When you live in Alaska, it’s easy to become a bit lofty, a bit superior. It’s easy to believe that because you live in a place with beautiful and awesome running opportunities, that it’s the only place with beautiful and awesome running trails/routes, etc.

Of course, that’s simply not true. There are fantastic trails in Arizona and Colorado and Oregon and ….

Because of this flawed attitude, I sometimes I think that running on roads and pavement is a step down from running trails, that it’s what people do when there are no trails available because, come on, doesn’t everyone prefer running trails and dodging rocks and jumping over logs and splashing through mud, all while trying to avoid moose and bear and mountain lions and rattle snakes and god knows what else?

Twice a year, I visit my sister in the Philly suburbs, where most runs take place on roads and side streets. At first I resented this. Yet, I soon grew to enjoy and even love these runs. I could zone out more, without worries of hulking beasts crashing out from the brush and charging at me (I was charged by moose three times last summer, sigh, sigh). I could listen to music. Best of all, there were hills, and lots of them, small and steep and mean hills, one after another after another, oh yeah.

And of course there are also trails in Philly, hundreds of miles of interconnecting trails, some of them dirt trails through forests and along creeks, and some of them paved bike trails along the Schuylkill River and leading all the way to Valley Forge.

I suppose the point of this meandering post is that it you want to run, you’ll find places to run. And if you love to run, you’ll love where you’re running, even if it’s not where you thought you’d love to run (does that make sense?).

One thing I love about Philly is that it’s warmer than Alaska, and I love running in the heat and sunshine, loved running past flowers blooming in mid-April, loved the way the air smelled and the brightness of the colors.

Then I came home to Alaska to this, snow along Campbell Creek in May, hee, hee. It’s all good, it’s all running, eh?