The Belt Line trail is a part of what used to be the Toronto Belt Line commuter railway built in the 1890s. The railway was originally constructed as a line to service and promote new suburban neighbourhoods north of the old city limits. The railway ran in a loop to Union Station in the south through the areas that eventually became Rosedale, Moore Park, Forest Hill, and Swansea. Nowadays those neighbourhoods are best known for the old money that lives there, so promoting the areas doesn't seem to be much of a problem today.
The Belt Line railway was never profitable, and it only ran for two years. Parts of the old Belt Line were converted to the Belt Line trail, which now exists in 3 sections totaling 9 km. The section the Nerd and I walked this morning was the Kay Gardner Beltline Park from Mount Pleasant Road to the Allen Expressway.
Yes, I know that the City has used both the spelling "Belt Line" and "Beltline" in describing the same trail (and on the same sign, no less!), and yes, it drives me crazy, but what can you do.
To get to the Belt Line Trail we walked north on Jarvis to Mount Pleasant Road all the way up to the Mount Pleasant Cemetery where this part of the trail begins. There are lots of hills up and down on Mount Pleasant, which is a lovely walk all on its own. The trail proper is beautiful and shaded by a canopy of trees. It was a thoroughly wonderful walk through dappled woods on cinder paths or beaten mulch paths for the most part, and mainly level and easy to walk on. There were lots of joggers, walkers and cyclists (which is to be expected), but there were no real traffic jams to speak of and the Nerd and I were able to keep up a nice pace throughout. We will do that walk again, for sure.
Now for the funny part. Funny "D'oh!" rather than "wow, that's a belly laugh" kind of funny, but you just have to laugh at life sometimes.
So you know I am doing all this walking to train for the big charity walk on September 6, yes? To help keep people from collapsing in blisters, tears and recriminations on the walk the organizers have put together a 24-week training schedule with periodic walks of varying distances. I started the program a couple of weeks ago and was surprised at how quickly the plan called for long distance walks (I'm looking at you, 12.5 mile walks!), however it has been no real problem to do the walks. I am not completely comfortable at the distance yet, but each week is a bit better. I assumed that the intent was to get our bodies used to the distance, and then intermittently add or decrease mileage to challenge us or give us a break, accordingly.
The Nerd asked for a copy of the schedule today so that he could plan his workouts. And that's when he noticed something funny. Although most plans start at week #1 and count up, this one appears to start at week #24 and count down. That's right...I have been doing my training plan backwards. Yep. I have started at the most difficult part of the plan, and have been working on gradually easier walks each week. <facepalm>
Sooooo....we now have reverse engineered the plan so that it's going to build up again to those 12.5 mile walks in a couple of weeks. Yay (said with a complete and utter lack of enthusiasm).
And I was so looking forward to the easier walks, too! Sigh. Although to be fair, this does explain the strange pattern of long walks followed by gradually decreasing distances. I was really puzzled how that was going to help me to be physically prepared to walk 32 km in one day.
Clearly, I was hired for my looks.
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