I was skiing earlier this evening on the ski trails near my house and wondered if slogging around the same trail system year after year might be a sign of insanity, or dementia at least. The temperature was 20 degrees, just about perfect for skate skiing and I had the trails to myself. I've skied since I was a kid, mostly around the Anchorage bowl and for the last ten years on the Chugiak ski trails just north of Eagle River.
I was skating up a hill when I flashed back to a similar night several years ago when I was cruising the trails with a friend, walking the hills and stopping at the top of each to catch our breaths. Now, a decade older, it seems like I can cover the whole trail system in the time it used to take me to go 10 kilometers. I'm not sure if I'm in better shape or if my expectations have diminished enough to intersect with my athletic ability. I suspect the latter.
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There's something comforting in exercising in the same place year after year. You can zone into the experience rather than constantly trying to observe. Of course the opposite is true too, it's nice to have novelty from time to time. I spent years jogging on the coastal trail and it was always nice because it's beautiful if you want to look, but the fact that I had been down those trails thousands of times meant they didn't detract from my thoughts unless I wanted them too.
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