Summer Turns Me Into a Dirt-Bag Trail Runner

Posted By on Wednesday, July 26, 2017

I wait all fall, winter, and spring for summer. I watch the snow melt on the peaks just west of my house, waiting for the days when I can go on high-country trail runs or climbs without bringing snow shoes and avalanche beacons. I recognize I’m extremely privileged to take off for weeks at a time in the summer to camp and run in the mountains.

For me, summer means –

 

Trail running!

 

Summits
Recovery food. See also: potatoes, steak, all the vegetables and fruit. And, oh yeah, baked goods 🙂
Wild flowers
Lots of trip planning
Summit lounging

 

Feet that look like these (especially this summer)
Places I’ve never seen before
Selfies when I’m feeling tired and stalling because my legs don’t want to keep climbing
Time with really great friends (This is Megan Finnesy who is the race director for Golden Gate Dirty 30 and Silverton Double Dirty 30)

 

Animal Encounters. Sometimes more than just the footprint.

 

Recovery. I found these backcountry hot springs a few weeks ago.
Alpine lake swimming. Okay, actually, this is a new thing! I dove into one for the first time just in July. Now I’m hooked.

 

And writing! Sometimes I get even more done on the road in between alpine adventures. I feel calm and sane and rejuvinated (even if I’m physically exhausted) and sometimes that’s the best time to dig in to the hard stuff – yes, even from the comforts of the back of my car where I’ve been living for a week!
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Lynn K Hall

Lynn Hall is a memoirist, activist in the movement to end sexual violence, ultra-runner, and crazy cat lady. Her memoir, CAGED EYES: AN AIR FORCE CADET’S STORY OF RAPE AND RESILIENCE, was published by Beacon Press in February 2017. Her writing has previously appeared in the New York Times, The LA Times, Hippocampus Magazine, The Sexual Assault Report, The Manifest-Station, Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, and elsewhere. In the summers, Lynn copes with publication anxiety by spending too many days in the Colorado mountains, and in the winters, with pans of brownies. She lives in Boulder with her partner and their 23 cats. Just kidding…she only has five.
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