Dusting off my Dreams

It’s been many, many months since I’ve posted here, but at the urging of my friend Michel (he and I work together), here I am, back in the blogosphere, attempting to put feelings into workds once again, moving forward one step at a time.
The last year and a half has had its ups and downs. Most difficult among these has been the loss of my mum in March of this year, after a short illness. I’m still trying to come to terms with her no longer being here as it seems almost inconceivable. Losing her has reaffirmed for me the reality, cliché as it is, that life passes in the blink of an eye.
Running, like life is a journey which inevitably has its bumps in the road. But running teaches us to persevere. It opens up new worlds of hope and possibility, just as surely as it resets and recreates us each day we lace up our shoes.
I’ve discovered a new fork in my own running road, pointing towards marathons in the distance. I’m just beginning to navigate the terrain of marathon preparation, sixteen weeks out from the California International Marathon in Sacramento on December 8, where I hope to run for a third successive year. If CIM goes well, I’m hoping to be considered for selection to Canada’s Paralympic team in the marathon in Tokyo next September, just over a year from now.
For me, it comes down to still feeling good. I still feel young. Years ago when I was running track, my coach told me that running a marathon would cause me to lose my speed. I wish in retrospect that I had done it anyway, but there is a reason for everything. I wasn’t meant to run marathons then. So why not now, at a point in my running where speed is admittedly harder to come by, but the aerobic possibilities are uncharted?
Next week, I’m going to be joining a group of ten blind and visually impaired runners, along with ten guides in Oregon to compete in the Hood to Coast Relay, a 200-mile team race beginning on Mount Hood and finishing at the Oregon coast. We hope to complete the 36 legs in under 24 hours, and will be supported by two vans. It promises to be an epic adventure. It’ll be my birthday on the day I fly out to Oregon, and I can’t think of a better way to start another year.
Thank you for reading, and I hope to post much more regularly here going forward as we progress with the training (if I don’t, Michel will be on me 