Meg Inokuma was seven years old when she and her family travelled from Japan for a two-week vacation in Alaska. She documented the visit as if taking field notes.

“I still have the journal I kept during that trip,” she said.

“All I wrote every day was how many animals I saw. Not just black bear and brown bear, but squirrel, bird. Every single one.”

Now 41, Inokuma is herself an Alaska beast, and the place to find her is the mountains.

The land that inspired an awestruck seven-year-old to fill a journal listing all of the things she saw drew Inokuma back as an adult. She lives in Palmer and works as a biometrician for the Alaska Department of Fish and Game.

“The joke is I’m doing the exact same thing and getting paid for it,” she said.

She is one of the state’s top trail and mountain runners, and in recent weeks she fashioned back-to-back triumphs.

She set a course record in the Resurrection Pass 80-km race on the Kenai Peninsula in July and four weeks later ran the eighth-fastest women’s time in the history of the 25km Lost Lake Run near Seward in Alaska.

Next up, if her knees are willing, is the upcoming Equinox Marathon in Fairbanks. At the 2019 race she placed sixth.