American Land

It's good to be back on "American Land".  It was appropriate for Bruce's song to be the last song of my run today.  Being in the UK last week with two long days of travel and full-day meetings the rest of the days, it was a good time to give the body a rest.  Rest is training, of course, unless you are constantly at rest and then that would be couch training.  After weeks of running and tearing down your body, rest allows it to heal and build back up.  Of course, I would not advocate 5 days of no running, but certainly, 5 days of restful running or cross-training.  Sometimes, most times, my mind seems to need running more than my body.

I enjoy seeing new places, including places abroad but I especially like returning home to this great American Land.  Maybe this is true of everyone.  Home is always home for all of us.  Although I didn't run in the UK, I did buy two running magazines - Runner's World (UK version) and Trail Running (UK).This is the first that I have looked at these magazines and I really enjoyed it, especially "Rave Run" pictures in Runner's World and "Running Inspiration" in Trail Running.  The Rave Run picture was taken in Lauterbrutten Valley, Switzerland.  This is not the exact photo but gives you a good idea of what the rave is all about.

The valley was also JRR Toiken's inspiration for  Lord of the Rings.  The Jungfrau Marathon is the valley's marathon and looks spectacluar.







In Trail Running, the photos are in a section called "Running Inspiration".  The three photos in the Feb/March issue are from Loch Lomond, Conic Hill; Glyders, Snowdonia; and Transvulcania, La Palma Island in the Canaries.

Again, these are not the exact photos but gives you a good idea of the beauty.

 

 Loch Lomond, Conic Hill in Scotland

Glyders, Snowdonia in Wales

La Palma Island is an island of the Canaries and has one of the most difficult ultra-marathons (83K), called the Transvulcania, due to the terrain of this volcanic ocean island,

We have our beauty here in the U.S. as well but it was nice seeing the beauty that other runners expereince in other countries.

I found both magazines full of great articles and and good advertisements.  In some ways, I think they might out do their American counterparts but maybe that is from seeing them the first time.  This may be due to being European, meaning, in Europe, you don't fly/drive to other states like we do here in the U.S.  When you leave England, you may be in Scotland, Ireland, France, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, etc. all different cultures.  In the U.S. we generally travel to another state but it is still America.  These magazines represent the diversity of Europe.  One thing is apparent, the running community is active around the world and as much as I love running in the U.S. and visiting states that I may not have visited otherwise, I hope to remain running long enough to visit other countries and experience other running cultures as well.  It's a big world, ya know, go live it!  But, it is always nice to come home