Jogging in the Hood

So I've been running a lot here and I love it.

There are also a lot of people in my program who also enjoy running and some that even enjoy running at my ridiculously slow pace! We practically have a running club at CMRS and usually people go running around the town every day. I'm secretly hoping that we students at CMRS will gain this reputation of being incredibly athletic because Oxfordians will always see a pair of us running somewhere around the city.

Yesterday a gang of 7 of us ran around town. I'm not going to lie, I felt pretty intense rocking the pink spandex in public, next to Nora who was rocking her glittery, metallic purple spandex, behind Kelly who wore a fuchsia zip-up. We were quite a colorful crew as we weaved in and out of people in the streets.

A couple blocks away is Christ Church which is the epitome of an old-school university. It is massive and beautiful; it has turrets and its made of stone. You could probably mistake it for a castle. The best part of Christ Church is that it has a 2 mile loop of dirt tails which runs along the Thames River.

Every time we have run along the river, I have seen crew teams practicing. Crew is huge here and I would love to do it if it was not so early in the morning and if it did not increase the possibility of encountering elephant ducks. Thames River is home to the largest ducks I have ever seen; they are twice the size of geese...I cannot even fathom it. In a fight between one of these killer ducks and my dog Bella, I'm sure the duck would massacre her in under 2.7 seconds. How the ducks became this new species of superhuman ducks, I'm not sure. But I think it's safe to say that is has something to do with the fact that people constantly feed them. These people do not realize that they are helping to breed killer ducks that could one day wipe away our dog population.

Also, I'm very surprised by the weather here. I thought it would constantly be cold and rainy with a bite in the air, but it has not been bad at all. It has rained a couple days, but it has not even been constant rain, just spouts of it every now and then. It's even been somewhat warm and really great running weather; it's cool so you don't sweat profusely but it's not the kind of cold where it hurts with every breath of air.

I think my favorite moment of running so far was yesterday, when I was jogging next to Nora around the loop of Christ Church. It was a typical overcast day, with endless gray skies, and it looks like it might snow. We looked across a meadow and the university seemed to rise out of the fog surrounding it. Majestic is really the only way I can describe this beautiful castle-like structure looming above the fog in the distance.

I am looking forward to more runs to do more city exploration. And I think I am in luck, because there will be plenty of people to motivate me to go.