Spring is ALMOST here!

Gorgeous day today...sun is shining and temps are in the 40s. I had a refreshing trail run this morning. Mel from Vertical Runner joined me at Happy Days for an easy trail run on the Ledges Trail, Pine Grove, finished off the Ledges Trail, back to Happy Days, and wrapped up with the Boston Run trail. Trail conditions are very good right now. About 7.7 miles in all.Some areas looks as though they haven't had any snow while others have 2-3", and even other areas are getting muddy where they've collected some snow melt. All-in-all, a great time to hit the trails. We ran right into the middle of about 6 or 7 deer and I went for the camera as quick as I could and caught this shot of them but they were moving away quick.

My next NetFlix rental is on the way...it's Running on the Sun...a documentary from 2000 that focused on 13 participants in the 135 mile Badwater ultramarathon. Time to start mentally preparing for the BR100 in August...hopefully, this movie will help. Here's the brief description:

"The Badwater, the most extreme footrace on earth, features a 135-mile course that extends over barren desert, across three mountain ranges and through soaring temperatures of up to 130 degrees Fahrenheit -- with the added perils of flash floods and windstorms along the way. This documentary tracks 13 of the brave participants and runs the full gamut of human emotions with them -- from joy to despair -- as they push the limits of human endurance."

I hope to see you on the trails!

Some inspiration for today:

Perhaps the genius of ultrarunning is its supreme lack of utility. It makes no sense in a world of space ships and supercomputers to run vast distances on foot. There is no money in it and no fame, frequently not even the approval of peers. But as poets, apostles and philosophers have insisted from the dawn of time, there is more to life than logic and common sense. The ultra runners know this instinctively. And they know something else that is lost on the sedentary. They understand, perhaps better than anyone, that the doors to the spirit will swing open with physical effort. In running such long and taxing distances they answer a call from the deepest realms of their being -- a call that asks who they are ...

--David Blaikie