Local Woman Loves to Run on Trails, Where It’s Just Her, Nature, and the Constant Simmering Rage and Despair That Is Everyone’s New Normal
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A local woman loves to run alone on wooded trails, Dumb Runner has learned.
“It just doesn’t get any better,” said Madeline Kahn, 42, after a morning six-mile run at the White Clew nature preserve. “Out on the trail, it’s just me, nature, and the ever-present, inescapable psychic and emotional burden of living in a time and place in history where everything is awful and utterly fucked, with no end in sight.”
“It’s my ‘me time,’” added the married mother of two.
Kahn said she tries to “hit the trails” at least three times a week. While she does sometimes run on pavement, she said, she much prefers to go off road.
“There’s just something about being in the woods,” she said. “The Japanese have a word for it—shinrin-yoku, or ‘forest bathing.’ It’s a cleansing sort of serenity, immersing yourself in nature for an hour or whatever.”
“I mean, it’s not serene enough to wash away the knowledge that we’re going on seven months of a grossly mismanaged pandemic that’s killed nearly 200,000 Americans while half the country refuses to wear face masks, or that historic wildfires are ravaging much of the Pacific Northwest in what will likely be a regular occurrence, thanks to climate change, which certain politicians still deny, or that we’ve had so many hurricanes this year that we may have to start over, using the Greek alphabet to name them, or that the president of the United States and his allies are openly setting the stage for armed conflict should he lose the upcoming election, or that the very foundations of our democracy suddenly seem very shaky.”
Still, said Kahn, trail running is nice.
“This morning,” she said, “I saw a deer!”
