running guy

I’ve been running consistently since 2008. I’m not fast, I’ve never won a race, and I’ll likely never qualify to run the Boston Marathon. On the other hand, I have raced in multiple countries, logged routes in amazing locations, got fit, had fun and met some of the best people, so I judge the experience a complete success.

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autumn running

A glimpse of autumn single track trails

I don’t abide much my astrological mumbo jumbo but Sagittarius that I am has seemed to inclined me to a love of autumn—the cool weather, the orange-tingted palette, the crunch of leaves on the trail beneath my feet.

We stumbed into a trail run this past weekend. It wasn’t an intense mountain ultra by any means, but in attempting to keep out of the cool October winds early on Sunday morning we ducked into the shelter of the trees and woodier areas adjacent to our more regular running routes and spared little reluctance to dive headlong into hitherto unexplored diversions from the same. 

That is to say, we knew there was some single track through the little suburban creek that cleaves between our little suburban corner of the city and the greater metropolis but they tended to be trails we ignored in favour of either more serious training or longer, more serious running adventures.

But it was Thanksgiving morning, there was a fresh box of it-was-someones-birthday pastries waiting back at the coffee shop where we run, and we were looking at something short and simple and let’s just get it done today and go have a coffee, okay?

The leaves crunching, the colours on the ground and in the trees, and the whole autumn vibe if I’m being honest—it all inspired me to pull out my phone and record some improptu footage of the run. I held the camera ahead of me as I dashed through the trees and dodged obstacles. 

If autumn seems like a long season, here on the Canadian prairies we are often lucky to get more than a week.

By next weekend the air will have chilled a bit more, the leaves will be detritus on the ground surrounded by a million bare branches. There could even be snow—it’s a coin flip. 

So instead we enjoy the trails in the moment, for a moment, and dig our winter gear from storage for another cold season as our autumn running seasons blinks past in a blur of orange and red and brown.

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vision, start line

Since my modest and cautious update on my knee injury a couple weeks ago, I’ve actually been making some measurable progress in both healing and beginning my re-training.

Then a few days later I went to a tour showing of the Banff Film Festival.

I’m not clever enough to make a proper film, but I do think I have an interesting story to tell as I recover and train for Chicago in October.

So I made a video:

The first of a series, I hope. The introduction to a happy conclusion, that too.

It’s a commitment to try and publicly document something difficult like training for a marathon. But it also commits me to training and trying harder to compete the story.

It’s gonna be a crazy year!

Check it out and give it a like to help me get some interest.

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Knee-hab (January Update)

I ran last night.

Not much.

But I ran. Outside. On a trail.

And I can still walk this morning.

If running three klicks through on a random Thursday evening in January sounds less than impressive, let me introduce you to my Medial Collateral Ligament injury and the fact that I haven’t had a pain-free run outside or beyond the confines of a physiotherapy-prescribed treadmill run in over six months.

I pushed myself back in September in the park near my house and ended up limping home and elevating my leg for nearly a week.

This morning, fourteen hours later, I feel pretty normal. Good. Strong. Hopeful.

Back in July of 2022 I injured my knee ligament.

I don’t know how. I don’t know when. I don’t know why. All I know is that one day I was running and training and planning adventure runs through the city. The next day I was struggling to climb a few steps in my house.

I figured a couple weeks recovery.

After a month I went to see the physiotherapist.

He told me it may take a couple months, but maybe as long as four months.

It’s been six months and I’m finally feeling like there is something resembling hope in a recovery.

It was -15C on the trails.

My crew meets sporadically but regularly at an elementary school parking lot near an access point a ravine.

In the spring, summer and fall it’s a beautiful asphalt trail descending into the river valley under a canopy of big old trees.

In the winter, its dark and icy and hauntingly creepy.

I recorded a walking tour there just last week and the view hadn’t changed much to last night, except that I was plodding along at one minute run to one minute walk intervals, and listening to the crunch of my feet through the dark forest trail.

My four companions kept my pace for the first of my one minute intervals, but then I purposely slowed and they dashed ahead. On my second interval I almost felt like if I pushed it I could catch up with them. On the third interval they were little more than bobbing headlamps in the distance and by the fourth I had descending into a canopy of eerie trail that was as much like a haunted pathway towards some frozen hell below as it was the scene of my running recovery run.

At eleven minutes I made a u-turn and returned to my truck, logging exactly three slow kilometers of winter plodding and setting the stage for a “now we wait to see how I feel in the morning” scenario.

And?

And?

I already spoiled the lede, of course. I feel fine this morning. I can still walk… have walked. Gone up and down the stairs a dozen times and…

I have an appointment with my physiotherapist tomorrow. Now I need to fess up that I pushed the program. I suppose it all worked out tho, huh?

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Suburban Ski Day

A sunny Sunday afternoon in January was the perfect day to go check out a few kilometers of trails through a local green (winter white) space in the Edmonton suburbs.

I thought Sundays were for run days, you ask?

That too.

But with my knee-hab progressing at the snails pace that injured ligaments are wont to do, I made my rounds at the gym this morning logging some klicks on the stationary bike then logging a couple klicks of running intervals on the treadmill and…

Those ski trails through the vast swath of snow in the utility corridor were calling.

By chance we live near a utility corridor. There are at least two of these in the city that run laterally, east to west, across the suburbs. About fifty meters wide and spanning the width of the whole city, ish, their purpose is to leave some big open space to run transmission powerlines or major infrastructure without going over, around or through homes. And since there only a minimal day-to-day danger associated with well constructed infrastructure, the utility corridors become huge greenspaces where the only development that can legally occur is an asphalt path or an unfixed trash bucket.

If you live right up against one of these corridors (and many people do) you are, of course, dealing with the generally unsightly view of massive power transmission towers out your back window.

If (instead, like me) you live just a few blocks away, you are less bothered by the view but still close enough to walk to a place where long straight asphalt trails make great running paths or groomed ski trails emerge mysteriously in the winter and stretch for kilometers upon kilometers of gently rolling straightaways.

We parked in the recreation centre parking lot adjacent to where the ski trails passed and hopped aboard, exploring for an hour of exhausting skiing on a Sunday afternoon.

My knee was a bit tender from my morning workout, but in the end it was a perfect day for some low-impact outdoor sport, and a bit of suburban skiing adventure, too.