Creation and Dissolution

As I have run around frantically these past few days, preparing for my evening flight to Wales tonight, it struck me how much humans go through cycles of creation and dissolution. At the end of June, I arrived in Canada to "create" a little world for myself where I would work on my PhD, train, and connect with family and old friends. Now, mid-September, I am turning in my work keys, giving away my bear spray, and hugging people goodbye. This creation is ready for dissolution. An undoing.

No wonder we ultra runners crave mile after mile of running. It's a break from our mind's attraction to this. No craving, no creation. Break life down to the necessities - food and warmth. In the moment.

This last week of tapering has gone well. I had a chance to do some riding on my family's ranch. Late that night on a gravel road, we came within a foot of hitting a grizzly with the car. On all fours it was a foot higher than the bonnet. Sadly for Rolf, he was unable to try out his bear spray ;) I, myself, deployed an expired cannister after our last run on Saturday.... Let's just say none of us were feeling very comforted by the mist that came out. Hopefully it was a factor of it being expired!

With most of Rolf's Canadian wishes met, we managed to get one more in on Saturday...running in snow! Just rain at our starting elevation of 1900 mtrs, but it wasn't far into the climb that the snow appeared. A great ending to the summer season here, saying goodbye to the Rockies at 2600 mtrs. Altitude training complete :)

Here's the website for Commonwealths. If live updates are happening, they tend to be advertised on the IAU site.

The toes are ready. I decided to go blood red. Blood seems appropriate (though don't plan to spill any). Naturally, red is a Canadian colour, too. And it's the lucky colour in Chinese tradition. Since the Welsh flag has a dragon on it, I used that theme to draw the Mandarin character for dragon on my big toes. Also reminds me of the year I spent working in China. And the word for dragon happens to be "long" - which in English is a very good word for an ultrarunner!

It took over two months to re-create my Canadian accent and have my Aussie hint dissolve, but that will soon change again...just a warning to the guys at home - you might need your babelfish to understand me again for a while!

Pushup status: 30 in a row, rest 30 secs, do the last 10. Didn't get to 40 straight in time for the event, but not bad for a girl who couldn't do 5 three months ago.

Special thanks to the crew of professionals in Calgary who helped keep my body right through all the intensity these three months. Dave Proctor, my ultra running massage therapist, who made my right hip happier than it's been in months, Ian Goodwin, who connected my popliteus and gastroc tightness to my foot and fixed a problem in basically one session, and Patti Hort, who kept putting my errant rib back where it belongs.

Time to head to Wales, so I can be in the moment for 24 luxurious hours.