Sunday morning.

A silver green sea rolls in under the light gray sky and yellow leaves are scattered over the lawn, remnants of the first of the mild Victoria storms we get each autumn. Dark streaks of massed kelp and seaweed heave in the rolling waves and in the distance, San Juan Island is misted over.

I'm getting ready for my long run of the week, a run of over two and half hours of marathon training. It's been ten years since I trained for my last full marathon, though I have done three marathons in Ironman in this time. This distance training is tiring, more physically taxing on my body than Ironman, which is why, probably, I chose to divert my attention from marathoning back in 1996.

At 40, I feel so strongly that I must train and race this distance again. Running is my roots, it's in my blood, as they say. (Not far from the truth, as endurance running has a lot to do with blood and oxygen.)

It's tiring work, but challenging and exciting and as I run through the autumn trails, the leaves plastered to the wet earth, my mind will be calm and my thoughts will be joyful.

How many millions of steps have I run in my life?

Lucy