Ups & Downs All Day.

 

Yesterday was one of those odd days where I had a terrible work day, but the rest of my day was actually pretty good. I felt a little more resilient than normal, likely because I have been taking these measures to de-center work in my life.

I don’t want to talk about work other than to say it is difficult right now for a lot of reasons. BUT! I had a pretty good morning and even though I got stuck at work for an extra hour, I still went running, and the run was really good.

As tricky as it has been to adjust to the time change (was this possibly exasperated by quarantine do you think?), those extra hours of sunlight at the end of the day really do make a difference.

I live next to a huge “national monument” (basically a giant nature preserve) and it is crisscrossed with webs of hiking and biking trails and lately more and more I have been running straight out into the thing. Rather than sticking to the routes that I’ve learned, I’ve been going out deeper and deeper into the crazy open wilderness of it.

Yesterday I went straight out for about 4 miles. Up and down ridge lines and through little valleys. It was a really enjoyable run. By the end the sun was starting to sink through the treeline and the light out here this time of year is a wonderful bright orange and yellow late in the day. It really was beautiful.

The other nice thing about getting to do these longer runs is that the running actually starts to feel better and easier the longer you’re out there. Runners will sometimes say, “The first mile is the worst” and that is very very true if you’re a determined but not terribly good runner like me. Yesterday I did six and a half miles and that is pretty good for me. When I lived in Arizona a couple years ago, I’d routinely do ten miles at a go and sometimes (just for fun) I’d do 13 miles just to knock out a half marathon all by myself. It should be mentioned that every time I did that, those last two miles were excruciating, so obviously there is some up and down in the feeling-good part of a run.

When I’m out there, sometimes I don’t think a lot. I usually have a podcast on that I sort of half listen to, but one of the things I’ve always preferred about trail running (as opposed to running on streets and sidewalks) is that you’re brain has to always be busy because you’re literally on trails and you’re constantly having to hop over things and adjust your stride depending on the terrain you’re crossing. Trail runners say, “Every stick is a snake until proven otherwise” and holy shit is that true. 

So you don’t think much because your brain is constantly engaged in making sure you don’t break your ankle or fall on your face trying to cross a bank of sand. I really love it. You’ll be busy trying to get to the top of a hill and then you get there completely out of breath and you have to pause to slow the thundering in your chest, so you look around and you realize you’re standing on top of a hill miles away from anyone and the view is amazing and there ain’t anybody else out here doing this, so you get to just savor it for a few seconds and so then you get to think and so you think something like, “It’s good I did this. It is good to be here. It is - in fact - actually good to be alive. To be in the world.”

It has been hard to remember that some days, especially on the bad days of the last year. On the lonely days and on the really dark ones. Being reminded of it from time to time really matters

.

.

.