“Tonight, I’ll be on the hill because I can’t stop/I’ll be on that hill with everything I got”
Bruce Springsteen, “Darkness on the Edge of Town”
Today, I hit the trails for my second trail run of the year – not the calendar year, but the past 365 days. Ok, so what? Well, trail running used to be it for me. All I wanted to do, all I thought about every day. I listened to trail running podcasts, watched any video on the sport that I could find, and talked incessantly about the trails I longed to run. I wrapped my entire identity around not just being a runner but being a trail runner. And yet, I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve run on trails in the past four years.
Between a job with a crummy commute three times a week, living 30+ minutes from the good trails, focusing on a couple of road marathons, falling out of shape after those marathons, losing my beloved dog, rescuing a beagle puppy, and wasting a lot of time and making a lot of excuses, I just haven’t found the time for—or prioritized—the trails. With the unofficial start of fall, however, I craved some dirt. Fall has always felt like trail weather to me, even during my extended hiatus. So, once Bruce (the beagle, not the rock god) had sufficiently worn himself out at the dog park, I dusted off my trail running shoes that I bought from Nashville Running Company years ago and drove to my favorite local loop: the red trail at Percy Warner Park.
This trail has literally soaked up my blood, sweat, and tears over the years. It’s helped me train for ultras, work through life’s problems, and left me with both stitches and multiple scars, all while healing me emotionally and mentally many times over. Luckily, no blood spilled today, but I did recapture a little of the glory of my former trail-runner self. I ran (quite) a bit more slowly, and I need to work on my trail legs, but the dirt filled my cup. Burning legs and lungs on the climbs cleared my head, while the beautiful reward of running down those hills—with braids and dust flying—brought back that childlike abandon I’d forgotten. (Flying may be generous; I was cautious after a year away. But it felt like flying to me.)
It reminded me of my favorite scene in the movie F1. In it, Brad Pitt’s character, Sonny Hayes, describes a feeling only the car can give him: “Sometimes there’s this moment in the car where everything goes quiet. My heartbeat slows. It’s peaceful. And I can see everything. And no one—no one—can touch me. I’m chasing that moment every time I get in the car. I don’t know when I’ll find it again, but man, I want to. I want to. Because in that moment, I’m flying.”
That line hit me hard when I watched it, and it echoed in me as I finished my final descent today. It’s been a long time since I’ve felt a runner’s high; I learned long ago to quit chasing that dragon. But I’d forgotten the trail-running high—the delicious mixture of peace and contentment wrapped in exhilaration, where it’s just you and the trail (instead of Sonny’s chrome-wheeled, fuel-injected race car). Like the sweat-caked dirt on my legs, that high stuck with me the rest of the day.
Trail running isn’t for everyone, but I truly encourage everyone to try it at least twice (the first time, just focus on staying upright). The quiet, the trees, the concentration it takes to stay on your feet all inject a certain amount of magic into even the worst runs. I don’t know how often I’ll make it back to the trails, but I do know this: they remind me who I am. And maybe that’s reason enough to keep lacing up.
Bored Sighs 
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