All Downhill From Here

Saturday morning I knew the Moose would be calling, so I went out looking for it. I loaded up 3 new gels and 3 Nuun tabs into my water belt. I topped up the frozen water in my bottle and took it along. It was hot, even early in the morning.

My legs were tired and achy before I even made it out of my neighbourhood. I made deals with myself up and down the familiar route: If I walked to there, then I would have to run to there, and so on. As ran down through a ravine, I wondered where the Moose was. All I heard was the dull thud of my feet in the dirt.

I ran over the roller coaster of the escarpment behind the Edgemont Club and remembered the snake from a couple of weeks ago. No evidence of wildlife today. Where was my Moose? I grabbed a couple of drying saskatoons from a bush and kept on climbing.

I sucked down an orange Accelgel (creamsicle-like) and re-filled my water bottle at the park entrance near the one hour mark. I figured I’d find my groove in the second hour, up on the plateau of Nose Hill Park. You know what? I’ve decided I don’t like plateaus much. Too flat.

I wandered around amidst the tall wild grasses with no set route in mind, except to go generally east in a quest to get to the other side of the park. I didn’t want to go straight across – that wouldn’t give me enough distance for my training goal. I didn’t want to diddle around too much there either. I was tired and hot.

At one point I stopped my watch, traipsed off the path into a particularly tall stand of grass, laid down and looked up at the sky. Did I hear the moose? Nope. All I heard was the wind in the grass.

Shhhhhhhhhhhhh

I didn’t have time for this. I have so many things I’m supposed to be doing, accomplishing, thinking about! The Moose is in three little weeks, and I needed this run to be solid. I could be at home organizing a race instead of out here on this ominous trek. I could be in a nice, cool basement, folding laundry. And what was I doing? Staring up at the cloudless, bright blue sky.

Shhhhhhhhhhhhh

It was almost as if I was being told to quit thinking such loud worrying thoughts and just enjoy the summer day. I got back up, re-started my watch, and found the other side of the park (at the 64th St. lot). I climbed back up into the park and right up onto a big boulder three times my height to eat my second gel. Stopped my watch to admire the view. Forgot to start it again for about 5? minutes when I continued on. There was a strong wind, but it was still hot.

Shhhhhhhhhhhhh

The route back was not pretty. There was more sorry, achy hiking than running involved, but I eventually made it home after four hours of rambling around. I stopped by the 7-11 and carried a jug of milk the last km home on my head. I guess it wouldn’t be a decent long distance goal if it didn’t involve a sucky training session or two.

I’ll find that Moose soon enough.