Listening to My Heart

Though taken over two years ago, the bow of my boat coincidentally points at "my" peak, Unnecessary Mountain, what has since become the destination and inspiration to many of my trail runs.

The weather the past several days has been rather spectacular.  Walking the kids to school in the morning and looking up to the peaks surrounding Lions Bay makes me long to be up there, just as looking out on the water makes me want to be out paddling.  By late morning, Unnecessary Mountain was backdropped with cloudless blue sky as I made my way up Oceanview Road for a trail run with our dog, Kona.

As painful as it often is to look up or out and wish I could be immersed in either of these environments, I'm happy the drive is alive, that my soul is still most vital when I'm in these places under my own power.  I often joke that a little bit of me dies when I look out onto Howe Sound on a gorgeous day and I'm unable to paddle.  If it's true, then every time I'm able to go for a paddle or for a run on the trails, particularly in the mountains, those bits are rejuvenated.

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I recognized long ago that I need to be outside, that the outdoors is more than just a place for recreation:  it is the place where I am both most alive and at peace.  I was sitting in my freshman year introductory chemistry class at Bowdoin College with probably 60 or so other classmates and realized my dreams of med school weren't compatible with who I was.  "Eight more years of sitting inside?!  I can't do it."  Between my junior and senior years of college, I trained and worked as a whitewater rafting guide and I've never looked back.

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Kona looking up on a particularly steep part of The Totally Unnecessary Trail.

While I wasn't able to get up into The Coast Mountains today - I knew I didn't have the time for domestic chores such as cooking and laundry were calling - I was able to get out on my favorite local trail, The Totally Unnecessary Trail, with Kona.  I run it clockwise, in part to get the majority of the uphill out of the way at the beginning and while my legs are their freshest.  The beginning of the loop is the trail up to Unnecessary Mountain (the Unnecessary Mountain Trail) and it's a near-continuous, quite steep switchback.  Steep comes in a number of varieties - the Unnecessary Mountain Trail gets even steeper shortly after where I turn off onto the top part of The Totally Unnecessary Trail - but by most standards, this first part is pretty steep.  I love that I'm able to steadily churn away, all the way.  Today, like many other times, I felt like I could just keep going and going and going.  (If only the trail stayed like this and didn't have seemingly vertical pitches filled with tree roots and boulders!)  It was exhilarating!  When I was finally able to branch off at 2,000 feet, it was wonderful to break into a full stride again and take in the beauty around me.  Howe Sound remained covered in the thick layer of fog that moved in last Friday.  The trail was dry, even covered in thick piles of leaves in places.  I was only attempting to go around at a moderately hard pace, not pushing it and taking chances like I do when I'm going for time, and I appreciated how comfortable I felt even though the eventual time difference would be only several minutes from my best.  Kona led the way on the uphill part, patiently waiting for me and probably wondering why I was so slow.  And while it wasn't being up on the Howe Sound Crest Trail at 4,500 to 5,000 feet above sea level surrounded by blue, I was in the forest and it was special.