Colorado

Ahh, Colorado.



Heaven.















Stunning.






Fun.





Joy.

Paradise.

Bliss.

If you want inner peace find it in solitude, not speed, and if you would find yourself, look to the land from which you came and to which you go. - Steward L. Udall

Read more on Colorado (run up James Peak) here.

Summer: Over-rated, but still lots of good things

Summer isn’t my best season, due mostly to the fact that it is too hot and humid to ever be comfortable running, plus the mosquitos are atrocious which can make working or relaxing outside decidedly un-fun. So a big fat double boo hiss to summer for messing with two huge parts of my life.

Anyway, I decided to make a list of things I actually DO love about summer.

- Butterflies and dragonflies
- Birds singing
- Swimming in a deep, refreshing lake
- Getting a tan
- Dressing very light when running
- Blackberries
- Fresh produce in general
- Long, long hours of daylight
- Greenness
- Open windows
- Outdoor shower
- Clothesline
- Thunderstorms
- Our Fiskars lawnmower












Cooling their paws after a big storm, from L-R Siku, Neeka, Mali, Jesse, Willy, Meela

Great Summer Read: Endurance

If anyone is looking for the perfect adventure story to read this summer, try Alfred Lansing's 1959 classic (the 1999 2nd edition is widely available) Endurance: Shackleton's Incredible Voyage.

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It is an absolutely fascinating account of the 1914 Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition that went horribly wrong. Lansing wrote the book after interviewing and researching diaries of the majority of the expedition's members. It's a tough one to put down.

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“For scientific discovery, give me Scott. For speed and efficiency of travel, give me Amundsen. But when disaster strikes and all hope is lost, get down on your knees and pray for Shackleton.”

–Sir Raymond Priestley

Training sensibly and seeing where that leads

All through the last year of spiraling down into injury and then building back up to recovery, I still "loved running" as a life philosophy, and basically just something I deep down really do love. But really? Many, many, many of those runs were pretty darn sucky. I was hurt, burnt out, and then finally just plain out of shape.

The last few weeks things are really starting to click again, and I'm loving running as an actual Thing To Do again, not just a theory. In a way I'm loving it more than I ever have, because I'm so revived and appreciative of it after the break from training, and I'm also returning in a sensible way.

This sensible approach business feels so good I think I'm going to continue it. Instead of my usual high weeks then really low weeks where I'm toast, I'm going to pace myself, increase mileage gradually, and just generally be a whole lot smarter.

I'm in the middle of a recovery week after three consistent weeks of 7-8 hours each, and I'm recovering really quickly while only dropping down to about 6ish. A more typical pattern for me might have been something like 11, 14, 4, 6 ....not intending the 4 or the 6 but paying the price. I still want to increase, but I'm not going to try going from A to Z all at once. Skipping those other letters is not a good idea at all. I think I'm going to really enjoy those other letters.

Da Plan, Boss! Da Plan!

After averaging about 6 hours/week for the past three months, and up to 8 hours/week now, I felt the time had come to make myself a current training plan (with a little help from Derrick). I find having a plan helps me to stay on track and to progress.

I need a training plan that has the perfect balance of Set-in-Stone and Flexible. The Set-in-Stone aspect is that the basic framework is non-negotiable unless there's a BGR (bloody good reason) for missing a run completely. This at least gets me out the door.

But besides that, there is a lot of flex:

• A range of times.


• Morning runs either before work or over lunch, while second runs can either be over lunch or after work. That way I can fit the day's training around other priorities.


• Choice between weeks A and B. Right now I'm doing a bunch of A's to build volume and get used to workouts again before sprinkling in more B's later on, which have two workout days.


• Workout options: Currently my workouts are more of a 'steady to low-end tempo', but soon I can add hills, tempos, intervals, progressions, etc. (Workouts will eventually get a plan of their own with more specifics.)

Q1: Do you find that you need a training plan, or do you prefer to make it up as you go along?

I had an interesting discussion with Karen on our lunch run about where that deep-down desire to take the plunge and commit to a challenging race even comes from. Q2: Any thoughts on that topic?

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This Weekend's Forecast

An Unexpected Gift from the Rockies

Sometimes you have to go on a date with a supermodel to appreciate the girl next door. When Derrick and I went to Banff National Park last October, I was concerned that being in this iconic mountain landscape that I had dreamed of seeing for so long would ruin me forever for living in Ontario. I’ve loved being in mountainous places in New Hampshire, Vermont, New York, Quebec, BC, Oregon - but always I had put the Canadian Rockies on the high pedestal of being my Dream Place, sight unseen. And maybe they still are in a way, but I was also paradoxically given a huge gift in that they made me appreciate home.

And it’s not to take anything away from the spectacular scenery and wildness of the Canadian Rockies. It is impossible not to drool over the eye-candy scenes that are literally everywhere; to enjoy the endless trails; to marvel at being among grizzlies and cougars; to soak up the pure, invigorating air; and to relish the space that we luckily had mostly to ourselves in the post-summer/pre-ski season. It was really, really awesome.

Everyone we knew joked that we’d not want to leave, and prior to the trip I would have agreed that I’d be happy to stay forever in my Dream Place. And it was true that driving back from the airport in Toronto, passing such a high population density all the way to our house, we missed all that great western space. Even on our little dirt road in the relative middle of nowhere, it felt cramped with houses everywhere. And of course we missed the mountains, as we always do when we return from them.

But at the same time I felt completely at peace with being home, and have ever since. For some reason I’m now better able to appreciate the landscape and trails we have here for what they are. We’re lucky in that they are almost always deserted, so we have the natural world to ourselves. We see a surprising variety of animals very close to where we live. Even better, just twenty minutes from our house is the edge of the massive Canadian Shield. Suddenly we cross over into a world that is full of constantly rolling hills, and filled with jutting granite, shining lakes, abundant wildlife, and endless woods.

Happily, our nearby mountain playground of the Adirondacks in New York is also now dosed with more of my appreciation. These ancient mountains are undeniably gorgeous, and such a short drive away for us. And as trail runners, it’s really nice being able to reach the summits of any of the endless peaks with relative ease; every single one we see is fair game.

As much as it is a welcome joy to run trails in new places, it is also getting to know particular trails intimately from countless journeys that is part of what makes a place special to me. I think Leslie helped me realize this with how much she loves where she lives, in Banff. And it’s not about the tourist views; it is about deeply knowing her environment from countless hours spent traveling on foot through it, wandering into the deepest corners until it becomes enmeshed in, and inseparable from, who she is. I took that lesson home with me and it opened my eyes and made me appreciate what I already have but was too dense to see.

The beauty of our Shield-next-door is more subtle than the supermodel mountains, but is lovely in its own unique way. I have always known that loveliness, but coming back I felt something shift as I saw it now with no qualifications or inadequacies attached. As in, I got it, registered it and – as I keep repeating - appreciated it.

It’s a theme that life keeps teaching me over and over in different ways, about feeling okay right where I am. Like peeling the proverbial onion, here’s yet another layer of it.

Heading to Colorado this summer, I’m excited to see the U.S. Rockies and enjoy the serious eye candy with fun new trails. And then come home and run our own serene, beautiful trails at home. And be happy with that.








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Just one of many in the land of the tall, freakishly beautiful, somewhat inaccessible, and very photogenic.