Baby Steps

It’s time to come back.  I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I’ve been going through a rough time for a couple years now.  A really rough time running-wise, for about 9 months.  It seems that I’ve lost my way in life which also means my way in running.  And I want to get back! 

Today, I decided not to make any big sweeping promises to myself.  I’m just going to get out there and do it.  As far as the life troubles go, I’ve been motivated lately by a Japanese saying that I took from the book Farewell to Manzanar.  We’ve always said in our family, “It is what it is.”  But those words don’t go far enough.  Instead, I now say, “Shikata ga nai,”  which means, “It must be done.”  The way I see things now is that it is what it is, but it must be done, and I have no choice but to endure.  If trail running hasn’t taught me endurance, then it hasn’t taught me anything.  That’s what I say.

So, I’m picking myself up off the ground, and I’m taking baby steps.  Whatever I’m going through Shikata ga nai.  There’s no use beating myself up over my troubles.  Instead, I’ll just run.  Just like I did this afternoon.

My feet moved seamlessly over the dirt.  And that surprised me.  I get so worried that I will have lost my running by not putting in as much as I used to.  I took some tough hills.  But I didn’t go for the long mileage.  I headed to one of my first trail running accomplishments – Top of the World. 

(If you click on the picture or a bigger view, you can see where I tried to I mark Top of the World in this picture):

It felt so right to run the trails this evening.  It felt so right to sweat the hills and scour the landscape for rattlesnakes.  Anytime a problem entered my mind, I scolded it, “No!”  and the thought disappeared into the dirt.  Today’s run gave me one of the greatest gifts a run can give.  It gave me peace.

Water source at Top of the World (the little one is for the doggies):

Looking at The Saddleback Mountains from Top of the World:

Heading back to the truck after a refill:

I noticed this along the rolling hills of West Ridge (The trails are my friend!):