it seemed like the cities wanted to be as far as possible from it. Or maybe the land close to the river has always been farmland, to take advantage of the wet silty soil. Regardless, it gave me the sense of being far away from the busy city and reminded me of running in Western Massachusetts: Gale, Ide, Blair, alongside the Deerfield on Rt 2, up and down the Oxbow...
Came back towards the city on a different path but, at around 40min, found myself on the wrong side of the A41 motorway. Ran alongside it, going away from home still and finally found a path going under it but it left be in the median between the A41 and the 87 (an even bigger motorway!) Ugh. Kept going further but didn't see ANY more openings. Quelle disastre! With the sun now completely gone and dressed in black, I decided it was time to double back. Ran alongside the A41 until I found a bridge over the motorway, and made it back to the house in just under an hour.
Tomorrow I launch Operation Vèlo. The local cycling club is having a huge bike sale down at the high school so I'm going to take my 50 euro and see if I can find a scrappy road bike to toot around on for a few months. I'd like to have something light enough to do some of the local climbs. The Tour goes just south of here in July and it'd be fun to go ride on some of the same roads. (Alpe d'Huez is only 65km from here, but I don't think I dare...) Is it silly that my helmet cost ~3X more than either of my bikes will be worth?
