Favorite Time Of Year

It seems as though Run Rabbit Run really did heal up a lot of the physical illness and weakness that I was feeling in the weeks leading up to it. I took 2 days off after the race and then when I went for a short run last Tuesday I felt better than I've felt in weeks. My legs felt fresh and my chest cold seemed to finally be more or less a thing of the past. In the week since this I've felt much better than I have since early August. Not great everyday, but who ever feels great everyday? I was even able to do a 6.5 hour run on Sunday and really enjoy being out for that long. Previous to this every long run I've done in the past several weeks felt pretty miserable by the end.

It feels good to be healthy and feeling mostly strong again. The altitude still feels hard sometimes but I feel much more comfortable with it now. I think living and training this high will change my perspective and my training a little bit, but I'm confident that with time I will find the ways to turn this into a positive change. Much like I needed to do when I moved to Juneau. My first several months in Juneau I felt like the steepness of all of the trails there was really going to hinder my training. The ironic thing about this is that I am now trying to adapt to being here without feeling like the gradual nature of the trails in this area doesn't hinder my training. I'm sure I'll figure it out. I feel like I mostly have already.

I like the timing of starting to feel strong again. Autumn was always my favorite time of year (before moving to Juneau where autumn is more or less miserable) and it feels nice to be living somewhere right now that has nice crisp autumn weather. I've got a lot of running related stuff that I'm really looking forward to in the next several weeks (and feeling stronger in my body definitely makes all of these things a lot more appealing):

I'd like to meet up somewhere north of here in Wyoming with Karl and run a day with him on The Pony Express Trail. This will depend on the timing of when he rolls through this area.

At the end of next week I'll be heading down to the Grand Canyon to do some hiking, camping, and most likely a Rim To Rim To Rim run. Probably just take it easy and do 9 or 10 hours, but maybe I'll end up feeling a bit more inspired to make a push for a fast R2R2R time.

The week after that I'm going to head out to Georgia to run The North Face 50 mile race in Pine Mountain. Should be a fun little run in the southern Appalachians.

Shortly after this I'm going to head up to Juneau for a short visit with friends and if I get any kind of break in the typically miserable October weather in Juneau I'll be running up and down as many mountains as I can in the few days that I'll be there.

And then beyond all of this I am certainly planning to run the San Francisco North Face 50 miler in December. I suspect the competition in Marin will be even hotter this year as it seems like every ultra runner I talk with has plans of running for a piece of the $10,000.