Coach Spaff had assigned 'Bent a 60 minute easy run but we walked around Chamonix all day until our feet got sore (smart move!) so it turned into a 30 minute run just before sunset. My bad foot has been getting progressively more painful over the past few weeks, which stinks because I've hardly been running. It could be a showstopper but I'm not wasting any energy dwelling on it; I'm here and I'll go as far as I can. On the bright side, we got in 200 m of elevation gain! At our high point, we had this view across to the Mont Blanc massif.
Fortunately, the weather has improved since yesterday when we arrived during a bout of dreaded "Harps weather". Here was our first view of Mont Blanc on the drive in.
The weather was much better today as we walked around town. It was almost "Goose and Coach LD weather" but not quite.
Here's where we're staying by the way - an apartment on the top floor of this cool old building near the heart of downtown. Sometimes you rent accommodation on the Internet and it's disappointing when the reality doesn't match the carefully selected photos. This place is the opposite.
One of the reasons I chose it was that Carbon and Carbon's Offset were planning to stay with us, and I thought Carbon would feel at home with this Swedish stove. (I only know it's Swedish because the property description says so.) We miss the Carbons and wish they could be here but they have more important things to deal with right now. I think of Carbon and smile whenever I look at the stove.
Chamonix has a nice Euro-downtown, albeit touristy.
It's like visiting Banff. Beautiful mountain scenery all around but at ground level, it's mostly restaurants, tourist shops and outdoor gear stores. We can live without the tourist shops but today we read lots of menus and browsed most of the outdoor gear stores - including this one, of course!
The Salomon Toronto store has a *much* larger selection. In fact, most stores in *Chamonix* have a better selection of Salomon products. Not sure what's up with that.
I'm told that French aid stations are a lot like this store - a lot of cheese, sausages and honey cake. That should work OK for me and my cast iron stomach but I imagine that some North American runners find it weird and unappetizing.
Alcohol is easier to buy in almost any country other than Canada but this made me laugh out loud - shrink-wrapped booze hanging on convenient hooks by the exit from the grocery store, where we would have gum and chocolate bars in Canada. The best part was that I managed to have a great conversation with the cashier entirely in French about why I was laughing, and she told me about cigarettes only being available at special tobacco stores in France. She was shocked to hear about our government-operated liquor stores.
There are banners everywhere to promote the four UTMB events. The first one (PTL) starts tomorrow night.
I think this is a statue of an overjoyed Phatty and Harps when they finally spotted CP20 at EcoMotion. ;)
If I cross the finish line, this will be my view.
I guess that's enough random thoughts from Chamonix - certainly a much longer description than a 30-minute run deserves!