Running

  On September 3, 1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Wilderness Act into law. Its purpose: “to assure that an increasing population, accompanied by expanding settlement and growing mechanization, does not occupy and modify all areas within the United States and its possessions, leaving no lands designated for preservation and protection in their natural condition” and “to ensure for the …

Time is life; it is breath; it is each moment and the collection of every moment that makes up each hour of every day, week, and year of our lives. These moments are precious. The mere existence of their existence is unique in all the known universe. Time is the universal gift, the space between our first breath and our …

The swing between seasons is drastic here in the Pacific Northwest. During summer, dawn breaks early, and each long day is ripe with potential. Endless possibilities for exploring exist along ribbons of trails, ridgelines, and a skyline of summits that only come into focus as silhouettes in the setting sun. I love collapsing in the dirt or back of the …

Any way you slice it, a consistent running practice requires a huge amount of effort. The daily/tri-weekly/bi-weekly ritual of overcoming one’s own lethargy and lacing up for miles requires cultivating a wellspring of mental fortitude and resilience. Just about any reason to get off the couch and out the door is a good one. But sustaining the practice beyond a …

Why do humans run? Evolutionarily, our unique bipedal movement served as transportation and survival. Our legs got us places. If our endurance and primitive tools bested our prey, we ate. If we ran faster than what or who was chasing us, we survived. Fast forward 70,000 years from the Paleolithic period, and the once critical evolutionary adaptations our bodies made …

For a long time, I hated running. It held no joy. It was an exercise to do, a chore to perform. It was work, and it hurt. The best moment of a run tended to be when it was over. The value of running was a means to an end: enhanced fitness, which meant increased performance in the mountains or …

2020 was disorienting, a year that made mockery of our plans and expectations and made division and uncertainty an aspect of daily living. It was a climb over false ridges, navigating across a landscape I didn’t have a map for—that none of us had a map for.  Lost?.. yes, and loss itself seemed everywhere. Our social, political and professional worlds …

As I age, I have found a love for running up steep hills in the woods. It started because of bad knees and old dogs and continues as a personal challenge…but first let’s talk about the fact that it’s not easy growing older in a college town. Everywhere I go, there are young, dewy-eyed millennials who look beautiful without even …

  What calls? What beckons? What primeval invitation is answered when the comforts of modernity are exchanged for dirt, rain, and rocks?  A better body? A more enviable digital platform? A belt buckle? Bar room bragging rights? For sure each of those things have their appeal:  the ego is a force to be reckoned with. Yet, stripped of pretense, weathered, …

One week last summer, my husband and I, both avid trail runners constantly looking to challenge ourselves, decided to summit a peak every day. Because we live in Bellingham, WA., our first few runs took us to local mountains like Stewart, Oyster Dome, and Lookout before we decided to venture to longer routes across the border. Howe Sound Crest, nestled …