I went on a trail run this morning and saw a very cute bird a lot like this one:
Source: www.kcet.org
It may not be so significant in and of itself, but! Yes, there is a but! This is a bird that used to be considered a Western scrub jay… This year, the American Ornithologists’ Union formally made the distinction between this bird and another that had also been called a Western scrub jay. My pretty blue friend above is the California scrub jay while the “paler, smaller-billed jays in the far eastern reaches of the state are now officially referred to as Woodhouse’s scrub jay.” For more on this, check out this post from KCET. I was actually kind of excited – I think because I really used to like bird watching… Until I ran out of bird watching time. 😉
The other thing that kept me from obsessing over the actual run was thinking about all of the rocks I was artfully dodging. Why? Because not too long ago a friend of mine likened trail running to just running on dirt. Like, you know… Flat, easy dirt. While there are some of those trails around, I’ve been doing trails with rocks like these, along with 700-900 ft elevation gains (and those are the easy trails):
I’m not trying to sound particularly “bad ass” or anything, but I was a little taken aback by my friend’s comments. You have to work hard to earn those gorgeous views! Or, you could just spend a few million dollars and buy a house in the hills – Yes, a few million… This is California after all. Haha! Seriously, though, that was one of the many things that went through my head this morning as I was looking at the hills. Gorgeous, sweeping views of the bay, the mountains… Those people are lucky-ducky to have such great backyards. 🙂 And, they don’t have to drive to get to the trails!
What kinds of things do you think about when you are running? Let me know… And, as always, stay healthy!
A little healthy 