Cloudy day in Cordes

Chasing the baloons

I headed out this Sunday morning, taking the dirt road that first caught our attention when we arrived in Cordes-sur-Ciel. The bells are calling the village to church, three hot-air balloons are floating around the hills, and somehow this supposedly familiar road keeps revealing another false summit. Without Samantha interrupting me, I can let my thoughts wander—from balloons and old farmhouses to French cooking, my muddled geography, and the realization that I’ve now gone farther than we did on that first hike. I’m also thinking about you listeners as we go, because I’m trying to make these little excursions shorter, more focused, and hopefully a bit more interesting than simply throwing my Strava statistics at you. So this is the Running Jackal, heading over the ridge, being followed by hot-air balloons, making the occasional factual blunder, and wondering what’s waiting on the other side.

Norma's POV

Derick the Sidney days

A little Running Jackal time travel today, back to one of my historic Sidney runs with Derek during the COVID era. Derek was coming back after a couple of months off, so we took it steady, talked about getting him back into training, and planned on meeting every Thursday for the next month. As usual, the conversation went everywhere—shoes, UFOs, electric cars, Facebook relationships, virtual races, Beirut and even gadgets that supposedly knew how many calories we’d eaten! Despite the social-distancing restrictions, Derek kept going like the Eveready Bunny, and we ended up covering about 4½ kilometres at a pretty respectable pace while still remembering that training is about listening to your body, not simply chasing speed. Looking back from 2026, it’s a great little snapshot of those strange COVID days—and another reminder that running with a good friend can make even a socially distanced world feel pretty normal.