Switzerland run #1

A spur-of-the-moment trip to Switzerland to visit Kate, arriving late Friday. Saturday was our Grand Day Out in the Lucerne area, amply covered by Kate's blog and my FB post. Kate had to study some of Sunday, and work some of Monday, so I took advantage and tried out barefoot running in Zürich.

Sunday run (anticlockwise) to the lake 7.6 miles

Showing the Sihl and Limmat rivers

My first run was to explore Lake Zurich aka Zürichsee. I was mistaken in thinking the river near Kate's apartment would take me there - in fact the Sihl manages to run roughly parallel to but separate from the lake for almost its whole length.

Towards the bottom left of my map my route turned abruptly to the right - this was because there was a cordon straight ahead and a man waving me in that direction, so I duly acquiesced and found myself with other runners and soon I could see the finishing line ahead and there were crowds either side cheering me on. I felt quite elated, until an official told me I shouldn't be there. Later I found it was the Gigathlon Switzerland 2017.

Having realised the lake was being allusive, I turned eastwards and eventually found myself beside it and sufficiently far from the city to afford some places to swim. The advantage of running barefoot is that one can simply swim without needing to change, or needing to dry afterwards. Running shorts dry pretty quickly.

I returned along the lake shore to where the main river flows out (the Limmat, which eventually discharges into the Rhine).

Now almost home I found this curious drinking fountain. I wasn't thirsty...