Embracing the Joy of Trail Running: getting out of my head and into my body
I've been running since September 2018 and it never ceases to amaze me how every run is different. I avoided running until the week before my 30th birthday for two reasons. Firstly, running is hard. Secondly, I couldn't really see the point.
As my 30th crept up (ace for storytelling purposes but, in truth, I couldn't have given a toss that I was turning 30. Age is age is age), I felt as though I needed to challenge myself in a new way. I needed to begin something. I was bogged down in tough writing work all day every day, feeling isolated in self-employment and had a huge amount of time on my hands now that I didn't go out drinking anymore. So I started running.
Flat tarmac, river views
For the next two and a half years, I ran along the same shared-use trail. A nice, traffic-free tarmac stretch that allows me to pretty much run as far as I want before turning around. I created perhaps ten iterations, petals around where I lived, of different distances and variations to keep my brain from getting bored. With routes between 4k and 21k, running was only as hard as the speed and time involved. Never the terrain.
I didn't really get trail running. For a start, I liked the idea of just running from my front door. Driving somewhere to run has always felt a little wrong, although I did do it a couple of times to visit some local trails. Also, trail running just looked difficult. I'd always thought that getting better at running meant being faster, and trail running seemed to put you at an automatic disadvantage. How can I improve on my 5k time when a grassy hill crops up?
Of course, I was wrong. So wrong.
Hitting the trails
I had my first real taste of trail running a year after I began lacing up my trainers on a regular basis. I was in Hartland on the North Devon coast for a family 60th and decided to make the most of being in such rugged place. Waking up at 6 am, I ran along the South West Coast Path (SWCP) until it seemed about time I should start heading back.
Running along the SWCP was like nothing I'd ever experienced. It wasn't the landscape itself that was novel; I'd rambled about there plenty of times. It was what the landscape did for my running, for my brain.
Now, I've moved to a town on the Dartmoor National Park border. A town where innumerable off-road running trails begin within 200m of my front door. All I've been doing for the last month is trail running because there isn't any other option. Hills, roots, stony footpaths, river fords, fields of Highland cattle, boardwalks over swamps, sheep paths, rambling bluebell woods, historic tramways and everything in between. I haven't run a 26-minute 5k since I moved.
And I couldn't give a sh*t.
Trail running has forced my out of running for running's sake. It forces me out of the numbers, the times, the weird mind state of running with my body and being entirely elsewhere with my mind. I didn't realise how distant I was when I was running until I couldn't be distant anymore.
The funny this is, I thought that this aspect of running was good for me. I could check out of the physical experience of running by spending the time mulling over problems, worrying about [insert anything and everything here] or ranting. Checking out of the physicality of running was great, I thought. Not only did it give me extra time to mull while doing something productive, it also meant I could forget the discomfort of running by getting stuck into the discomfort of ruminating instead.
Am I the only one who does this? Surely not.
Out of the head, into the body
Trail running brings me into the present moment in a way running on tarmac never did. Many of the trails I've been running on here are veritable obstacle courses. Tree roots weave across the earthen paths, raised perfectly to capture an unsuspecting foot. Mud stretches across the trails like a cat taking a sun bath. Beech trees reach their downy leaves to head height, silent sideline supporters going for the high five.
Paths split and I don't know where any will take me, only that it will be beautiful and surprising. Bridleways turn into streams and lead to packhorse bridges, hundreds of years old and no less fit for purpose. Brambles tickle bare legs and blackbirds rustle in dried leaves, bouncing around, unsure whether to get out of the way.
If my mind goes wandering whilst trail running, I'd be on my arse faster than you can say 'mud puddle', 'low branch' or 'sheer drop'. Last weekend, my partner and I decided the rain wasn't going to stop so if we couldn't beat it, we'd better join it. I plotted an 11k route on trails we'd never run before, through the endlessly surprising woods, along the muddiest path yet, up a stony bridleway, across a saturated heath and up a trail that turned out to be more stream than footpath. Soon, we were soaking wet and filthy but it was one of the most enjoyable hours of running we've ever had.
We were in it, fully in it, wet feet and all.
Instead of giving me the mental space to think about other things, trail running gives me the space to be in the world. I feel everything, every undulation, root and glance of wind. I feel every muscle, every thought and every footfall. Before, running was satisfying. Now, I feel like it's rejuvenating.
I can't wait to keep exploring, further and wilder. I've only just begun.
