The Great Magnetic Wife and Lori went off shopping with Lori's Friend. Bruce went off to London for the day for a business meeting. The girls also met up with my cousin Liz, who lives in Fontainebleau. This seemed like the perfect opportunity to get in some actual training. Looking at a map of Paris, I saw a large park a little more than a mile from our hotel. The park is the Bois de Boulogne. It is big, and according to my tour book is a popular place to run. I didn't see a lot of runners, but it did start to rain about 30 minutes into the run.
I ran about a mile down Avenue Foch from the Arc de Triomphe to the Bois de Boulogne. I didn't bring a water bottle, but I figured that this was a big city park, there were bound to be a lot of water fountains. Apparently the French don't believe in public water fountains. They do like them for dogs, though. There were plenty of water fountains for dogs. Eventually, about 5 miles into the run, I really needed some water and I couldn't just drink the rain, so I humbled myself and got down on all fours and drank out of the doggie water fountain. Hey, they drink out of our toilets whenever they can.
The Bois de Boulogne is really beautiful. There is a combination of lakes, large fields, woods, everything you could want in a big park. It reminded me a lot of Central Park in New York.
At some point I took a turn that had me running down a path next to the Seine. It is a section that is lined with house boats. Some were spectacular, some were run-down pieces of junk that made me wonder how they actually stayed afloat. But it was a nice section that seemed as if tourists don't often go. At some point, I thought I might be lost. I wasn't getting closer to anything I recognized. I ran back up to the main road and suddenly realized that I had passed there about an hour earlier. I could have sworn I was going one direction.
I ran by Longchamp Racecourse, one of two horse racing tracks in the Bois de Boulogne. It was quite nice. The track itself was much bigger than an American horse track. I estimate the track was over two miles around. It was all turf, no dirt. I found a park map and made my way back to the hotel. In all, I ran for about two and a half hours and cover a little over twelve miles. Not a bad day of training.
When I was back at the hotel, The Great Magnetic Wife called and asked if I wanted to join her and the girls for some shopping. I could hear my cousin Liz in the background, wisely say, "no!" Perhaps The Great Magnetic Wife was just trying to be nice, but I can't imagine why I would possibly want to join three ladies on a shopping trip.
I decided to make my way over to he Arc de Triomphe and check it out up close. Rain was threatening again, but if it rained, so what? Just as I crossed the street to the entrance of the tunnel that takes you to the ADT, I was approached by a woman who asked, "do you speak english?" I said yes. She handed me a card that said that she was from Bosnia, and then WHAM! I was pushed hard from behind into the woman. I knew immediately what was happening. Pickpockets! Fortunately, every guide book I read, warned of pickpockets and so I kept my wallet in the zipped, inside pocket of my jacket. I pulled away and left. Nothing was taken, but I'm sure that I would not have kept my wallet zipped away if it was not for the guide book warnings. Thanks, guidebooks!
I went through the tunnel and checked out the Arc from the ground. I figured I would come back with The Great Magnetic Wife for a trip to the top. The sky was getting pretty dark, so I headed back into the tunnel to go back to the hotel. By the time I got to the other side it was hailing quite hard. I was surprised.
The girls eventually made it back and we had espresso in the hotel bar. Liz left to go back home and the rest of us went to Cafe L'Esmarelda for dinner. In a bit of gender role reversal I had the croque madam and The Great Magnetic Wife had the croque monsieur.
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