5:00am. Arys’s alarm clock goes off. No option of snoozing it: Arys turns off the alarm and gets up in the dark. They shiver: it’s chilly. They reach for their running shorts, sports bra and technical running hoodie that they had already left ready the night before, to make things quicker on this early Saturday morning. Then, the usual 10-15 minutes of Sun Salutations to warm up the body and try to wake up. Make a thermos of hot tea for the road, stuff all the extra food into the duffle bag, keeping some dates and almonds and dark chocolate handy to eat while driving, and before 6:00am Arys is on the road, heading to a trail run. It’s still dark and chilly when they hit the road but all the way, as they drive, all Arys can keep thinking is, “I love this feeling and want to do it again, regularly”.
Before the pandemic Arys used to be an early bird, waking up early almost every day of the week for work and/or exercise. They had found this early-morning rhythm again during their trip in July, having to rise very early for many of their rock-climbing, hiking or trail running “expeditions” — and they had enjoyed it. This feeling of enjoyment and accomplishment, and even of freedom, came back to Arys yesterday morning as they drove to their race. And they’ve decided: they will get up very early and go running on the trails in the morning regularly again, once a week, on one of the two weekdays when they don’t have to be in the office. Deal.
7:30am. Arys is at the trailhead, picking up their bib, ready for the race and looking around for a friend: one of the fun, adventurous persons they had met on their trip in Colorado in July, who happened to be coming to California for business of his own this weekend and had gotten in touch and decided to join the race impromptu (since he’s a trail runner, too) — and when they spotted their friend, that in itself already made Arys’s day.
8:08am. A few minutes late, the race starts. This time, Arys is doing only the 10km for fun — but still, this is Arys’s first race since the pandemic, since February 2019, and it’s on hilly trails with over 1,500 feet elevation gain in very short, steep stretches. And boy, were those steep stretches!
Pretty soon Arys find themselves alone on the race course, just a short distance behind a man racing with his two dogs. They recognize the 2.8mile-mark, then get to the 5km mark — good, they’re half way through and start to really feel that they can make it. Despite the effort, Arys enjoy the race but it isn’t until the 5.8mile-mark and the last little half-mile loop that the joy really starts rushing in, like a flooding river, and they feel like they’re flying — and they are almost flying down the last downhill stretch, half a mile in 3 minutes, and into a full-out sprint to the finish line, literally laughing out loud with joy as they sprint the last meters.
Their joy was so intense, so huge, so bright that they could hardly contain it — and indeed, they didn’t: they let it out spontaneously and shared it with their friend who had already finished the race. Of course, the good result made Arys super happy (they’re competitive, whether they like it or not!). But the biggest sources of joy were other things. One was actually the fact of being there and able to do this: after having been sick with Covid-19 in March 2020 and then had serious hamstring issues in the spring of 2021, Arys thought they might never run again, let alone race. So there was that huge relief and joy. And then the was the lovely fact of being actually able to share this joy with friends: one of Arys’s best friends who is a great runner living on the East Coast picked up the phone when Arys called her right after the race; and then, of course, there was her buddy who had run the race that same morning who stood right there beside them now and even took pictures of Arys as they sprinted to the finish line. And with whom Arys spent the rest of the day — which was the icing on the cake. A hearty brunch after the race; then chilling at the beach; and finally a relaxed dinner in a pretty town — all of this accompanied with such easy-going, heartfelt conversation.
This person is one of those “meteors”, one of those other adventurers that Arys met and connected with instantaneously on their trip this past summer: one of those “soul mates” that we sometimes seem to just recognize instinctively and instanteneously, as if recognizing an old friend in a crowd. And that “recognition” was confirmed to Arys hanging out and relaxing and chatting after the race, spending almost all day with this person despite the post-race tiredness.
And once again — like the previous Saturday swimming and then hanging out with another friend or other recent moments sharing a dinner or a climb with other friends — Arys realized, actually felt at an extremely deep level how it is the persons in their life that make a day, an activity, a moment so special, ever more joyful and bright and valuable.
The Little Prince and the Fox 