AM: (8 miles, ~ 1 hour 10 mins)I ran in Montreal, on the Berri bike path. I had an early run to get to the second day of my meetings -- funny story: I had hit the turn-around, and was about ~10 mins to the "downtown" area (about 5 min run through the downtown streets of Old Town Montreal -- think narrow streets with traffic :)). I was passed by a fast cyclist, and we both approached a train tracks - with a flashing red light -- AND -- a crossing guard/person. He made it over the train tracks before the crossing guard put up the stop sign (and the barriers came down), I did not (if only I were ~ 30 secs/mile faster!). So, I was the first on the trail to be stopped by the train. Before I knew it, a couple cyclists came up beside me, and then a couple more. We are all just standing there, watching the train, sort of looking at each other and smiling. This was a Saturday morning - so all these guys were actual fit cyclists doing workouts. The guy immediately beside me starts speaking to me in French, and I just stared at him looking dumb, so he switched to English. We started talking about running, and he wanted to know how far I was going, and what my heart rate target was (I think that is what he asked). I was nearly 12 mins!!!! later that train passed, and we could all get moving (me and ~ 40 dare I admit, very cute cyclists). They all passed me (as my old legs had gotten stiff in the standing around time -- arg, getting old is not for sissies) -- but I was game to run in the middle of them for a while. Well, about 5 mins later I started looking around and thought, "where am I? this does not look familiar at all" - about 5 mins after that I thought, "ok, I need to turn around" -- I did, and realized that I had missed my turn to a different path -- about 400 meters from the train tracks -- meaning the "other side" of the train tracks -- all that waiting around, and extra 10 mins on the "wrong" trail -- and I did not even have to be there. I really thought I was going to be late to the meeting, so I really sped it up from the trail to the hotel, I "just" made it (after a shower, of course). Great story, loved meeting my new friends. At my age, how often do I get a chance to hang out with a bunch of super young, super fit, cutie pies? I heart Montreal. PM: easy 4 miles on the treadmill at the hotel. Then came some meet-ups with old friends in the hotel bar, but that, my runningblog friends is a story for another time :)
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