Day 1-Toulouse to Villefranche de Lauragais

Before starting this run, I was considering running for a charity of some cause. There are a few causes near and dear to my heart but I couldn’t choose, so I decided against it. As I flew into Toulouse it hit me. Each day’s run will be dedicated to someone that has been lost along the way during my five years abroad.

Today’s run is dedicated to Freddie Thompson. Coach T served as my high school basketball coach for three years but bigger than a coach the purpose he served in my life. He was a father figure, confidant, encourager and mentor. For I am grateful for our time and I know that if he was with us now he would be cheering me on. Thanks coach 🙏🏾

We hit the trail softly after 7am local time after a quick photo op to start our run. We both were still in awe of the trail and it’s beauty. Trees and nice overcast for the majority of the run with a nice breeze from Mother Nature made for a great first day( Ben pointed out there are said to be 440,000 of one particular tree along the canal. We’re counting everyone of them. Currently, at 37,453). We were accompanied along the trail by many runners near the city of Toulouse but that changed as we moved to the burbs and countryside which was dominated by cyclists. Our major mistake of the day was hydration. We were under the impression that there would be places to stop along the way to hydrate, boy were we wrong lol. We were able to befriend a man in the boathouse to fill us up and towards the end of the run we came across a waterspout where we could top off. By the end of the week we will have this down to a science but today we are still rookies.

All in all, an amazing first day along the beautiful canal surrounded God’s beauty. As Ice Cube once said, ‘I gotta say, today was a good day’. Oh yeah and we had popsicles!