The West Highland Way is complete! 96 miles, no midges, woot! Mostly good weather except for one day where my rain coat needed a rain coat. For real, the poncho saved me from being drenched or that would have been a cold seven hours. 

I learned that the Scottish Highlands are amazing and that tree line is crazy low at 1,000 feet here. I learned that there is a couple hiking just as fast as we are and they are holding hands as they walk, what now? I learned that the people here go out of their way to be kind, that watching The Great British Bake Off while in Great Britain seems double fun and that the Scots really do say wee all the time. It is on food packaging, hiking signs and it is not going to stop being delightful. 

I hope you all find a wee bit of delight this week.

MOBILITY
If you are a wee bit tight, join in on mobility on Monday mornings. You can get details here. You need a foam roller and that is it. Just 30 minutes, told you it was wee. 

MARATHON THINGS
This is the shoe that every podium finisher at the Berlin marathon was wearing. It looks FULL CLOWN but obviously, it is effective. And $500 for the privilege. Ouch. 

And speaking of Berlin, Tigst Assefa won the women's race, just off world record pace after completely rupturing her Achilles with 2k to go. For some context on pain, and how our brains can help us go on in these moments, read on. 

And speaking of injuries, remember, professional athletes with full teams of physios, coaches and nutritionists get injured. When you get injured, you are in sad but good company, it happens.

THIS AND THAT

• Using intensity to help with keeping fitness as you age. 
• If you are thinking, where should I go on my next run-cation, how about Morocco. 

​Greetings from Glasgow. Life is wild that I can be standing at an aid station in the middle of the woods one day and two days later be sipping tea in Glasgow. I am here to hike the West Highland Way, a 96-mile route in Scotland. It will be 6 days hoping that the midges and rain do not ruin a perfectly good time. 

My travel and some recent athlete travel for races had me thinking about time zone changes and effects on performance. It is REAL everyone. So recently there was a football game, blah, blah, blah, ball sports but I guess it was important and I guess it was in Australia, I don't know why American football was there, but it led to this great article about strategies for working with time zones and sport. I always thought that it took one day for each hour of time zone traveled to adjust back to where workouts are regular again. Well, I was partly right. "The rule of thumb is that you can adjust at roughly two hours/day traveling westward and one hour/day eastward." The article weighs the pros and cons of arriving right before the race and just jumping in OR arriving with a week or so to adapt. If you don't want to read, the recommendation is go early and adapt. 

For me, I will be hiking on no adaptation except for one day, so my bug swatting will be sub-optimal, my hydration won't be spot on and I may be sleepy, but this one isn't about performance! See you on the other side! 

NO LIVE MOBILITY ON SEPT 28
I will be in vacation mode, so no live class on Monday, September 28. Here is a class from the archives. Please enjoy 30 minutes with your foam roller and some mobility. 

UNDERFUELING - PLEASE DON'T
What happens when you underfuel? I think you know that bonking feeling, a slower finish time, your brain turning on you, legs that just don't want to move. Here is an experiment where two women tested two hour runs on 20g of carbs per hour and that same run a week later with 80g of carbs per hour. Moral of the story, eat more carbs, feel more better. No surprise! 

BACKYARD
You have probably heard of a backyard ultra, like the Go Beyond Lastest Not Fastest. But did you know there was a backyard triathlon. That is a LOT of transitions. 

If you need an amazing trail destination, Waterton National Park in Canada is the new place I am going to be annoyingly telling everyone about. It is the Canada side of Glacier National Park and it will pop your eyes as you drive in both for the views and lucky me, for the bear and two cubs playing just inside the entrance. It also has nice Canadian people, awesome CBC radio reception, and some amazing hikes. 

The Crypt Lake hike requires a boat shuttle to the trailhead and I picked it since there would be a literal boatload of people to hike with since hiking solo in grizzly country is not the best idea. In conversation with some guys, likely around my age, one asked me if my husband let me go on this trip without him. I asked if he could repeat what he said, giving him the chance to say that one better, but he did not. I answered that in our house we didn’t really put things that way. He didn’t have further questions. 

I hiked a few more miles preoccupied thinking through way, way better answers. Like, “he has no idea, I just took the keys a week ago. He must be rip-roaring mad and is probably starving.”  

The next day, I went on a shuttle to a point-to-point traverse hike and three miles in saw my first grizzly in the wild. Followed by my second grizzly, both standing on either side of the trail like they were taking tolls from the hikers. After the entire shuttle of hikers caught up and all 18 of us carried on for an hour, they had only moved slightly closer. Half the group headed back down to the start. I stayed up with some others, hopeful the bears would move or we could go around but no matter which way we went, the bears just came our direction in a no-cares, snacking on berries, not backing down sort of way. In the end I got to watch these amazing creatures for over 90 minutes, one got a little too close and we all backed down the trail bailing on the hike, but in the end, I choose bear. It was awesome. 

