Another 3 Miles Down

It was 40 degrees when I stepped out the door this morning, but for all the whining going on in my inner monologue, you’d think it had been 20. I didn’t feel like it. The wind was blowing. And it was dark. But yesterday I was whining because it was light and that meant other people were out. There’s always something, isn’t there?

All it took this morning was one single hill to climb and the only place in my body where the chill remained was my hands. One more climb and I was suddenly too hot. Always something.

But that’s what these runs are for. All that movement shakes things up enough that no one thought becomes compacted into place. They thoughts loosen, and they flow through the stream of consciousness. And then the next one comes.

Today, the next one was that it felt good to open my stride a little more. Then fiddling with my headlamp that had started to fade. Then wondering what that light was up ahead. I thought about my breath, about how pleased I was to have caught myself before hitting the dirt when I tripped on a rock, about how insistent Sampa is on running exactly under my feet at least once per run. I thought about stretching out the soreness from increasing my weekly mileage. About what a gift it is to start the day on the trails.

And just as that thought passed through my mind, the coyote yips started. It was as if they saw it exit my mind, and they picked up the harmony where I had left off. Together, to the rhythm of my footsteps, we sang of hope and gratitude and the joy of being alive.

This life is a beautiful, tender, miraculous thing. Even when some mornings start out cold.