Running in the river valley

For those who don't know Edmonton, the river valley is one of the most beautiful in the world. We are not blessed with a mountain view like Calgary so we have to settle for seeing many, many trees and a slow moving brown river.

The North Saskatchewan River is not at the same level as the the rest of the terrain, and is actually lower. This allows there to be very large hills full of trees along the river. In the fall, there are kilometres (not miles in Canada) of trees that are turning color. If there is a big frost, the trees proudly show it. In the summer, all of the trees leaf pretty much simultaneously signifying the start of much warmer weather.

This river valley, is host to golf courses, recreational clubs, public parks and running trails. I was lucky enough to find myself on the running/biking/walkinng/rollerblading trail along River Valley Road with my soccer team. We are training for the beginning of the outdoor season that starts in May. We ran from the Kinsmen Sports Complex, up and down the Glenora Club Stairs, to Groat Bridge and then back the exact course we went.

I have been running the occasional time this winter. However, my schedule doesn't really allow me to exercise and have a lunch so I have to settle for running when I can. Therefore, I'm not in-shape as much as I would like to be. This run that we went on turned out to be pretty killer. Not only am I in semi-decent shape, but I seem to have a bit of allergies around University Finals. This combined with the fact that I'm learning about the lungs in school made me think that I have a new disease called Chronic Restrictive Pulmonary Disease.

Nevertheless, the one thing that struck me was the amount of young (aged 20-30) females that were running outside at 7-8PM. I'm all for people for getting out to exercise. The thing that I thought was odd or different was the fact that they were all running ALONE. Our soccer team had about 10 people there to run. I shouldn't really be fear mongering since we get enough of that from Bush but I thought that when you are running in the River Valley at night there really isn't anywhere to go if somebody were to approach you. You'd be far away from your car and the possibility of being far away from other people and are in a vulnerable position. There are few streetlights there too...so if you were having trouble finishing your exercise you would have to walk back in the dark

However, it's not like I have a problem running there. Of course, I end up doing it as a group but never once have I felt unsafe. If I lived Downtown, I'd likely run there on my own. Just because I'm safe, and male, that should women should feel safe right? Edmonton did have its highest number of murders last year but I'd still call it a safe city. Not having any statistics in front of me and no willingness to do any research, I'd wager a guess that women are most likely physically assaulted in random attacks than men. I'm just saying that I want women out there to be careful. I don't want anybody to get hurt while doing things like exercising!