Fall, or Why I'm Starting a Running Blog

Fall is my favourite time of year to run. Until winter, when I will remember the joys of winter running - but for now, fall is upon us. The air is crisp and dry, the sky is (usually) clear and the trees on the trails are slowly turning all shades of fiery splendour. Some mornings, I breathe in and the damp, faintly sweet smell of decomposing leaf litter instantly transports me back to high school cross-country races. Fall is always a time of renewal for me, much more so than spring (a curious side-effect of being a career academic, for whom a new year has always begun in September). For years, running has in many ways been a lifeline for me, and this always seems to be brought into sharp focus in the fall, when life suddenly gets busier. Maybe this is when I need running the most. I run when I am happy, upset, confused, angry, and overwhelmed. I run when I just feel like running. Through all the ups and downs of my life, running has always been there for me, like a comforting and yet brutally honest friend. And so I thought that this fall, I would start a blog as a thank you of sorts; to honour that friend who has in many ways made me the person I am and continually reminds me of the type of person I will always strive to be. Because in the long run, there are so many things out of your control that sometimes all you can work toward is being proud of who you are, where you've come from and where you're going.