The Trail

On Saturday, I went for a walk/run along the biking trail near our house.  These trails are paved and run all through the St. George area.  I joined this one at the park near our house and followed it up the park and then alongside highway.  My original intent of this walk was simply to take the trail up across the busy Parkway above our house and see where it went beyond that.  I'd seen it from the road, but didn't know where it went.  I have decided to train myself to be a runner, and I hoped this could be a safe route for me run on.

As I walked along this bike trail, I was truly struck by the beauty. The first little bit of the trail felt straight up.  I probably don't want to know just how steep it was.  I could see how steep it was from the bottom of the hill, and originally planned just to see where it went when you got to the top.  I thought I was going to DIE going up the hill.  But when I got to the top... it was beautiful.  (It was also flat, which helped my overall sentiment.)

I decided to map out a 5k instead of just seeing where the trail went after the hill.  I walked along this trail for a couple miles.  The red bluffs were the backdrop. I realized the trail was skirting the outside of Snow Canyon State Park.  A breeze was blowing, bringing with it the sweet smell of wildflowers.  The red dirt was splattered with light green of the sage and scrub.  Occasional flowers of fire orange dotted the scene.  It was mesmerizing. 

As I walked along this trail, I was taken back about 7 years to when Scott and I had been married for just a couple months.  We drove from Salt Lake City, where we were living at the time, to St. George to visit Scott's parents.  They had taken us to Snow Canyon State Park.  I remember standing at the top of the red bluff looking down over the canyon and thinking, "I could learn to love this place."  We hadn't made the choice to move to St. George yet, but looking over that bluff, I KNEW we would be moving there.  It wasn't a hope or desire, it was knowledge that I was looking out over my future home.

And here I was, walking along the same state park, looking over the same bluff and canyon, realizing how much I've come to love this place.

I loved the walk so much, I went a 5k and THEN turned around- making my trip a 10k instead.  This also got me thinking about life.  A lot of times, we see where we are going.  We know the destination, even if we don't know how we are going to get there.  Sometimes we forget those moments of clarify- until future times when we suddenly look back and realize we made it there.

I also learned a lot about perspective.  The distance going OUT felt a lot different than the distance coming back.  The reason?  Going out it was a lot of steep uphill.  The trip up these hills was slow and painful.  Coming back I discovered that I can run a 9 minute mile when it's straight down hill.  I ran all the down hill stretches, and made the trip back in just over half the time it took me to go out.  Life also has uphill and downhill stretches.  I think the main thing in life is to make sure that we run in those downhill stretches.  The speed and distance really make us feel good, and it makes the whole journey feel better- even with the harder times.

Just some thoughts. :)