MOBILITY
Come join me live on Monday mornings to start your day with 30 minutes of mobility. Start your rest day off right or just wake up to some foam rolling and musings from me. Rise and Shine information here. 

THIS IS RUNNING

• There is a record for six days of running and it is 636.482 miles. THIS is running (for a long time) 
• Pretty sure teams don't use live animal mascots anymore on purpose. THIS is running! 
• Sometimes it rains on your race day. Other times it floods and you run anyway. THIS is running. 

Greetings from just outside of Glacier National Park. I am about to head into the solo portion of a 3-week trip that will end volunteering at the Mountain Lakes 100 in two weeks. The first week was with Brian and a meet up with some friends in Montana to celebrate a friend’s milestone birthday. My takeaway from this first week of travels is, TAKE THE TIME TO CELEBRATE ALL THE THINGS. What a joy to be in celebration of a friend in celebration with other friends. It is a gift to make core memories and those don’t happen doing the same old things. So far highlights are looking for mountain goats, finding pikas, alpine lakes, chasing my friends on mountain bikes and sleeping in late while the rain hits the van roof. 

I have also forgotten to update a few workouts, missed calls being out of cell service and slept in a beautiful campsite that appeared on closer look to be a poacher’s camp (so many skeletons, RUN). Can’t win them all! Risks worth taking. I hope you get to take a few yourself this season.

MOBILITY
Going to be honest here. I have no idea if I can pull off live Rise and Shine on Monday, September 14.  I have a spot picked out with WIFI in Fernie, BC where I plan to be. The spot is a public, outdoor WIFI and it could be dumping rain, not working or extremely socially awkward. BUT, this is great reason to tune on in. You will see me there flailing with internet OR if I am not there, the worst that happens is you have set aside the time for yourself and you can do a class from the archives. See you Monday at 7am Pacific I hope!

SLUG TEETH! 
Holy smokes. I am blown apart by this close up video of a banana slug eating a leaf. I am simultaneously disgusted (shouldn't be, but here we are) and amazed. Slugs have denticles which are fancy scrapers and according to the National Park Service, they use them "for salad…not revenge". Next time you run by one, picture those scrapers scraping and hop right over it. 

LISTEN UP FOR SLEEP
Here is a podcast for you about fueling and sleep. The pod covers, "what happens to hunger when you’re sleep deprived, why eating more earlier in the day may benefit both sleep and metabolic health, and what athletes with evening workouts can do when training and bedtime are uncomfortably close together."

LISTEN UP FOR GOOD
Jenny Simpson is a track star, an Olympian, bronze medalist and survived a massive heart attack in June. She drops so much wisdom in this interview with Rich Roll about how her life was saved, her journey back to life and doing hard things. Definitely worth a listen. 

Guess what! I forgot to send this email on Tuesday. I realized it on a hike on Wednesday while on a road trip camping without cell service. Good news is, you aren't depending on this for breaking news. Bad news is, someone check my memory! OOOOF! Better late than never, here you go...

In just the past week I have seen two runners absolutely rocking out to music with expressive run arms and a run/dance like no one is watching attitude. Welcome to fun run season. Ok, for those of you with September races, I am too soon, save this to read later. Fun run season is that awesome time where your goal race is done but the weather is still rad for running. Fun run season includes:

• running with friends we don't always see because we have time to drive a little further since runs are a little shorter
• running with cookies, brownies or homemade pancakes since you can't choke down another gel and your mountain adventure does not need high-performance fuel but does require emotional support treats
• you can try that trail you always wanted to test even though it may be overgrown and slow
• you can go out to brunch, just once a year, but it is a good reminder of how other people do weekend mornings when there isn't a long run on the calendar
• you vow to never go out to brunch again and head out for a long meander in the woods and dream about the next season of racing

LABOR DAY MOBILITY
NO LIVE Rise and Shine on Monday, September 7 for Labor Day. BUT, you can do this class from the archives anytime. 

SHORT SHORTS

• I have been enjoying the content from this researcher specializing in women in endurance running.
• Dolly Parton was excellence. An excellent tribute and round up of her goodness.  
• Just learned there are super stuffed Pop Tarts which is solid forward progress in snacking. These are great fuel around your 4+ hour runs as they contain 46g of carbs in just one tart and lots of joy. 
• I have sent this exercise to three different athletes in the last two weeks. When your foam roller doesn't help back pain but some stability will! 

UTMB MUSINGS

• When a random dude runs you into your 5th place CCC finish and no one steps in but at least you pick the perfect song to capture the moment. 
• Watch this race recap and you see some of the incredibly hard falls from women's race winner Blandine L'Hirondel, including at minute 13 in the video when she is so close to the end, seems to really get smashed, but she picks herself up and DOES IT despite the doubt.
• The 50k OCC comes down to a sprint finish after six hours of racing. EVERYONE WATCHES WOMEN'S SPORTS!