Tales of Trails, Mountains and Rocky Roads

Having made the decision to finally "retire" from competitive marathon running following my run in the Phoenix Marathon at the weekend, I have spent the past couple of days reflecting on my marathon career whilst I've sat at home with my feet up, recovering from the race whilst both Wilson and Brandy have been curled up next to me on the sofa.  Looking back, I still can't believe that I ran my first marathon 20 years ago as a very young and naive 23 year old "unattached" runner. I also can't believe that I had actually miscounted the number of pure marathons I had taken part in - I thought I had successfully stopped at the nice round number of 30 (discounting ultras), but in fact, I have completed 35 - how the hell did that happen? Had I known, I might have given up earlier - now I'm a little concerned that with my OCD for things being neat and tidy, I might get the urge to make it a nice, neat, round number - but let's not go down that road...

The Las Vegas Marathon in November last year was meant to have been my last attempt at getting another sub 3 hour marathon before I get much older. Unfortunately, the weather put paid to that as we encountered crazy winds on that Sunday evening, and I ended up finishing in 3.28. At the time, I was done. I’d done 30 marathons by then, had several sub 3’s already under my belt, and I really didn’t feel like I had anything to prove, in terms of marathon running, to either myself or anybody else. But the marathon is a nasty beast – in more ways than one – and shortly after Vegas, I found myself entering the Phoenix Marathon which would take place at the end of February. I didn’t tell anybody that I had entered the marathon again. I wanted to keep this one private so that I could just run without the expectation of others, and as soon as I’d done the Across the Years in December, I had a few easy days with no running before building up my mileage again in preparation for the marath...

One of the things I've been missing since moving to Arizona is running on the trails with Wilson and Brandy. When living in Calgary, it was something that I was able to do year round. Undoubtedly there was always a risk of encountering a bear or a moose, or even a cougar - particularly out on the mountain trails - and even closer to the city, we'd frequently see coyotes, rabbits and deer out on runs around Mahogany and Fish Creek. Both Wilson and Brandy have a very high prey drive - something moves and they want to give chase, and I can certainly recall a couple of occasions where Wilson has slipped his leash and gone missing for several minutes when he's spotted deer, rabbits and the bane of his life - squirrels. Since moving to Arizona, the trail runs have become few and far between. One of the reasons for this is the sheer desert heat - even in the winter, there have been days when it has been too hot to run with the dogs - but one of the other reasons is due to the...