Even on the road (aside from the running part), the conversations I’m hearing revolve around the summer being over – it’s back to school!  Across this country, students have either started their first week of school or are close to it.  Parents are readjusting to the routine required to get their kids to school and the wallets end up a bit lighter with the back-to-school things that businesses thrive on this time of year.

The media usually follows suit, so there have been some articles this past week in the Globe and Mail about students returning to the classroom.  Actually, one focuses more on the schoolyard playground.  A study out of the University of Western Ontario is looking at how traditional playgrounds with the classic play apparatus structures are perhaps a thing of the past and that natural playgrounds using nature as its structure might be more beneficial.

Another article lets us know that research is showing that students who are more active actually do better in school… go figure!

One of my few evening runs… gorgeous sunset!

We live in a time where everything is researched tirelessly.  Academics and science work hard to explain how the world works.  Smaller and smaller parts of the whole are picked apart, sometimes so much that we actually forget about the whole.  Wade is a cattle rancher from Alberta who was on his way to Brandon this morning and picked me up.  When I told him why I was doing this run across Canada, he said, “Good message.  When I was growing up, we spent all our time outside.  Now kids are fat from being inside too much.”  There is certainly validity in the research that is presented to us.  But sometimes I wish we could simply listen to and practice the common sense of people like Wade.

It felt good to cross the border this morning into Saskatchewan.  Manitoba seemed like a blink of the eyes compared to the epic bigness of Ontario.  I am anticipating some school visits again once I make it to Regina…actually, really looking forward to it!