Change Up

So, looking ahead to what I've got myself into for the Banff Jasper Relay, I thought maybe it's time to change things around a little. It's a little late to be training for hills, but better late than never.

Back in 2005, when I first moved into the area north of downtown, I was training for the Calgary Marathon, and had figured up a route that would take me up and down the bluff in Bridgeland, on the east side of Centre Street. So I thought I'd try and retrace that route.

A gorgeous day, and I should have been out in the morning, but I've had a lot of little tasks to take care of lately. Anyway, midafternoon was a fine time to run. I did waffle on whether to go that route as I ran down The Path and across the bridge to Prince's Island. I probably should have stayed to the north side of the river, but part of the waffling was that I could head west as usual.

But I went east.

Not far past the Centre Street bridge, I ran into the ongoing construction. They have the river path blocked and most of that area is a parking lot for construction materials and equipment, but there is a sidewalk along Riverfront Avenue now.

At the Langevin bridge, the connection to 4th Street is gone, moved farther east. All the East Village development is changing the arrangement and look of the area. It's still empty, but now it looks like it's being built instead of being abandoned to the drug users and homeless.

The river side is all fenced off, so I followed the edge of it along Riverfront Avenue, on new paving stone sidewalks, past the Simmons mattress building, one of the few buildings left in the area. Looks like it's being used as a project office for the redevelopment.

I found a path between fencing into the park behind Fort Calgary, where a new water feature has been built, and then was able to get to the old suspension bridge to St. Patricks Island. The east end of the island is the zoo, of course, but the west end was once a picnic area, left to become overgrown and unused in the time I've lived here. Even there, though, there's been some cleaning up, with the wild bush removed and new benches installed.

At the zoo parking lot, where Zoo Road skirts the zoo from Memorial Drive and crosses the river to Inglewood, I sprinted across the street. City workers had the access gate into the zoo open, and I could see one of the tigers lounging in his cage just on the other side. Big stripey orange on green spring grass.

At the other end of the short bridge across the part of the river that makes St. Patrick's Island an island, I got on the river path again. Between the path and Memorial Drive, is the dinosaur park part of the zoo, and they've installed some Animatronic versions of the old standbys. The tail of ankylosaur was slowly thrashing in the air just across the fence as I first approached, and near the bridge from the main gate to the island part of the zoo, there was a carnivore of some kind roaring at something. Probably a tyrannosaur.

On the other side of that bridge, is the North American exhibits, though the fence and trees and bush screened that from the river path. I did see some bison lounging at the very end though, as the path turned northward to follow Nose Creek, along the Deerfoot Trail.

More construction; the zoo is building something there, so lots of dust being raised. Crossing under Memorial Drive, I was going to run up the road through the Zoo parking lot but all of that has been rebuilt, so the road actually goes farther north. I just ran over a berm and found myself in the huge new bus stop. It was deserted, too late in the day for school tours, I guess.

The hill climb through the zoo parking lot isn't particularly steep, and it's rather long. Not much challenge. At the top, I came out along side St. George's Drive and follewed it down the hill. I crossed there and began the steep climb up to Tom Campbells Hill Park.

This is the start of the winding through Bridgeland. Tom Campbells Hill marks the east end of the bluff, so as I come out the park gate and on the street, I'm immediately running downhill on Thomson Avenue, which switchbacks onto another street, which switchbacks again onto yet another street that ends up curving into 2nd Avenue. Fairly steep but not too bad.

A block down 2nd Avenue past a school, 11A Avenue runs uphill a block, ending in a steep path that climbs up to a cul-de-sac, on which I again descend. I could have gone further uphill here, to another street just above, and I'll keep that in mind for next time.

At 10th Street I climbed upward a block, then followed the long descending curve of Drury Avenue as it follows the face of the bluff. It joins up with 5th Avenue and 8th Street, then another three blocks east, then south a block to 4th Avenue. Whew!

At 4th Street, I charged up the hill again. 4th Street is ridiculously steep. The sidewalk becomes a stairway for a bit, then a sidewalk again before disappearing all together. It's also a ridiculously narrow street, with barely room for one car after all the parking on either side. Must be tricky parking on such a slope.

At the top of this, at 7th Avenue, it's a couple of blocks to Edmonton Trail, and past my favourite diner. I started the descent down Edmonton Trail, then kept to the right and followed 3rd Street rather than Edmonton Trail's curve eastward. Over the hump in the middle of all the hill side condos and down hill again, to 2nd Avenue.

2nd Avenue is insanely steep, one of those streets where you wonder what the heck somebody was thinking when they built it. The sidewalks are stairways, and at some point long before I moved here, both ends of the block between 3rd Street and 2nd Street were blocked off. I even wonder how they managed to pave such a slope. But it's a great climb.

At the top, it's another block to Samis road, which descends steeply to the top of the Centre Street bridge. And after sprinting across Centre Street, I was chugging up Nony's Awful Little Hill.

Next time I'll continue down The Path again, and up and down the new trails slashed across the face of the bluff above Sunnyside, but for this run I needed to get home and showered as I was meeting friends in a short while.

In all I climbed the bluff six times along this route, after rounding the east end of the zoo. Judging by the burn in my legs, I got a bit of a workout.
L n K

Yesterday's run:
Distance: 12.07 Time: 1:13:37
Average speed: 6.05 min/km. (9.84 kph)

Shoes: New Balance 769 (Blue).
Weather: Cloudy and 13C.