I came to this city in 2001 as an almost 18 year old enrolled in the local university. I had gotten myself a D1 scholarship for Track and Cross Country. I ran so many miles in high school, but always with my team. A run without other humans, on sidewalks I didn't know was few and far between. I had used running as an escape, as a way to learn how to be social, a way to prove I could dig deeper and find more gears, prove that I could find the best in myself. Tap the untapped potential. I naively expected this trajectory to continue.
It didn't exactly, college running was vastly different. Its taken me many years to realize what probably went lopsided, why I didn't perform like I wanted. But I did have fun, I did keep running and I did stay in this city. My curious nature means I was never quite content to run the same exact routes once I was released from the pack. I explored little trails and side streets that most of my female teammates would have found too remote or dangerous. The confidence I could blast a 6 min mile and outrun any weird vibes made me brave. I found myself in streams, in backyards, climbing down fields of harvested corn more times than I can count. All those miles, more days than not every week of every year, in every weather, for twenty years. Very few conditions could stop me from a run. In fact I knew just what spot would be perfect when it was pouring, snowing, muddy, unbearably hot. I learned there was no bad weather, just bad apparel, I could judge with one breath outside what layers to wear and what I needed to bring if the wind changed. A treadmill was my last resort and rarely used except in the worst black ice deep freeze of the winter. My brain picked up an uncanny ability to map out miles so I would end at just the distance I expected to. I almost never got lost, it wasn't deep woods Vermont, it was our most populated city. If I did find myself in an unknown patch of forest I knew it was never more than a mile to the other side. I knew all the natural places, how if you went through that one development past the pool in winooski, through the side of the gravel quarry that says KEEP OUT and down the path filled with misquotes in the summer you would pop out with one of the most breathtaking hidden views of Lake Champlain. I loved bringing friends to these places but I also thought of these places as friends. I knew how they behaved in every season. How they would look barren in fall stick season. How the dirt trails would respond to your steps differently in the frozen earth than in the spongy grass. How they would get overgrown in late summer so you ended up escaping with nettle marks down your legs that would burn when the sweat ran through them. How that one trail by the river every so many years would be covered in thousands of tiny frogs that you had to work hard to not murder with every step, sending shivers down your spine with an inevitable crunch. Some favorite spots would be developed but I would notice the signs going up, the construction starting, nothing was a surprise. The city breathed and evolved and I was aware of it all.
The past 6 years I haven't been able to run, and there is a grief simmering just below the surface for these moments. Running routes have ghosts, memories of past runs, past people, past experiences. Nothing has compared to how you can explore 8 miles of a place in about an hour by foot. At a speed that keeps your body warm in the sub freezing temperatures and keeps the black flies from catching you in the summer. I can not tell you names of streets but within a 15 mile radius I could tell you the best places to run. It is a magic I will miss forever.
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