Last night I decided to go for a road run. I'm in the Chuckanut in less than two weeks and I'm definitely undertrained. Having said that, any training I do right now will provide more mental advantage than physiological - it's too close to race day to expect any meaningful physical improvement. If you haven't guessed by now, I'm a mid-packer (and sometimes not that).
I'd planned on leaving work early and going for a trail run but that didn't pan out (surprise) and I didn't feel like a night trail run, so that left the road. As I set out along the sea wall in Ambleside, the sights and sounds of the sea with Stanley Park and Vancouver in the distance left me feeling pleased that I was out there. Before long, my inner smile broke. For me, one of the best parts of running is the feeling of a smile rising from my core. On a trail run, the smile that started from within rises to the point where it appears on my lips, eyes and then my entire face. Sometimes it turns into a laugh - when this happens people I come across sometimes look at me oddly, but usually they smile too, I think because people out on the trails know. If it happens to you, you know what I'm talking about. If you don't know that experience, I hope you discover it. A smile that starts at your core is so different than one that starts on your lips - just a social smile.
Soon, I was on the Lions Gate Bridge and heading into town. Although the view is great, at this point I was running with traffic and sucking in the exhaust. The road was wet and the tire noise combined with the clunk clunk of cars, trucks and buses passing over the bridge's expansion joints was almost deafening. My inner smile was there but the noise trapped it in. On the trails, often the only sound is your own footfall and your breathing - the sound of your body moving itself through the world.
In the end the run was good, but it wasn't a trail run. Thinking about it later, I was struck by the effect that silence has on my body and on my ability to be present and connect with my surroundings. We spend very little time listening to the sound of our own bodies moving - our breathing and footsteps. Even when alone, in the car for example, we tend to turn on the radio - it really does isolate us from the natural world and from our place in the world. Even sitting with a friend or loved one, silence can be uncomfortable and awkward - the need to fill the silence with talk, even when you have nothing of substance to say - is a powerful draw.
My next run will be in the forest.
