Today it was gray and I was lazy, and then suddenly it was 4 in the afternoon and I hadn’t gone for my run yet. The idea of running the same icy circle I’ve been running all week – the one through a business district where the Quebecois, who apparently are not such big runners as Eugenians, stare openly with annoyance as I run by – was not any sort of motivation. So I agreed to join Patrick for a trip to the gym he recently joined.

The friendly trainer behind the desk at Energie Cardio let me in for free. She took my pulse (for insurance reasons, she mysteriously explained) and off I went to the treadmill. And then I ran, and ran, and ran on the treadmill for one hour. It wasn’t a fancy treadmill with superfluous but distracting numbers flashing, so I tried to amuse myself with a magazine. This did not work: too bumpy. Ultimately I watched Le Monde on the overhead television. There were subtitles instead of sound, and my French was decent enough to get me through stories about the recently freed hostages, avian flu, and the dangers of garden pesticides. Not particularly uplifting, but at least it passed the time and was good for my language practice.

It’s kind of neat, being able to run for an hour without feeling the need to stop. It’s certainly not something I could have done when this started less than two months ago. There were a few times I sped up or added a few degrees of incline just for variety. I don’t know how far or fast I went, but whatever.

And now, I will go eat well earned French food.