I don’t abide much by astrological mumbo jumbo but Sagittarius that I am has seemed to have inclined me to a love of autumn—the cool weather, the orange-tingted palette, the crunch of leaves on the trail beneath my feet.
We stumbed into a trail run on a recently passed weekend. It wasn’t an intense mountain ultra by any means, but in attempting to keep out of the cool October winds early on Sunday morning we ducked into the shelter of the trees and woodier areas adjacent to our more regular running routes and spared little reluctance to dive headlong into hitherto unexplored diversions from the same.
That is to say, we knew there was some single track through the little suburban creek that cleaves between our little suburban corner of the city and the greater metropolis but they tended to be trails we ignored in favour of either more serious training or longer, more serious running adventures.
But it was Thanksgiving morning, there was a fresh box of it-was-someones-birthday pastries waiting back at the coffee shop where we run, and we were looking at something short and simple and let’s just get it done today and go have a coffee, okay?
The leaves crunching, the colours on the ground and in the trees, and the whole autumn vibe if I’m being honest—it all inspired me to pull out my phone and record some improptu footage of the run. I held the camera ahead of me as I dashed through the trees and dodged obstacles.
If autumn seems like a long season, here on the Canadian prairies we are often lucky to get more than a week.
By next weekend the air will have chilled a bit more, the leaves will be detritus on the ground surrounded by a million bare branches. There could even be snow—it’s a coin flip.
So instead we enjoy the trails in the moment, for a moment, and dig our winter gear from storage for another cold season as our autumn running seasons blinks past in a blur of orange and red and brown.
I originally wrote this on October 16, 2024 and posted in on my personal blog.
Definitions
- Canadian
- I write this blog from a small city in the middle of the Canadian prairies. It means I use terms like kilometres and celsius and you're just gonna need to deal with that. I run four seasons long, from blisteringly hot summers through icy cold winters. I've encountered moose, beavers, and snakes on our trails. And we're proud of it all.
- october
- Fully into autumn, October is a month of shifting seasons, short days, long shadows, and gorgeous sunsets. The cobwebs are hung on the eaves in preparation for halloween, and here in Canada we're running off Thanksgiving dinner for a couple weeks after a proper good meal mid-month.
- september
- The days are noticeably shorter when we realize that September is upon us. The post-summer routine kicks in and people are back to regular work schedules and kids are back in school. It can still be warm, but the hottest days are behind us and most of the biggest races of the year are in the rear view. We savour September knowing winter is too soon to come.
- suburban
- I live in the suburbs of a big Canadian city called Edmonton, Alberta. We call it home, but a lot of people might look at the manufactured urban sprawl as cluttered with cars and fabricated architecture and big box stores. They're not wrong, but we've found the trails and the parks and entrances into the gorgeous river valley routes that have their own unique identity in our lives. Run where you can.
