One of the many things I enjoyed about Spain was the plethora of public spaces. After we checked in to our hotel I went for a short walk before dinner to get the lay of the land. The street our hotel was on intersected with several others near one entrance to a large public park by the Bridge of Toledo that ran along a river. According to our tour guide the park was only recently, within a year or so, completed. (I feel like that last sentence is grammatically bad. Meh, I move on.) Our guide said the mayor of Madrid had decided to move a couple of the major roads underground and reclaim the river for the people of Madrid. I’d say he had a good idea:
View from the Bridge of Toledo looking Southeast.
View from the Bridge of Toledo looking Northwest.
After my walk I had dinner, near Labors of Love, and had decided to run along this park the following morning. Mind you we had just arrived in Madrid after a 15 hour or so journey from SFO. I awoke early the next morning to get in my 3 miles, donned my running gear and headed out. Everything started well, it was a lovely morning, the park was beautiful. I passed playgrounds, cafes, playing fields for futbol or whatever and things like this:
Then, less than a mile in I was puffing and wheezing. “WTF?” I thought. “Damn, I must really be jet lagged.” I pressed on pausing several times, something I never do at that distance. Then it dawned on me to check the elevation. Duh. Turns out Madrid is like 2,000 ft above sea level and I’m used to running at 97 ft; I didn’t feel so bad about resting.
Before leaving I took a photo of the entrance to the park that I used near the Piramides tube station and saw that maybe I should have been more wary about running there
Why?
Because there were:
Adventuring in Europe 
Very inspiring:)