Montreal: An Almost 50 mile week

The sabbatical year of travel was a joint project, but I was definitely the one responsible for the international travel bits. E always claims that if left to his own devices, he'd never leave the US.

So, I had a good laugh when a few weeks before we flew back to the US, E realized that there was a conference he wanted to attend in Montreal.  3 weeks after we got back to our house.  We booked the tickets -- we were leaving the country 3 weeks after our return home, and it was all E's choice.

View of the city from Chalet Mont Royal

Montreal in the summer is the best.  It's an amazing food town.  The weather is perfect.  And, just about everyone you interact with is bilingual in French and English.

We arrived and I realized that I can switch effortlessly between French and English for the first time in my life.  I didn't even realize when it happened, I'd just respond in whatever language made sense, as would all of the people we interacted with, and E would laugh at the back and forth, when he realized I couldn't tell him what language(s) had been spoken. 

Post-run Xiao Long Bao in Montreal's Chinatown (twice!)

Historically, I've had a huge linguistic wall between the foreign language I'm *trying* to speak and English.  If you are still in language acquisition mode, or if you are in a location with non-fluent English speakers, the wall is very useful.  But my French is (joyously, for me!) pretty decent right now, and most of Montreal that we interacted with is perfectly bilingual.  So, it was a very nice thing to be able to let down the wall and experience first-hand that effortless comprehension and response regardless of language that I'd seen fluent bilingual speakers do.  Right now, I am one of them! (Sadly, my French will likely degrade from disuse and I'll revert, but for this one week, I had a glorious time being one of those people.)

Much like Montreal, where it happened, week -8 of San Jose Rock 'n Roll training was wonderful.  49.36 recorded miles.  MUCH hiking and walking.  And overall, a strong, strong week on the return to some semblance of running fitness.

Hand-pulled noodles and Hunan Dumpling dinner

M: easy day, 6.15 miles of walking in old town Montreal and to and from meals.

T: 1 mile walk to the park.  3.11 super slow miles up Mont Royal (541 ft elevation gain) @ 15:12; 3 miles down at 13:32; 1.05 mile c/d plus 1.5 walk to lunch and dinner.

W: 3.99 miles walking sightseeing (including the botanical gardens); 2.45 walk to dinner and back.

Th: 1.57 jog w/u @ 13:35; 4X0.2mi @ 10K target pace with walking recovery; 1.32 jog/walk c/d; 1.15 walk to lunch/dinner

F: 1 walk to park; 2 miles up Mont Royal & 1 mile down @ 13:24 AVG; 1 easy jog down @ 13:37; 2.43 walk in town.

Sa: Gym workout. Treadmill intervals at 1%: 1 km @9kph; 25 bicep curls; 20 tricep extensions 10lbs; 1 km ladder 9kph-9.6kph 6+ minutes; 25 curls; 20 tce 10lbs; 1 km ladder 9kph-9.6kph 6+ min; 10 lb medicine ball abs 20 crunches; 25 reverse crunches; 25 side to side.  Total TM: 3.37km/2mi. Walk to lunch: 2.01 miles; hike up Mont Royal and back w/E and a friend the steep way, lots of stairs: 4 miles; 1.25 walk back to hotel

Sun: 0.81 walk to old port; 2.0 miles at the old port @ 10:27/mile w/E; 1.47 walk back; 2 miles walk to lunch and back in Little Italy.

Classic Montreal -- on our walk back

from the Italian Cultural Festival in Little Italy

Like last week -- nothing amazing in terms of running training, but 17 miles of actual running and 33ish miles of walking/hiking.  Progress.

And now, we're back in the US and looking forward to increasing the workout load in the coming weeks.