Paris, City of Fashion

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Yesterday I went running in the Bois de Boulogne.

It was not easy to force myself out, despite the sunny day and the fact that I was running behind on my necessary 9-miler (part of my marathon training). I had to enlist Liz and Alan, my hosts, to come with me for the first 3 miles.

For those of you who know me, the Bois de Boulogne was the scene of my concussion several years ago. I flipped over the handles of my bicycle and landed on my chin, causing me to temporarily lose my vision and have to rush to the hospital. After that I spent two days getting woken up every couple of hours (to make sure I was still alive, I guess; although after two days with no sleep I was ready to take my chances) and suffering excruciating body-wide pain as a result of the whiplash.

So it was with a little trepidation that I put on my Puma running tights, my Nike base layer long-sleeve shirt, laced up my sneakers, and strapped on Alan's GPS running watch.

Still, the day was lovely, if a little brisk; the autumn colors reflected on the pretty lakes that dot the park, and there were plenty of subjects out and about for me to engage in one of my favorite sports (besides running): people-watching.

Really, if you like to people-watch, this is the place to do it. You get the whole gamut, from cute little old couples holding hands and gazing at the lake, to kids riding bicycles (be careful, kids), to random out-of-shape people doing tai chi or air boxing or whatever it was they thought they were doing, to packs of punk teenagers who refuse to get out of your way when you try to pass them on the walkways.

I had initially felt a little silly wearing Alan's GPS watch. I mean, it's a few years old, so it's roughly the size of a dinner plate. I'll admit that it's really cool, though; it tracks your mileage, your pace, calories burned, and allows you to download it all into charts and graphs and maps of every dimension on your computer back home (hm, is Christmas coming up, anyone?).

But still, it was not pretty. Maybe I'm being too girly about this.

It turns out I didn't need to worry about looking dumb, because there were plenty of other people out jogging who were trying even harder to get that look down.

The first contender was a woman we saw as soon as we arrived in the park. There she went, huffing down the street in a pair of Bermuda shorts.

Next up was a couple that couldn't have been serious about running; except that they were. Both wore running shoes, but then they completed the look with blue jeans, nice long wool coats, stylishly wrapped scarves, and wool berets.

I'm pretty sure that I also saw another woman jogging in blue jeans, a man trotting by in a curduroy jacket, and yet more runners in scarves.

Of course, if you know anything about the French, it's that they love to wear scarves. Even in the depths of summer, there are usually a significant number of people wearing something tied around their neck. So I guess I shouldn't have been surprised.

I should point out that though plenty of runners were overdressed, there were also quite a few who veered off towards the other extreme. Too-tight and too-short shorts and revealingly hideous shirts.

But the winner for "Most Fashionable Runner in the Bois de Boulogne" yesterday was a man who unfortunately paced me and my friends for a while, stopping to bend over and tie shoelaces repeatedly. He wore a pair of obscenely tight running tights that squeezed and caressed every inch of his inflated bottom as it jiggled and bounced along, except for when he stopped to bend over, where we could see what can only be described as "crack sweat."

Shudder shudder.

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Comments

[Amber]

Running in a scarf OR jeans sounds miserable, but both- ugh!