Day 11 / Recy - Vitry-Le-François / 37.6 km

I did not sleep well last night. Propably ate to much. My hosts offered me a “repas du soir” including aperitif, starter, Main course, cheese and desert. I ate a lot. Besides the food overdose I’m concerned that I will need to do without my Garmin for the remainder of the trip. After dinner I tried to fix my watch but I was not successful. Finally I decided I would call Garmin support to see if they could help. 

Breakfeast was more sparse than previous evening dinner. Some bread, confiture, orange juice and boule de café. Not  enough to kickstart a runner. I will need to fix this later. 

It was slightly raining when I said farewell to my hosts and started running. Rain was forecasted for the rest of the day...(thank you for indulging me my daily weather complaining time. It works therapeutic).

Today would be a run along the Canal de la Marne which  connects the river Marne and the Canal entre Champagne et Bourgogne in Vitry-le-François with the port of Strasbourg on the Rhine. The original objective of the canal was to connect Paris and the north of France with Alsace and Lorraine, the Rhine, and Germany.The 313 km (194 mi) long canal was the longest in France when it opened in 1853. I would keep the canal only 37 km company. Mostly straight and paved, a runners highway or TGV.

Before really kicking off I planned to do a quick visit of Châlons en Champagne’s Cathedral and collect a stamp in my credential. The Cathedral was closed. It started raining harder,  I bought 2 pain de raisins. as it was raining I decided to take a coffee and call Garmin support. I explained the urgency and the impact of my incident to make sure the support guy gave it the right priority (Just wanted to test I still master the ITIL lingo). The incident was fixed within minutes. Meaning for the non-service management people : my watch rebooted and worked again....I was a happy camper.

Time to start running. The next couple of hours I spend along the canal. Most of the time it was slightly raining although meteo agricole (considered by the locals as the most trustworthy meteo source) promised otherwise. During 35 km I did not meet or see any person.

Every kilometer there was a small stone indicating the distance remaining to Vitry, the Garmin of the 19th century. The last 10km I decided to make a photo countdown, unfortunate I did not find km 2 and 1....but I can give you kilometers 10 to 3 to show you I made the effort. The autistic side in me found it quite disappointing not to find number 2 and 1 !

But I did find other things ! Like a rowing boat in the forrest.

Or even better a less or more working scale. The scale indicated I weighted 75 kilo including my backpack. It started already at 5 kilo so it would mean I weigh around 65 kilo. I think there is a reason the scale is not in someone’s bathroom anymore.

I also envounterd a strange building/structure whichlooked like a mixture of a midieval castle and WOII maybe I found the remains of Castle Wolfenstein. 

I continued running. Following the yellow arrows of the Compostella route. The Compostella route is often following a GR. 

 

Finally I arrived in Vitry-Le-François in a slight drizzle where I had booked a 45€/night hotel recommended by the Tourist office. I wil include a review in tomorrow’s blog.

Lessons learned today : 

- No meteo is to be trusted.

- Not a lot of people run along the Marne canal on a weekday

- Eric Clapton has released an album called the Pilgrim but it is not available on Spotify yet. Iron Maiden although have a song called “the pilgrim”. An acquired taste.

- One can be very happy when a sportwatch reboots.

Song of the day : Je ne suis pas un héros - Daniel Balavoine. (FYI I’m having dinner in a French TL luminated restaurant with radio Nostalgie on the background).

T.

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