One for the Road

Though it’s hard to believe because, you know, the sun is just barely beginning to rise, I’m already up and happy about it. Really happy, in fact. On the verge of annoying happy, actually. It’s true, and someone may slap me for it before the day is done.

I don’t have any super secret reason for my happiness today – nothing to reveal. It’s just this morning, before the sun came up, before I really had a chance to think about the rest of the day, before I let myself worry about anything, I went running. And it was good.

A lot of my time spent talking about running is analytical (some may call it complaining). I wonder which part of my life can be improved, what went wrong, why... I contemplate these things to death under the guise of my love for running. However today, during the early morning run, there was no guise.

I’d set out for five kilometres. It’s something I can do comfortably in well under an hour, something I’m comfortable with in the morning. I was surprised how early into the run I felt good. Usually it takes a kilometre or two before I am not making myself run. Usually I need warm up time. This morning the temperature and my mind and my body must have been just right though. It felt, dare I say, easy. And now that I’ve jinxed myself by calling it easy, I might as well seal the deal and say that this was the best run I’ve had in months, possibly this year.

So when people see me later, and I have this air about me as though everything is wonderful and nothing can go wrong, when I look like I’m just seconds away from tossing my hat high above my head because gee, I AM GOING TO MAKE IT AFTER ALL, they’re just going to have to ignore me. I don’t expect anyone to understand how one run makes all the others worth it, how one run makes you remember why you love it. They should just roll their eyes and carry on, because it will be too hard to explain why this is a big deal. It may not happen again and I may forget this feeling tomorrow, but today, just for today, it is enough.