Plodding along

For a variety of reasons, I keep thinking I should take up running again. Perhaps again is misleading. Start running.

I run with some pretty minimalist running shoes. I've found that they force me to run slower, which in turn seems to be better for the knees that happen to be attached to my body.

So I went for a run at the Parrott's Bay Conservation Area when I was at the farm last week. A gravel trail split off into what a mountain biker would call single track for a while before turning back into a gravel double track.

As I got to the turn around point, I found a stretch of trail that was underwater. About 10cm of flowing water was going over the gravel. Since my shoes don't work with socks and they dry relatively quickly, I ran through. It was very, very cold.

I ran up a steep embankment, then turned around. As I approached the submerged trail again, a though occurred to me.

Had Hillary been alive and our lives continued normally, she very likely would have gone on this run. We never ran together. But my new running pace would have lined up with her 'all day' pace pretty nicely.

My brain played this through because brains are cruel that way. I could envision exactly what would have happened as we got to the place where the trail was underwater. We would have debated turning around right there. Hillary would have never run through it. It was cold and it would have made the rest of the run agony with regular shoes.

I would have then piggy backed her over as it was such a short stretch and the footing was easy due to the gravel.

As I played that scenario in my brain, I could hear her laughter as I went from walking with her to pretending to run.

It was pretty visceral. There was longing and it also made me smile.