won't stop

A great song featured on episode 60 of The Trail Show has a guy singing in falsetto: Back on the trail, back on the trail, we won't stop 'til we get up that hill. It has that same talismanic motivational power for me as the phrase: I eat hills for breakfast. When I think of these phrases on long runs, they make me laugh "which is nice" (link takes you to the almost eponymous Fast Show sketch) except that chortling internally makes me run slower.
I love so much the 'mini training' that distance running gives; I do not know if it is because this was instilled in me through the Outward Bound camps that removed me from my otherwise asthmatic and, also, relatively inert childhood. But even on days when I am less motivated to get out, I know that once I get to the hilly forest, I will not regret the views, and also, that the fitness I build by getting out consistently will reward me on days when I really need to puff my way to an uphill panorama. And then, all of this cumulative achievement motivates me when I need help believing that I can make it in other areas of life. Bipedal enthusiasts usually share such appreciations and inclinations.
Bad puns aside, another part of this training for me is to develop more of an ability to laugh; to detach from an exaggerated sense of responsibility and seriousness.
horror and levity might be linked inside the human heart in the same ineffably mysterious way as sadness and love
Thus spake Fedarko in a 2007 article in Outside Magazine about base camp, but that sums up what I am trying to get at. For some of us, we have to train in finding levity; train in continuing to believe in love. It is so easy to get overwhelmed in certain moments - especially ones on code red air quality index days, which already constrict the breathing. But behind the constriction is the practiced will: like a background program running on the computer. Like on certain days of running, the body and mind scream STOP but practice says KEEP ON, knowing that it can actually be easier, in some convoluted way, to keep going because you get to your destination faster, and can then drink water, or eat, or just stop in a comfortable place (and take a shower).
So what I'm really saying to myself here is: never leave that trail.

Yes, there really is a bug in this picture.


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