A few days ago I went for a walk. It's not unusual, since I try to go for a walk at least 3 times a week, but this time I felt like running. I haven't felt like running in years. That's why it was all new, all confusing, but afterwards I felt so great, just like I used to.
I didn't run for a long, just a couple hundred meters, but a start is a start, right? Those hundred meters were enough to remind me of the summers I spent out in the woods doing orienteering. You know... just running to the direction of the control point according to your compass, following no paths, passing trees left and right, jumping over ditches too wide so you end up in the mud...
Still, there was nothing quite like the sight of the orange-and-white control point flag behind a rock, over a hill, halfway down a bluff, in a hollow so deep you need to stand on the verge to see it. I don't know. A feeling like that I haven't yet faced. It's not like solving a math problem, it's not like getting a piece of HTML-code right, it's not even like getting an A from your final exam (although it was close, I can tell you). You're out in the woods you usually haven't been to before, all alone, with a map and a compass, trying to get out. Every found flag is a reward. Crossing the finish line is just a plus side.
Running has never been about competing for me. Seriously, if I was all about winning I would have given up orienteering after the first competition when I lost something like... 45 mins to the winner whose time was 15 minutes. I just... enjoyed it. Running. Orienteering. Knowing which way to choose. Knowing you have the strength to run. Not being afraid of anything out there. Eventually I got better and better, until some bitch of a surgery got in a way and basically made me forget all the fun I used to have.
So yeah. I used to do it for kicks. The feeling of being in control. I've never been a track-runner. I hate gyms, treadmills, lifting weights, all that shit. When I work out, I want to see nature. Feel the fresh air. Climb to the highest mountain. I was born in the middle of nowhere. When I get to wilderness I feel like I'm home. I'm afraid if I ever end up living in a city I might suffocate because all the pollution in air, all the people, all the cars and buses and the rush... I'm a child of nature, I was born that way, no can do.
I want the old feeling back. I want to run in the woods with a compass and a map. I've been waiting and waiting for the time I would be ready to do that, but I realize now that a "perfect" time will never come.
(Pictures all courtesy of WeHeartIt. Click for source.)
I just hate being so busy and without company for the practice. Because just as finding the control point flags, there's nothing like the post-race speculations.
