Sunday, October 22, 2006

7 Mile Run at Five Rivers
Sunday, October 22, 2006

Originally planned to go up to Thacher today, but decided to save some driving and go to Five Rivers instead... also I was a bit worried I'd get back to the car after sundown at Thacher and find myself trapped behind the gates until morning!

A good run today. Hip didn't ache too badly, and I got to run some pretty trails. The sun even put in a brief appearance toward the end! My legs aren't as shot this evening either - maybe I'm getting some of my running strength back.

In 1997 I started running, initially to try to run the Mayor's Midnight Sun Marathon in Anchorage, Alaska, as a fundraising for the Leukemia Society of America (now the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society) Team in Training program. (OK, the real reason was to get a trip to Alaska... we all saw some benefit in the end!) Somewhere along the line I discovered a liked running, and kept going. Then I started hearing about trail running, which sounded really fun - running in the WOODS and other CRAZY PLACES.

I started trail running in the fall of 1997. My first trail run was along a stretch of the Appalachian Trail just outside of Great Barrington, MA. I was hooked right from the start. Late that fall I bought my first pair of trail shoes and went for a run in Mt Washington State Forest, seemingly straight up the side of a mountain. I absolutely loved it. And I've been a trail runner, on and off, ever since.

Today as I was running through the woods, sweating because I'd overdressed slightly, the leaves swishing and crunching under my feet, breathing heavily in the cool autumn air - I was reminded of those first trail runs, 9 years ago. I've run trails in every season and in 4 different states (6, if you count the snowshoe race in Vermont last December and the 8 miles stretch of dirt road we ran on as part of the Alaska marathon in 1997.) Some runs have been magical experiences that I loved and others have just been hard work. But I guess autumn holds a special pull for me - because that's when I first hit the trails to run them, nine years ago.

And I plan to keep running them for as long as I possibly can!

JMH
Posted by at