ready-ish

good day to hold on
good day to survive
good day to tell you that
i'm glad you're alive
freedom lives around the corner from me
freedom lives around the corner from me
some for now and some from memory
freedom lives around the corner from me
when i am lost and the eyes don't see
freedom lives around the corner from me

the locals seem friendly. key word: seem.

~ arruda, woodward, and mcmahon
(lion bear fox)
***********
i'm back.

last night i enjoyed my first run in many, many weeks where i felt strong and happy to be running, rather than wishing i were having a nap.

convenient timing, this, as the squamish 50-mile is two days away.

pursuant to a previous post, i'm not ready to run squamish. but i am very happy to be ready-ish. the course is described as "...exceptionally difficult, made tougher still by the technical nature of a majority of the terrain. Throw in the fact that the back half runs much more difficult than the front half and you have yourself a nice little day of suffering."

caveat: "Thankfully we’ve made every effort to distract you with incredible scenery at every possible turn."

other possible distractions:

"There are bears and even cougars in the wilderness around Squamish, and we have seen both on our course over the years. We see bears each and every year at some point during the weekend. In our first year we had a bear cross the course with less than a kilometer to go, right in downtown Squamish. We cannot say enough how rare it would be to encounter a cougar and how regularly bears are seen in and around Squamish."

oh. okay, then. time to dust off the chainmaille running attire, i guess.

it's fortuitous that the cut-offs for this race seem very generous: 17 hours, 45 minutes to get it done. key word in that sentence: seem. it's also possible i'll need every last one of those minutes. especially if i'm obliged to spend valuable time evading or fending off top-of-the-food-chain predators.

it's trail running. no one said it was gonna be easy.

no matter.

time to set aside the qualms, pack up the kit, and go see what's what.

gotta run.

fast.