Back To The Winter Wonderland

   After my near-death experience with treadmill running last week, I decided I would once more head for the great outdoors. In the past couple of days, there has been some fresh snow, the plows have been out and the sun has actually started to shine.
   I wanted to avoid a hilly run and traffic so I once again headed for Springbank Park with a view toward starting my run there and heading along the river.


Storybook Gardens, with looming monstrosity.

   I parked in the lot in front of Storybook Gardens and took a quick pic of the castle. What has changed over the last few months is that there is now a monstrosity of a high rise apartment building, still under construction, looming off in the background. Storybook Gardens has been around for likely fifty years or so and part of its charm was that it was always nestled away in the forest, storybook-style. Not so, anymore!
   It was beautifully sunny today, as you can see from the pics, and I started from the parking lot and headed east along the river. There was a bit of a breeze in my face which, any other time, would have been okay but today it was only -10C(14F) and even the tiniest breeze still cut into you so I was glad it would be at my back for the return trip.


Obviously I'm in good company.

   The plan was to run 2.5 out, turn around and then come back. Running 2.5K took me right to the Terry Fox Parkway before I turned around. Terry has always been a personal hero of mine and I actually got to see him when he made his stop in London so many years ago. For those of you who aren't familiar with Terry Fox, he was a young man from British Columbia who had lost one of his legs to cancer. He made the brave decision to try and run across Canada, all the while collecting donations for the fight against cancer. He made it all the way from the east coast and into northern Ontario before the cancer returned and he had to return to B.C. He died shortly after. Since then, his foundation has raised millions and Terry Fox runs are held every year all across Canada. So it's pretty cool that London has named a parkway after him! Actually London has an awesome series of parkways and bike paths, you literally can follow them from one end of the city to the other!


The old pump house, formerly a sulphur spring.
Was pretty darn sulphury today!

   The trip back had me a little winded and I took a couple of walk breaks along the way. One of these walk breaks afforded me the opportunity to take a pic of the old pump house. I guess back in the 1800's the pump house was a vital part of London's waterworks system. It was also the site of sulphur springs and there used to be a water fountain at one corner of the building which spewed forth almost undrinkable water, due to the rotten-egg smell. Generally, the smell around there isn't too bad but today it was nasty!


After-the-run selfie. Time for a new hat??

   By the time I got back, the run had taken about thirty-eight minutes (pretty bad, I know) and was still seven minutes or so faster than the last treadmill run I did. So the run was kind of meh but, all in all, still nice to be running outside again. I have a race coming up in slightly less than two weeks and it's outside, quite likely in weather very similar to today's so I better be a little more prepared!
   In the meantime, happy and healthy running to you all!