The peacefulness is almost overwhelming.
So is the canyon.
So is the pain in my Achilles.
It’s just after sunrise and the light of the sun is starting to give the canyon a bit of life.
Shadows fade and we are welcomed with vibrant paint strokes of red and orange everywhere we look.
I’m thankful to be running with the boys instead of Jen—she was a little too chatty for 6 AM, which really feels like 5am since we crossed into Mountain time yesterday.
As we silently pace closer to Zion’s entrance, things around us get a bit more interesting.
The llamas in the few yards we pass look just as confused to see us as we are to see them.
The boys and I continue to sway up and down the climbs—we’ve fallen into a relaxing rhythm.
My Achilles still hurts.
Zack starts talking about his mama—a fighter and survivor.
I stop thinking about my Achilles.
We pass a sign for a town limit.
Population: 18.
Huh.
That’s smaller than our team and we fit into two 15 passenger vans.
We see the van off in the distance.
Although out here even when we see it, we’re still a good mile and a half out from it.
Just like time, distance and space mean so little to me now.
I don’t really mind though—it’s cool today, a nice breeze whispers through the canyon and across my skin.
The closest tangible thing to peace besides our daily 5am gas station coffee.
Truthfully, my body is tanked from yesterday’s 13 miles through the Mojave Desert at high noon.
And this morning we were welcomed with a time change; we all groggily bid that extra hour farewell.
But still, I literally wouldn’t trade it for the world.
I’m totally in love with life in this moment.
Exhausted, unshowered, hungry and all.
We run the last three miles to Zion’s gates, all together.
Run the 4-Pass Loop in the Maroon Bells-Snowmass Wilderness
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Photo: Jason Hatfield
It’s odd to think that just a few months ago I was a 19-year-old university student whose life revolved around her boyfriend.
One person.
An entire life crafted to somehow attain fulfillment from another imperfect human.
It’s laughable now that I look back on it, but those moments and those years I was so engulfed in my codependence and shared identity that I couldn’t see life past his blue eyes.
See, we were high school sweethearts who were embarking on a road so many had before us: long distance.
Cliché, I know.
But man we were in-freaking-love.
There’s something about loving someone from miles and miles away that really screws with your mind.
I thought I needed to hold on tighter to him in order to master my own happiness.
Of course, as I funneled all my emotional energies, physical time, and hard- earned cash into waiting for the next phone call or visit, I inevitably became more and more miserable.
It’s impossible for one person to make you happy.
We create our own happiness and if a partner comes along who compliments that ha.
