Urban Adventure
Like many of you in Ottawa, I have been waiting for snow. I waited patiently as reports of skiing out west came out and I consoled myself with a good roller ski interval set on November 11th (my guess for the snow contest). Since October I have started a new job that had an initial 10 weeks of in-class training so I had lots and lots of studying with which to distract myself. I wrote my last exam on Friday and promptly decided a good way to celebrate was to go for a ski. Having skied the last 2 weekends on marginal snow in the park, I figured there should still be enough...alas there was too much snow to roller ski and too little to ski. I tried to pull out my Southern Ontario perseverance saying “come on Anna you’re used to roller skiing till Christmas” but this just resulted in a very short run.
This weekend my fellow XC Ottawa team mates are either in Vermont r or Rossland racing. So I decided if they were off on grand adventures I would go on one too!
So with a little imagination I decided to re-discover my love of Ottawa and running with an urban run. I ran from my house in Westboro to Parliament, across the Alexandra Bridge, back along the Quebec side to the Island Park Bridge and home. I also ran in to several woodpeckers including a red headed woodpecker, which was cool!
Here are some photos of my “adventure” (apologies, my i-phone didn’t like the cold.)
This guy waved at me as I ran by!
Looking back on Parliament; my favorite view of it!
The Alexandra Bridge. This is my first memory of Ottawa. When I was little I was visiting and my mom and I walked across the Alexandra Bridge to the Museum of Man (as it was called then). I remember thinking it was so cool that I had walked to Quebec!
I know lots of people hate running on pavement. I have never minded but you can always run along the side of the bike paths.
So with the lack of snow, try not to despair but think of your own adventure to go on. As you can see from above, it doesn't have to be grand, just a bit different than your normal route!
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