On The Way To The Hills (Pretty Little Pictures Of My Neighbourhood)

   What day is it today? Oh yeah...Thursday. Have been on holidays for a week and a half and have totally lost track of what day it is! What a great problem to have!
   So if it's Thursday today that means on Tuesday I set out on a little trip to the ever-reliable (and close) Warbler Woods to do some hill repeats. Most of Eastern Canada is in the middle of a drought and heat epidemic and London is no different. Because of this I had this conversation with myself on the way to the woods as to whether I should even be venturing outside. It was about 33C (91F) and the humidex was through the roof and I thought that these really were not the ideal conditions to be running in, particularly hill repeats. The headline "Runner Found Collapsed in the Woods" kept passing through my mind. In my defence, however, I have always been someone who was able to carry on performing strenuous activities in high heat. I also knew that the hill repeats would be, for the most part, in the shade of the woods.

   I walked briskly to the woods (in deference to the heat, I didn't run) and this was just under 2K. Along the way, I took some pics of my neighbourhood!

A quick walk to the end of my street
where I then...

...turn left and head up the long incline toward the Woods.

The hill just goes up until you get to....

...Holy Moses! Bullrushes!

Then, MORE bullrushes,  this time on the
left. Beyond the bullrushes, you can see...

...Warbler Woods, an environmentally
significant area!

Aahhh....shade at last!

The first (and worst) hill! Hard to tell
but it's about a 45 degree angle and
about twenty yards long with a
twist to the right at the top of this pic.

From the top, looking back down.
Pic is slightly fuzzy due to
my physical distress at the time! lol

   There were another four or five hills which were almost as tough as the first one but I managed to get out alive just fine! Basically I ran the hills and walked briskly the rest of the time (occasionally, not quite so briskly) until I exited on the far side of the woods. From there, about another kilometer back to my house, and re-hydration!