Runner’s High

I’m still on my runner’s high from this morning: it was my best trail run, yet (in wintertime here)! 

Dinner with my host family, some good sleep, and an early energetic morning, helped dispel yesterday’s sadness — and an emotional breakthrough after breakfast clarified it. [I’ll write more about this when I’m ready to do so.]

So today has been a really good day, confirming how much I not only love it here but also love the aspects of me that come out here. The winter and/or the mountains here seem to be toughening me up again, giving back to me parts of myself that I had lost or forgotten. The weird weather and temperate climate of coastal California, and then the isolation during COVID as well as the super long recovery from my own illness throughout 2020 and half of 2021 — it feels like all these factors took away some of my toughness, some of my readiness to always get out there no matter what the weather is like, how could (or hot) it might be, despite a runny nose or slightly weaker ankle. Now I’m doing things more readily again here: I’m pushing myself more while also respecting my body & mind & soul more. I’m getting out there no matter what, unless it’s really unhealthy or dangerous for me to do so (like a snow blizzard). I’m running in all temperatures and on all sorts of terrains that I had never tackled before, yearning steep trails and the woods. It takes so much focus to run on these trail here in wintertime because the terrain is so tricky, but I love it because it takes me to some other level or type of consciousness: I connect with myself as well as my surroundings in a way that I had never before experienced. I’m seeing and feeling new parts of myself while also, somehow, reconnecting to parts of me and my relationship with the mountains that I had lost or forgotten for so long. I love the way I feel here: I love the aspects of me that come out here. And I love the fact that, although most of my training sessions here are heftier than in California, I have much more energy throughout the day even to do my intellectual work (probably thanks to the limited amount of stress I have here). And last but not least, I love my body: having come into & come out with my non-binary/trans gender identity really helped me overcome my body-image issues; but the “toughness” I feel within me coming out in this environment puts me even more at peace with every little aspect of my body, with that overall boyish strength rounded off by the female thighs…

I’m not saying the fear or sadness are all gone, suddenly. But today I got some wonderful reprieve from them, thanks to being in the moment, being present here & now, focusing on the trail I was treading today. One step at a time.