A Runner’s High

   

     I used to think a runner’s high was just a myth.

     That was only a year ago.

     I was a new runner just starting out, running with my best friend and to accomplish a four mile run through the hills and mountains of our National Forest amazed me. It amazed me that I could run. I used to hate running with a passion.

    In a little more than a year I have become a runner.

    I have swallowed bugs.

    I have peed behind rocks.

    I have considered wearing diapers for races to enhance my time (Because I pee behind rocks a lot)

    I have paid my entry fee in change.

    I have thrown up on a mountain ridge line at nine thousand feet, pulled myself together and just kept running.

    Yes, I have had a runner’s high.

    It’s official; I’m addicted to running.

   When I find a new trail, I absolutely cannot control my body. I run until the end of the trail, than I run back the whole way; muscles, calves, hips and back hating me.

    Today I woke up at dawn on an autumn’s morning. I had to wake up early because I had to run ten miles before my day could officially begin.

   When I woke up, my house was beyond freezing. It felt like winter. It had snowed the day before, just a few inches in this Southern California mountain town but enough to blanket my home town in winter’s whiteness. I love the snow and running in it, and this would normally be fine, but today when I woke up my central heating in my cabin did not work.

    It was nine degrees outside.

    I tried to fix the problem, drank some coffee, kept adding layers and layers to what I was wearing while my angry frigid cats glared at me from the bed; apparently this was my fault.

   At eight I gave up on fixing the heater or getting warm in that damn cabin so I grabbed my water and a Cliff Bar and headed out the door… To warm up and go for a run.

    It actually felt much warmer in the sun, scrapping the ice off the windshield of my SUV, than inside my cabin.

   I had a lot of free time this morning so I drove the half hour to nearby Big Bear. It was a slow drive; it was twenty eight degrees at this point and the road was a little icy. I was craving a run in Holcomb Valley, an old deserted mining area. The snow was very faint on the north side of the lake and I figured the dirt roads of Big Bear would be clear of snow.

    I was a little wrong on that one.

   As I turned up Van Dusen Canyon the road started out dry dirt but a quarter of a mile in it was a pure sheet of ice and snow. There was no dry dirt at all!

   I kept driving up in the hard packed snow until I could find a place to turn around and park. I was crossing my fingers the weather would warm up to above freezing and this road would defrost a little by the time I finished my run in a few hours.

Off to my right through a meadow of tall grass and dormant wildflowers I saw an old, very old dirt road cutting though the weeds. It was a new unexplored road and suddenly my throat wasn’t sore any more. My legs were pumping through the frozen grass and snow and I was truly wondering if this road was old enough for covered wagons to have traveled it as well.

     This area is so deserted and forgotten it’s easy to feel like you have taken a step back in time. All morning I saw two other people (And two coyotes) that is all the company I had in the solitude.

     My feet carried me for miles though this meadow that stretched forever across this valley. I ran by deserted Holcomb Cabin and crossed to Holcomb Pinnacles Road. I had never taken this road more than a few miles before and I felt that familiar runners high again as I just couldn’t stop myself from exploring what was around the next corner and the next. My little run in the forest ended up being a eleven mile romp in the woods when I finished up hours later, after discovering a deserted trail to the Holcomb Pinnacles. I’m so glad my wanderlust took me this far down an old dirt road. It was so cool to wander across these pinnacles something few people who live in this area probably even know is here.

     My whole run today totaled over eleven miles and the most amazing part of this run was I never got sore! Most days around mile seven or eight I start to hurt, but I still power though.  It’s kind of annoying that my next race is not until March, because I feel pumped to do it today! I’m so glad my new found Runners High has helped me get into such ridiculous good shape and months

ahead of my goal!