Saturday's "long run" was really a bit of a cut-back last week. I did 10 miles, which at this point shouldn't really be all that long for me. But... it felt pretty long. For some reason my body has just not been working with me lately. Almost every run longer than 4 miles has been both a mental and physical struggle, and I've been soooo tired, despite getting enough sleep.
On Saturday I planned out my 10-mile route as a loop around the base of Mt. Royal, a route I've never done before. I started out running through the plateau a bit, which was nice but I'm used to it. Then, as I left the plateau my run went into Outremont, which is somewhere I've really never run before (with the exception of running straight up Parc.) I ran on Cote-Sainte-Catherine pretty much all the way around the mountain's base until it ran into Cote-de-Neige in Westmount. The unfortunate thing about my route-planning was that this loop was a gradual uphill for the first seven-ish miles and then a very steep downhill for 8, and then flat for 9 an 10. I would like to think that it was the gradual seven-mile-uphill that really killed me, and it's not that I'm backtracking in my progress.... but MAN that felt like longer than 10 miles.
The coolest part about Saturday's run was the diversity of location. I ran through three very major and very different parts of the city: the plateau, outremont, and westmount. Outremont is really cool, and like I said, I've never really run through there before. The houses are GORGEOUS (just like in Westmount) but the vibe is much different. I'm not sure how to explain it... it's just different. I ran on a new street in Westmount as well, where I saw even more ridiculously extravagant mansions (not to mention one with multiple fountains in the front yard...) I also ran on Sherbrooke a pretty far ways into Westmount. Everything there is just so... nice. Even the Dairy Queen doesn't look like a Dairy Queen but more like an old-fashioned upscale ice cream parlour.
The funniest thing I saw on my run was this:
While running along Sherbrooke in Westmount, I was approaching this huge castle-like building with a green, rectangular lawn in front of it lined by chest-height perfectly-sculpted hedges. On the lawn there must've been at least 50 people... all over the age of 65... all dressed in white shorts, white polos, white visors, with knee-high white socks and white sneakers. They were all holding these long sticks in their hands, and from behind the hedges I couldn't quite make out what they were until I was just passing them..... it was a CROQUET TOURNAMENT. I don't know why but I just found it so funny and I had no idea that such things actually existed, let alone 2 miles down the street from where I live.
One thing that's kind of bumming me out is the loneliness of this whole training process and my long runs. It never used to bother me, in fact, I still would usually prefer to run by myself and on my own time. But on Saturday's run I passed this running group as they were crossing the "finish line" of their Saturday morning long run. They all had matching t-shirts and were high-fiving each other and handing out Gatorade as the members came in to the finish. As I ran past (I was running in the opposite direction of them) I saw some stragglers at the end of the pack who couldn't quite make the whole distance running, but were walking with each other, or jogging along and encouraging the last few to finish strong. It just made me think back to high school cross-country where, even when I was usually in last place, there were always people there at the finish line when I was done.
I've always been a very independent person and been happy to do things on my own, but this whole training experience is a push on my independence level and hopefully I can find the motivation from somewhere.
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