runtothere

The idea of speeding up is less appealing to me than stretching runs into the far distance. Sometimes I look at the gathering of trees in the hills that I run to and recognize where I'd once stored thoughts of what had been ailing me and am reminded of how enormous nature is, capable of absorbing so much thought and still go far beyond it, when those same thoughts, when trapped inside my mind, become unwieldy. Once in the forest, they blend in and gradually disappear: replaced with an almost inert snail on the path, syrupy summer air, the call of fighting jays. They beckon the mind out of itself and into the intricacies of creatures, plants, wind, weather. A unity is achieved, a balance restored. I occasionally speed up when I feel like it though, like to chase or pass the occasional other runner I encounter. But this month, I got a new training partner. It was after the rain. I was slogging up the steep, barely-a-trail that cuts straight up through the more tangled trees to the