Since we arrived last Wednesday here in Avignon, France, I’ve run 21.61 miles, my highest mileage week so far while traveling. I feel like I’m finally getting into a good groove, running every other day. Like I mentioned in my Running Abroad post, I take precautions when I go out for a run, and only now have begun to listen to music if I’ve run the route before and felt safe and secure. I couldn’t find much information about where to run in Avignon online, so I just started exploring. I would start my runs in the afternoon, which I now know was a mistake. There were so many people everywhere, I was the only one running, people like to walk at a slow pace here, and there was a lot of dodging pedestrians and cars. I finally got up this morning to get out the door early. It was a whole different story. I saw multiple people running (always a welcome sight), there were families walking on the path that I had found previously that seemed deserted, and just the decrease in the amount of people out was a huge relief. I did seven miles, and ran the last mile at 8:30, which I was pretty proud of. It was just one of those runs that feels really, REALLY good. As opposed to the one on Monday that I cut short because I just wasn’t feeling it.

I start running from our apartment and then right outside the walls of Avignon, to a bridge that crosses the Rhone River. Here there’s a path that follows the river, and eventually leads to a nice bike path.

Tip to anyone running in Avignon: don’t run directly next to the wall because you will be dodging dog poo the entire time and it smells like urine (and I passed two men peeing on it).

These are a few pictures I snapped during a few of my runs:

 

Tomorrow we get back on the train and head to Narbonne, where our housesitting guests will pick us up and take us to a small wine village nearby. I’m pretty excited!