Training Log Archive: blairtrewinIn the 1 days ending Oct 9, 2014:
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Thursday Oct 9, 2014 #
3 PM
Run 56:00 [3] 10.3 km (5:26 / km)
This was a longer day than originally planned (from the travel point of view, not the running one), as my parents convinced me - not that I needed an awful lot of convincing - that Quebec City was very much worth going to, something which meant probably 300-400 kilometres more compared with my original plan of Montreal (I'll still pass by Montreal in the morning but won't spend any time there) - in turn meaning starting the day more or less at first light. It was certainly well worth going to, and traversing the back roads of northern Maine as part of getting there was even more stellar for autumn colours than yesterday was (and not bad in the hills-and-lakes department either); the leaves are a bit past their best on the Canadian side.
The run was done in the mid-afternoon - I'd originally planned to do it when I first arrived in the city, but thought better of it on the grounds that (a) I was stiff after five hours in the car (apart from photo stops) and (b) I needed lunch, so instead ran after I'd spent a couple of hours wandering around and inside the old city walls. The conditions weren't as challenging as they were on the only previous occasion I've run in the province (the December 1989 run which is otherwise noted as my coldest ever run - minus 27 - ventured onto the Quebec side of the border for 10 minutes from its Ottawa start), but it was still cold and windy with occasional sleety rain. Headed out away from the city centre from a start near the citadel, ending up at the far end in what I suspect is one of Quebec City's posher suburbs (like equivalent suburbs in Melbourne, bearing occasional signs expressing the locals' non-enthusiasm about higher-density housing developments). Hard work at the start but better in the second half, though Achilles was a bit sore in the last couple of kilometres.
Pulled my limited French out of the pocket today but haven't really needed it (other than for politeness) - those I've dealt with have all spoken excellent English. (Somewhat to my surprise, you see some bilingual signs on the US side of the border too - not sure if this is for the benefit of visitors or whether there is a French-speaking community in northern Maine too).
Fossil fuels featured heavily in the round of election ads I mentioned yesterday (the alleged support of candidates for carbon pricing was a regular feature in attack ads, which are much more personal than their Australian equivalents). Other undesirable impacts of fossil fuels were on display today as my route took me through the small Quebec town whose centre was flattened by an oil tanker explosion last year (as it happens, this was in the news today because the coroner handed down his report yesterday).
The run was done in the mid-afternoon - I'd originally planned to do it when I first arrived in the city, but thought better of it on the grounds that (a) I was stiff after five hours in the car (apart from photo stops) and (b) I needed lunch, so instead ran after I'd spent a couple of hours wandering around and inside the old city walls. The conditions weren't as challenging as they were on the only previous occasion I've run in the province (the December 1989 run which is otherwise noted as my coldest ever run - minus 27 - ventured onto the Quebec side of the border for 10 minutes from its Ottawa start), but it was still cold and windy with occasional sleety rain. Headed out away from the city centre from a start near the citadel, ending up at the far end in what I suspect is one of Quebec City's posher suburbs (like equivalent suburbs in Melbourne, bearing occasional signs expressing the locals' non-enthusiasm about higher-density housing developments). Hard work at the start but better in the second half, though Achilles was a bit sore in the last couple of kilometres.
Pulled my limited French out of the pocket today but haven't really needed it (other than for politeness) - those I've dealt with have all spoken excellent English. (Somewhat to my surprise, you see some bilingual signs on the US side of the border too - not sure if this is for the benefit of visitors or whether there is a French-speaking community in northern Maine too).
Fossil fuels featured heavily in the round of election ads I mentioned yesterday (the alleged support of candidates for carbon pricing was a regular feature in attack ads, which are much more personal than their Australian equivalents). Other undesirable impacts of fossil fuels were on display today as my route took me through the small Quebec town whose centre was flattened by an oil tanker explosion last year (as it happens, this was in the news today because the coroner handed down his report yesterday).