Before I Ever Called It Running
I didn’t realize until years later, but some of the most important moments in my relationship with movement happened long before I ever called myself a runner.
Back when I was in the Boy Scouts, we’d head up to scout camp every summer tucked into the Sequoia National Forest at Camp Whitsett. It was the same routine every year: Dirt under the boots, pine in the air, long days that felt endless in the best way. One morning during the week, we’d wake up at 4 a.m. and hike up to Sentinel Peak to watch the sun come up.
That part was quiet. Headlamps bobbing through the dark. Half-awake conversations. That feeling that only exists before the rest of the world turns on. But what I remember most wasn’t the hike up. It was the way back down.
As kids, we never walked. We ran. Full speed, reckless, laughing, chasing each other through steep, technical terrain. The adults hated it. It was dangerous. Someone was always slipping, cutting a knee, almost eating it on loose granite. They’d yell at us to slow down. To be careful. We never listened.
I was always near the front, pushing the pace with my friends, trusting my feet without thinking about it. No watch. No route name. No label. Just gravity pulling us downhill and the pure fun of trying not to fall.
Then life happened. Years passed. That memory got buried somewhere deep. I honestly forgot about it for a long time.
It wasn’t until recently that it started coming back to me. Clearer than expected. And the more I sit with it, the more I realize something simple but important: I’ve always been obsessed with adventure. That part is kind of obvious. But I think more specifically I’ve always loved running. I just didn’t find it in the way I know it now until my late twenties.
Back then, there was no identity attached to it. I wasn’t a trail runner. I wasn’t training. I wasn’t chasing anything. I was just a kid running down a mountainside with friends because it felt good.
I think that’s really the point of this reflection. I was running long before I ever called myself a runner. Long before I tried to explain it or shape it into something. It was just movement. Just curiosity. Just being outside with people I cared about, letting the trail pull me along.
Sometimes I think the work now isn’t about changing how I run, but about protecting that feeling. Holding onto the part of me that runs for no other reason than because it feels right in the body and quiet in the mind.
Maybe the best running I’ve ever done happened back when I didn’t need a reason at all.
One of the many reasons I do love trail running, makes me feel like a kid again!
I just stumbled upon this post and I love this so much. The love for it is pure. May we all just be kids running down a mountainside with friends. :)