September 9

As of tomorrow morning, I will be counting down seven days to the Equinox Marathon in Fairbanks, wherein I will at long last consummate my long-standing courtship with long distance running. Each morning now I glance out the window at the thermometer & past where it hangs to take in the distant tableau of mountains either bathed in alpenglow or cloaked completely in roiling grey cloud. Each day in running I feel for anomalies in my feet, I survey the trails for jutting roots, I yell my hey bears the louder the closer I get to the date of the race & the more berry-dense shits I see scattered along the way. & in spite of my chosen terrain, I’ve been incredibly fortunate thusfar— tripping & falling three or four times with no lasting issues (a comical shitshow with all three dogs attached), seeing a couple bears with no negative consequence, trying new shoes with no resulting hot spots. So I feel this odd cautious optimism. Last time I tried to this I was hamstrung with peroneal tendonitis, but then last time I tried to do this I was probably hamstrung with a great deal more as well. It doesn’t seem, anymore, such a distant dream, lodged ever on some horizon beyond my grasping. But then nothing that I want does, which is maybe the point. So strange, after all these years, to see budding in me some belief in my own abilities again. I haven’t really said it out loud to anyone but Kristin, but finishing this marathon will mean more to me than I will even begin to intimate, & I suspect that it will take root in some internal flourish to which I won’t necessarily lend voice. It seems fitting that it should crescendo as quietly as it builds, & shape what it will with that selfsame care. But it will be a kind of wellspring in me for some time after.

The other half of it, beyond the personal satisfactions I derive from it & from alpine running in general, is that once achieved, I can begin to understand training for longer distances. Next year the goal will include several races that my schedule prohibited this time around, & among them there will assuredly be a much longer course. But as we get nearer our understanding of & fraternity with sled dogs, I want to get closer to empathizing with their distances as well. I’m curious about where those two kinds of training can overlap, & what advantage there might be in that. If nothing else, some day I can slip off the runners in a race & join in the effort myself, for as many miles as may be necessary. I don’t generally like asking of others what I’m incapable of myself, & so I’d like it to be with dogs.

It’s interesting to me to find some kind of categorical correlative for what I’ve done out of a very simple drive all this time. Maybe we know better than we think we do after all.

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