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The UAF ski trail that wanders from campus down to Ballaine Lake was brown and gold—a carpet of wood chips strewn with yellow coins. The surface was still slightly damp from all the recent rain, and it felt soft and springy underfoot. Several runners passed me coming and going, all of us likely grateful for the sun and the 65-degree temperature. Perfect weather for one of the last training runs before the marathon. We only have four more runs to go; can that really be possible?

I used to run here a lot during early training, but I’d been on vacation for most of August and had not gone down this trail for more than a month. I’d been in beautiful places in between—our cottage on the coast of Maine, the rolling hills of Western Massachusetts, the lush green suburbs of Baltimore. This little leg of the Equinox trail seemed simple, even slightly plain in comparison. Just a nice, almost nondescript trail through a mixed forest of birch and spruce, except that the yellow leaves made it luminous and charming.

It felt as if with each step, some part of me sank deep into the earth. I thought about the miles of trail I’d be running in another week, about the climb up Ester Dome, about that wonderfully wicked hill at the start (and maybe now the finish, too?) of the marathon. These pieces of trail have become part of me. My feet sank deeper yet, became roots, became connectors between my self and this place I call home.

I can’t really explain why Fairbanks is my chosen home, why a 21-year-old girl from New England would have fallen so deeply and permanently in love with a place 3,000 miles and a few gazillion light years away from the place she’d grown up in. It’s not the prettiest town in the world, but when I look at it, I see so much to love. Nor can I find the words for what happens to me when I walk/run. I’m not fast, and I can’t run for more than a few minutes at a time, but I can go farther than I ever dreamed, and there’s a fountain of joy in the act of going. It’s like being given wings.

I wrote once that I’d found my stride in Alaska. Now those words have a double meaning.

Who could be luckier than I? To be able to run, here, now—with these slightly older legs holding up pretty darn good, and the boundless inspiration of Team in Training to tap into, and the kind of fall weather that illuminates the back corners of your heart with its beauty. To have Fairbanks as my home and a marathon in my back yard is a truly wonderful thing.