9+ miles of observations and oops

So I deferred my 9 miler to Sunday morning. I tried to get up early, but didn't get to the pathway until 9 am. Oops. I went back out to Sandy Beach (which ironically doesn't have a sandy beach) to run the pathway up the Elbow River again. This time I knew where I was going, so I'd be able to make it farther up the pathway. Hmmm. I'm not sure what it is, but as soon as you get the inkling that a bathroom might be an idea, all of a sudden it becomes an all out necessity. Luckily I had entered into Stanley Park and they had some washrooms there. Note to self: they are only open May through October. Just as I was leaving Stanley Park I noticed a dog that seemed to be ownerless. I stopped the Garmin to see if anyone came along and finally he found his owner. I got going again but forgot to start the Garmin back up. Oops. Not being sure how much I was off by I vowed to still go till it read 4.5 mi, then turn around to see how much distance I had missed out on. I ran past Lindsay Park and then I reached Stampede Park. By this point in time I only had 0.5 mi to go before turning around, but the pathway was under construction and the detour was not marked at all. I continued running along the sidewalk which wasn't really pretty or fun and I was approaching a not so good area of town. I ran into a couple visiting from England and they were walking around trying to find a market shown on a map, which from what I could tell was not close by. I advised them to turn around since they were wandering into the bad part of town. I hit that 4.5 mi and turned around, happy to be on my way back. Once I was running back by Lindsay Park the pathway was deserted for a bit, and at that point in time this guy got on to the pathway just in front of me - definitely an unsavoury fellow - no shirt, lots of tattoos, twitching and muttering to himself. I'm pretty scared since I am the only one around so I just give him a wide berth and sprinted past him. Only to happen upon another fellow... I sprinted past him too, then all of a sudden there were more people on the pathway and I was approaching a fairly nice residential part of the area. Needless to say, in the future I will not run up as far as Lindsay Park. I've read I Am the Central Park Jogger and I know that really unfortunate things happen to folks out on their run. The rest of the run was uneventful...thankfully! I discovered afterwards that I had gone about 0.45 mi earlier before I realized that my Garmin was paused.

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The good news is that I feel like I am getting my legs back under me. They were feeling a bit sluggish since the half marathon, but now I feel like my pace is back to where it was before. After the run I went to the Calgary Farmer's Market to pick up some amazing produce since I was in the neighborhood. This is my favorite thing about summer - peaches, watermelons, strawberries, raspberries, you name it. Plus I now have some bison sausages (cajun and hot italian) at home to try.

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One other comment....Margarita Shot Bloks....blech! Those things were gross..!!