I Am a Trail Runner (for now.)

This morning as I was out on the bluff, logging miles in the hot sun; I was just running along, enjoying the flowers and the trees and the grass and the wildlife when it suddenly hit me. Almost my entire life I've been running, and it's been mostly on roads. Up until maybe a week ago, I would have definitely considered myself a road runner. That's not what hit me, but I'll return to that in a bit.

Running for me began as cross country then track practice in elementary school, in which there was one day a week where we ran down the trails about a quarter mile from school. During high school, summer training introduced me to some more of those same trails along with others around town- now we could actually drive places and find new routes to run! But for the most part during the school year, we would have most of our practices and workouts either on the road or the track.

Then came college. We did a good mixture of trail and road running during the cross country season, but my summer training had to be mostly relegated to roads- after all, if you don't have someone to run with and you're a little girl all alone, you should be cautious of running trails alone. But they always had a draw for me anyway- I just mostly stayed away from them, for the sake mostly of the people who love me. Half-way through my junior year, I decided not to join the track team after cross country season and began running on my own, through the woods, getting lost intentionally in order to find new trails and new places to run. It was great fun, and my love for the trails was growing.

My first marathon year happened during senior year of college. I was convinced to join the cross country team by the new coach who promised me he would train me for my first marathon if only I would also run for the team. Did it. Qualified for Boston. Ran Boston. Most of these training miles were logged on roads- my rationale was that concrete and asphalt are way flatter and easier to run on; the terrain is very predictable. Trails have more bumps and it was harder to get into a rhythm for 18- or 20-mile training runs.

After this, I continued to run, mostly on roads, mostly to train for my next Boston Marathon the next year. But that next year, I got a hip flexor injury in March that caused me to miss my second chance at Boston. I actually didn't run at all for about 4 months, then started slowly again. I moved back to the west coast and started grad school. That was last August. Throughout all of last year, I ran some and played music more and was wondering where my running journey was going to take me next.

So that kind of leads up to today; running on the trails of the bluff where trail running was first introduced to me in the 4th grade, it hit me: I am a trail runner. I'm tired of roads: running along busy streets or even through neighborhoods has just gotten so monotonous. And it doesn't smell as good as nature. And I feel like I'm being watched and judged by everyone. Trails are so much quieter, more peaceful. It's much easier to run on trails- they're softer and they don't demand anything of me speed-wise or distance-wise.

So I guess the revelation I had was that I've come to a new chapter in my book of running- trail-full, timing-device-free, joyful running!