Davidson, Gladstone, Leiden, Prague, Sausalito, Thayne + Waitsfield
Races you'll love running + weekly recommendations
Morning, friends! ☀️
I hope you’re all waking up to a nice Sunday, wherever you are in the world. After a couple of months of trying to keep my plantar fasciitis at bay — wearing different shoes, inserts, and otherwise treating my feet with kid gloves — I’ve finally begun to be able to get some runs in. First with a 3-miler last Sunday, and now with a 4-miler on Friday, which I hope will propel me into some longer runs this week.
Dealing with this has been really odd, in a way. I had just come off a training cycle for last fall’s Richmond Half Marathon, and so I was feeling fit and strong, having just completed 13.1 miles at that race. So I felt like, you know, it’d be fine to take it easy for a little while.
But it’s amazing how our fitness level can slowly slip away if we take a little too much time off. Yesterday I felt a little sorer than I expected from Friday’s run; inside, my body rebelled against me, just a little bit.
Recently, I stumbled across the concept of acedia, which I’d never heard of before but describes what I’m feeling right now perfectly: as
writes, it’s “one of our most universally-felt and univerally-unspoken of enemies in our modern era. It’s spiritual apathy, or as my favorite shorthand definition puts it: it’s a sadness that good things are hard.”It doesn’t seem to matter how many miles I’ve run over my lifetime; when I lay off running for a while and then come back, it can feel like staring at a mountain and looking up from the bottom. So that’s how high I have to climb again? I think to myself.
I know I can get there — I’ve done it so many times before! But the moment when you look up at the mountain is daunting isn’t it? (But then again, I suppose that’s what makes it worth doing too.)
As always, I hope you have a great run out there — keep in touch and let me know how it goes!
Your friend,
— Terrell
🏃♂️ To run
🏞️ Rodeo Valley Trail Run. A gorgeous, scenic and challenging trail run along the hills of Golden Gate National Recreation Area just outside San Francisco, a place that “includes steep pitches and lofty downhill sections as it undulates within the beautiful Marin Headlands hills and coastline.” You’ll start and finish the race inside the park at Rodeo Beach, and from there run the trails that offer up stunning views of the Golden Gate Bridge and downtown San Francisco off in the distance, while you run along trails where you might see “foxes, coyotes, and bobcats, along with the occasional mountain lion sighting.” Set for August 3, 2024.