Trailing

It's Monday, and I am feeling slightly hung over.  For once, it's not from booze.  [Never mind the APAs I had last night while watching Lost.  Those were recovery drinks, and therfore, don't count.]  No, I am hung over from an awesome trail run Sunday morning.  It was so great, I am going to ramble on about it for this whole post.  Lucky you.

I ran seven miles along the same course as the Cherokee Park Five Miler.  After the race, I saved it in my Garmin so I could run it again and again.  Not because I loved that particular series of trails so much, but because the trails in Cherokee Park are unmarked and as confusing to me as the Minotaur's labyrinth.  I get lost every time, or I end up back on the street after a quarter mile, or I go in circles.  Once, I think I ended up in Narnia.  Who am I kidding?  Even with my Forerunner telling me which way to go, I still strayed off course several times.

Despite a couple annoyances, like getting lost, which was my own fault, this was a rave run.  My chief complaint, if I wanted to complain about the best workout I've had in months, was the mud.  The course was downright soupy in places.  But the slippery stuff actually made the run even more fun.  As I slipped and tripped along, I found myself laughing at times.  Actual, honest-to-goodness LOLs.  I must have looked like a maniac.  Here I am, in a singlet and shorts, dripping with sweat and dew, muddy up to my knees, running in Vibrams [ridiculous all by themselves], and I am laughing like a mad scientist.  I was an inmate fleeing the asylum.

Speaking of Vibrams, my Sprints got the monster workout.  I had the full "barefoot" trail running experience.  I trod through streams, over rocks and gravel, through squishy mud, on unforgiving pavement, and across dewy grass -- all with nothing but a few millimeters of rubber between my feet and Mother Earth.  My feet and the shoes survived.  In fact, after the five miles of trails on the race course plus another mile of nearby trails, I ran the last mile on the pavement.  Afterward, my feet were fine.  The first few times I ran on pavement with the Vibrams, my heels and Achilles' tendons felt the abuse.  All that running made my feet tired but not to the point of hurting.  Hours later, some soreness crept in, but it was the soreness of a hard workout.  But the Vibrams were great to run in, and I cannot wait to run in them again.

How else can I express how wonderful this run was? I could burst into song or paint a picture. Instead, I will close this on an epiphany I had as I ran smiling through the hills.  Road running often feels like work to me.  It is working out.  As I run, I think about how far I have gone and how far I have left.  I pay attention to time and pace and form.  Effort is expended; data collected; discipline tested.  I never laugh running on the road nor even smile.  On trails, I cannot contain myself.  I am a child again.  Trail running is all play.  Running trails, I leap, I dance, I skip.  I am alive, free, and joyful. I am a trail runner.