I arrived in Calgary and had a few days to explore as I was going on a camping trip with some friends in the mountains that left on Friday afternoon.  First activity, pet the cat.  One must always pet the cat that stands guard by your door all night.

Next up was realizing that you left a pair of running shorts at home and you planned on doing some running during this leg of the journey.  So on the agenda was find running shorts, any additional camping gear I didn’t bring to my parents house (Water Filter, Bear Spray etc) and explore the city.  First order of business was to eat, and and I had a strange burger craving, so I stopped at a local looking burger joint and was not disappointed.

I feel like I would have to run this off later but for now it was really really good.  Next, a good insta photo of the tower which is always important.

I went to two running stores for the shorts and at the Running Room, I explained that I had left my shorts at home and I was more interested in cheap than over performance and they offered me the store brand shorts (which i actually ended up loving!!) with the boxer brief inners instead of brief (which i love) and they knocked off a pretty decent ammout for me.  I also noticed that they were doing a group run that night and so I decided I was going to join the group run that evening.  On my way home to the apartment, I stopped by the pinball bar that had newly opened near their place for some pinball and a beer.

They even had the brand new Iron Maiden machine!

I returned to the apartment, got my running stuff on and then ran back to the running room in order to start their run.  I opted for their longest run option which was the marathon and half marathon trainers.  The route took us along the river in a up one side and down the other side of the river loop which was 8km long.  I just joined up with the fastest person and hoped that they knew the way.  I ended up running the full 8km with Kevin who was running at a decent pace (although nothing like the fast group at EBBR) and we chatted about running and racing and what not.  It was very pleasant.  After the run a bunch of people stood around for a little but, but then anti climactically walked back to their cars to go home.  I am so used to having a social gathering after a run that this kind of left me feeling weird, but it was all good and so I just ran home.

It’s ok because I ended up posting an open invite bar night on social media for all my Calgary friends to come hang out.  We ended up with a pretty good crew and not everyone knew each other beforehand which was neat.  We had a great time catching up and the beer was pretty decent given the decently commercial brewpub atmosphere that seems to be very popular in Canada these days.

The brewpub was called Trolley 5 and it was decent.

The next day I opted to do a short run and then headed out on a beer day in the area that Calgarians call the Barley Belt.  It had several breweries within walking distance which is the type of thing I typically gravitate towards.  I walked down to the area and the first Brewery I came across was Paddy’s BBQ and Brewery which was handy, because it was lunch time and I was hungry.

I got a flight and a pulled pork sandwich, was delicious. Beers were pretty good too!

The next stop was a few minutes down the road called Born Colorado.  When I arrived it almost looked like they were closed, but the one guy in there said that they were indeed open, but the bartender was aunable to show up for the first little bit of the day so he was covering, while still brewing a batch of beer.  It was pretty neat because I was the only one in there and the brewer was the only one working, so I had a great chat about the origins of his brewery and the beer he likes to brew etc.  After a little bit of time though, people starting pouring in which created more opportunities to talk to people.  I ended up spending a bunch of time here since the vibe was cool and the people were chatty.

Eventually it was time to move on, so I used my feet and walked over to the next one on my list, called Banded Peak Brewing.  I got the flight and sat alone at a table.  After the experience at the last place, this one was more of a let down.

I finished the flight and then headed towards the next stop which was a bit of a walk down the road.

Next stop was Annex ale project which would also be my last stop of the day.

I didn’t have as much time at this place so only had a pint as I was getting picked up by a friend to go watch POWER LIFTING!!!

Erin is the friend who I am staying with and is very into power lifting, she’s also pretty skilled as well.  The world championships of the IPF were happening in Calgary and so she wanted to go and asked me along.  I know literally nothing about Powerlifting and learned a pretty decent ammount, in that powerlifting is different than weightlifting and there are several organizations running various forms of competitions.

We watched the 63kg women and it was a combined total of three lifts.  A Squat, Bench press and deadlift.  Each person get’s three attempts and their best successful one is counted, so typically they start with an easier weight and then go higher.  I enjoyed seeing the women lift ridiculous ammounts of weight and at the end, pretended to be a fanboy by getting a selfie with the winner.

I also pretended to lift on stage.

After the mini photoshoot, we headed back into town and I treated Erin and Christian to dinner for letting me stay at their place, even though Erin got a futon AFTER I left.

I then made sure to bring them to the pinball bar down the street since it was the logical thing to do.

The next day it was time to head out of Calgary and into the mountains.  We weren’t leaving until the early afternoon so I had the morning to kill and decided to go for a walk.  I forgot to get my mom I’m ok photo with the Calgary tower, so i ventured over there to get that.  I also had a few last minute supplies to get for camping such as Bear Spray and food.

I also loved how every grate in Calgary had little footprints on them seen below in this example shown on steps.

The morning was uneventful and eventually I got picked up for ,y first foray into the mountains!!!