Rubber-soled feet running along cobblestone streets and brick pathways, up stone steps, and above the walls of a fortress from which one can glimpse an antiquated city on one side and manicured lawns of green on the other.
This is the Salomon Citytrail Run.
I’ll get to that in a bit, though. Let me admit something first that may seem off tangent: I was never a big fan of running. I had once counted it as one of my least favorite sports. I was not graceful on the track, I tired easily, and I got bored after the first few minutes. Running, along with rootbeer, anchovies, and nuts were consistently at the top of things I disliked all throughout childhood to adolescence.
However, things change, as the cliché goes. Most of things I disliked grew on me. I found out one sweltering afternoon that I like rootbeer, after all. I decided after a pizza-making session with my brother that anchovies actually make delicious toppings. (I still dislike nuts in chocolates and ice cream, but I’ve come to accept it as an OK snack.)
Running didn’t grow on me, though; I grew into it. With the demands of adult life, of dealing with a busy schedule revolving around work, travel, family and friends, I found little time for physical activity. There were no more after-school trainings with a squad, no gymnasium or swimming pool five minutes away from home. There was just the treadmill, silently beckoning me to put on my rubber shoes and take my first strides.
There is much to be said about the initial struggle of getting into the habit of running, but I won’t go into it. I’ll say this: it’s hard to love, especially when you’re keeping track of the minutes, agonizing over the slow turn of time. Still, I powered through it , working my way up from fifteen to thirty-minute workouts and beyond, with the distance gradually increasing per session.
Then I entered the world of trail running. I was invited to the Salomon Xtrail in Anvaya Cove where I finished my first 6K trail run, puffing, red-faced, but elated.
After two months, I found myself in the middle of The North Face 100: Quarter-life Crisis on the Trail, barely able to walk because of the pain shooting up my legs. Miraculously, I was able to recover – it was a classic case of good going bad to really bad to hey that wasn’t so bad after all.
And most recently, the Salomon Citytrail Run.
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