I went to the Run in Toulouse running group meet-up this evening and hung out with the group that I usually run with. The group breaks up into 3 groups with different distances and I am figuring out different levels of running.

There were more announcements (in French) than there had been on previous runs. I got a little but the leader speaks fairly fast so I was not sure exactly what the announcements were discussing. I did hear a young lady say to the young man she came with (in English) “you can do it”. Since I had not seem them before, I did not know exactly why she said it.

We started running on a different route than we had taken the previous two runs. Just as an aside, running in Toulouse as a large group is definitely interesting. I always thought running with the walkers and cobble stone streets in Old Town was an obstacle course. Toulouse raises that to a whole new level. There are sidewalk cafes that are packed, different surfaces of streets, bollards and sidewalk barrier and lots of people strolling. The leaders of the group just take off and we all follow along and it makes for an an interesting run trying to avoid the obstacles.

We headed to a Main Street and ran down the pedestrian median. We got to where we had to cross a larger street (one of the few in downtown Toulouse). We just headed down a staircase and through the pedestrian tunnel under the street with shops and a metro entrance. Think 40 people running around walkers and people with dogs in a very confined space. No one seems fazed by all this. It amazes me.

Once we got across the main road, we hit a hill – one of the few in Toulouse – and ran up the hill. It is sort of like running Russell Road backwards but slightly steeper. I made it up the hill. The whole group stops to wait for everyone to get to the top of the hill. We ran around a path at the Observatory on the hill (did not know that Toulouse had an observatory so will have to check it out) and headed down another street on the same hill. We circled back and then ran back up the hill for a second time. Not something we did on our Thursday winter run course in Alexandria. After the second hill run, we ran back down and circled back into the main part of Toulouse. This is Thursday night and lots of people are out for happy hour at cafes so the sidewalks are packed. We ran through all of this and then headed back to the meet up point. Other obstacles are bicycles which are much more prevalent than Alexandria as every day transportation. Also, the streets are very narrow so the sidewalks are narrow. There is lots of running in the streets.

Another fun run even though I did not know I would be doing hills.