That rush was satisfied on our weekly run up Dowdy Draw last week.  Susan was up for extending and I, as always, happily jumped into her boat to see where the mood would take us.  She described a route that I could only vaguely imagine; somewhere past the bridge we would go straight up the service road and circle around the higher hills before coming down and exiting at the bridge again.  In other words, we were doing a lollipop.  Cool.

 It’s still rainy and humid.  My usual split-ends are notably absent, I haven’t moisturized in weeks and old-time ranchers are spotting wildflowers that haven’t bloomed in twenty years.  Grasses are so high I could lose my dog if she stepped a few feet off the trail.  The kids have been out of school for five weeks and this was the first week that it’s been above eighty degrees.  The mountains are lush, green, full, and beautiful.  Flora is abundant and the air is almost pulsing with living energy.  My heart sped up just thinking about it.

 The new trail system winding over the hills of Dowdy Draw is a huge improvement over the old worn footpaths.  There’s even a cute little stone bridge over a little mountain stream that cuts through the hills.  We chat easily as we head up the hill onto the mesa that offers respite from the gentle climb.  The grasses are higher here than on the sloping hill and we run single file to avoid brushing ankles along the itchy grasses.

 Summer is the proverbial “Land of Milk and Honey”, a phrase taken from the children’s version of “Big Rock Candy Mountain”.  It’s a time when waters rush down rivers and reservoirs are filled.  Boats fill the lakes, kayakers take to the water and any one who’s ever run dusts off sneakers and sees where the ol’ legs take them.  Kids are up til dark, barbeque smoke wafts through the neighborhood and teenagers cruise the streets, laughing the evening away.  Summer is a time for living, for feeling the pulse race, for finding out what moves you.  It’s a time for reconnecting with the Earth’s life force, growing stronger, expanding the mind and opening stagnant organs.  I wax poetic.

 The ladies cruise to the top of Dowdy Draw and reconvene at the bridge.  Shari snaps a picture of the group and because only three of us are extending the run and we’re all there, Susan, Beth and I take off.  There was discussion back at the parking lot as to how long the extension would take with estimates ranging from thirty minutes to ten.  The three of us are of similar strength and ability; we figure we should be able to keep a steady pace and glide through the hills.  I stop and re-start the timer on my Garmin Forerunner in order to get the splits between the three legs of the journey.

 The road starts off flat, a nice way of getting into the rhythm of the run.  Less than half a mile later we’re heading up and talking ceases.  I concentrate on breathing and doing the steady inhale-exhale thing.  My gluts are whining at me now and I do my very best to ignore them.  I hate whining.

 And then we’re at the top.  Beth of the Infinite Legs passed me a few minutes ago because she has only one speed when it comes to getting up a hill.  I have the same problem, except our speeds don’t quite match.  Susan’s directing our wagon train and steers us onto the Goshawk Trail where my brain impersonates a giddy colt.  The endorphins kicked in, my gluts were hurting but now my heart is pounding, the sun is shining and I am absolutely smacked with the realization that at this moment in time, I am one hundred percent alive.  I have reached the fabled land of Milk and Honey; it doesn’t get any better than this.  My idea of a great time is not sitting around on a beach decomposing, but instead moving my body, mind and heart until it is in sync with the world around me. 

 It seems that this must be the feeling that so many people spend their lives reaching for.  People take drugs, eat themselves stupid, medicate and tune into fictional worlds of television and gaming in an absolutely futile attempt to feel better about themselves and life in general.  Those are all ways of DIS-connecting with life in a backward attempt at RE-connecting with the very thing that would make them feel that life is worth living.  Self sabotage.

 Since I’m on a roll I’ll posit this theory; lots of people don’t want to do the physical work of living because of the ickiness of sweat, but sweat is the proof that the work got done.  Sweating isn’t glamorous but when you sweat you purge the crud you’ve been hauling and make room for that enduring, pulsing energy of Earth.  Sweat is a badge of honor.  There should be a sweat checkpoint before entering the Promised Land of Milk and Honey, proof that you did the work and lived a little along the way.

 We round the lollipop and I stop my timer.  The loop was two point eight miles of hard climbing.  I punch the timer to start again and we continue back down Dowdy Draw.  The entire run was eight miles and we finished in an hour and twenty minutes.  The group was still standing in the parking lot when we rolled in.  We swigged from water bottles, loaded up and headed to the coffee shop for our reward with me humming “Big Rock Candy Mountain” to myself the whole way home.