Some time ago, Anton Krupicka, fellow Boulder resident and Ultra runner extraordinaire, wrote a piece for running times about why he runs trails (you can read it here). It has quickly become another one of his classic pieces, standing alongside the piece he wrote on why he is a minimalist runner. In this particular piece, as is he is wont to do, he gets more existential and philosophical. In my writing, I prefer using stories and examples to get my idea across, and there is a day last week that exemplifies why I love running trails.
It began as a fairly typical morning run for me. Having run for two and a half hours on Saturday, with the Bolder Boulder on Monday, I had felt somewhat sluggish on my run Tuesday morning. By Wednesday, however, I was feeling back to form enough to give Flagstaff a shot. Running up the trail, just a 10-minute run from my office, I again thought how lucky I was to have such great trails within easy reach.
My legs felt strong on the uphill, bounding easily over rocks and roots and hitting a steady, fast cadence up the steep section. But I had not planned to do the whole trail that day, so about two-thirds of the way up I called it good, turned around, and headed back down the mountain.
How I take the downhill depends far more on how my legs are feeling and how much rest they’ve gotten than my approach to the uphill sections normally does. Some days, when I feel particularly good, I fairly fly down the trail, dancing and skipping over rocks and around trees, with my feet touching down for the briefest moments before rising again. In those times, I feel more like I’m dancing than running. I don’t look for a spot to plant my foot, I let my feet glide lightly over the ground, each footfall being used merely as a reference and means of control.
Other days, such as this one, when my quada are a little sore, I opt for a slower, more relaxed approach. Rather than the dancing steps, the downhill becomes slow and inexorable. And last Wednesday I was particularly glad I took that approach.
Coming around a corner at a sedate pace, I found myself face to face with a deer. He was standing smack in the middle of the trail, looking straight across at me with an expression that said, very clearly, “What the hell are you doing here? This is my trail.”
I slowed, stopped, and we looked at each other for a few breaths. H was a young buck, probably a yearling, two years at the most, and his velvet-covered antlers were going to make him a four-pointer at best. With all the brazen confidence of youth, h stood right in my path, not moving as I walked closer. Finally, when I got to within five feet of him, he gave me one last look, and slowly walked up the side of the hill, joining a group of two more young males.
I continued on for the last mile of the downhill, thinking just how rare that moment had been, and how much I love trail running. When you run, you are necessarily a part of the environment, whether that’s a street, a trail, or a track. There is a connection there, one that you lose with the speed of bikes and the enclosure of a car. You move along through a space, smoothly and efficiently, but there is no denying that you are at the same time a part of that space. That connection, and that feeling of efficient motion, is the essence of my love for trail running.
And as if that run were not surreal enough, a mile and a half later, back on the Boulder Creek Path, I saw two runners coming towards me, on the space to the side of the path where I normally run. And sure enough, there was Scott Jurek, in the trail in front of me, just like that brazen buck.
Only fitting, since his nickname to the Tarahumara translates as “deer.”
A surreal experience, and one that I am not likely to forget any time soon.
