In the spirit of Every Brilliant Thing and Thanksgiving, here are 50 brilliant things about running.
A few weeks back, my friend was in a play, Every Brilliant Thing, which, without spoiling it (because I, correctly, assume you will all be rushing out to patronize live theater and support working artists), is partially about the radical power of noticing, appreciating, and occasionally surrendering yourself completely to the pleasures of being alive. This synopsis falls woefully short for a beautiful and complex piece of theater, but you get the gist.
The play follows a character who begins compiling a list of every brilliant thing in the world. One million things worth living for, from ice cream to sunsets to listening to a record for the first time. Some are profound, and many are wonderfully ordinary. The point here isn’t that life is always good, but that even when it isn’t, there are still an astonishing number of good things in it.
I’ve always approached the gratitude-industrial complex with a degree of skepticism. Gratitude journals, gratitude practices, gratitude challenges. I’ve tended to associate them with people who own meditation cushions and wear mala beads hand-carved from volcanic rock sourced from the most spiritually significant part of Iceland (wherever Bjork is from).
What I resist is the idea that gratitude should be compulsory. That every setback is a blessing in disguise, every disappointment an opportunity for growth, every shitting thing that happens to you is a gift you just haven’t learned how to unwrap yet!
I believe some things are just shit. You don’t have to be grateful for them. I think acknowledging that some things genuinely suck is part of what makes appreciating the wonderful things mean something. We live in a universe that contains both Mary Oliver and stubbing your toe. Pizza and airport hugs, but also dental surgery and the comments section of any local newspaper. There is cruelty and indifference and unimaginable suffering, but there’s also my mom’s peach cobbler and the corgi named Waffles I got to pet on my run today.
Maybe I’m a fully-formed product of the millennial BuzzFeed generation, but I love a list. I love a ranking. I love being told that there are 27 things that only 90’s kids will understand and number 18 will BLOW YOUR MIND.
So, in the spirit of Every Brilliant Thing, and Thanksgiving, I’ve started compiling a list of my own: the small, the wonderful, ordinary, and occasionally ridiculous things that make running worth doing. And I’d love your help adding to it. Send your own brilliant things about running to trailhead@ultrasignup.com and I’ll keep adding to the list!
RELATED: Find Your Next Trail or Ultrarunning Race with UltraSignup’s Event Finder
50 Brilliant Things About Running
- T-shirt weather.
- The first mile of a run when you realize that, for no particular reason, you feel really, really good.
- Really good socks.
- Wildflowers.
- Ending a run at EXACTLY the right time or on very even mileage, and not having to jog around the parking lot because you’ve already achieved perfection.
- Cold brew after a hot run.
- Hot coffee after a cold run.
- Getting lost, going the wrong way, but ending up somewhere even better than you planned.
- Sprinklers.
- Meeting someone at run club and having an alarmingly deep conversation with a person who’s virtually a stranger, because something about running next to someone in the dark makes you want to tell them everything about your life and soft-tissue injury history.
- The smell of pine trees in the sun.
- Gas station gummy worms.
- When Built to Spill hits at exactly the right moment in a workout.
- Having a pair of running shoes you love so much that you feel like you’re cheating on them when you wear something different.
- Ridgelines.
- Giving another passing runner the mutually agreed-upon nod of recognition.
- Publicly maintained drinking fountains.
- That feeling after a long run when you have to go do stuff out in the world, and your legs are appropriately tired or sore, but instead of feeling bummed about it, you feel like a superhero harboring a secret like I ran 20 miles today!
- Aspens that are gold in the fall.
- Running past a laundromat or a barbecue restaurant that smells really good.
- The perfect pair of running shorts that make you feel cute and fast.
- Running in a new city and suddenly feeling like you understand the place.
- When you hit a switchback in exactly the right way and feel like a race car.
- Dogs as training partners.
- Picturing yourself in the Rocky training montage.
- All the singletrack in Marin County.
- Gastrointestinal confidence.
- Hydration mixes that taste like alcoholic beverages.
- When you pass hikers who say, “I could never do that!” and you act appropriately embarrassed by the attention while privately accepting their admiration.
- Airplane arms.
- Running up a hill, no matter how small, that you’ve walked before.
- Walking up something you’ve previously run and being chill about it.
- Hero dirt.
- Silent runs.
- Finishing a race in the time you thought you would.
- Finish-line beer.
- Finish-line bagels.
- Finish-line anything.
- Perfect loops.
- When you actually dress appropriately for the weather.
- Recovery runs.
- Chatty aid-station volunteers.
- Knowing your running route by heart.
- Running at sunrise.
- Running through town at the exact moment all the streetlights pop on simultaneously.
- Starting a run without a plan.
- A miraculous day where all the parts of your body that normally hurt don’t.
- Running without a watch.
- Knowing the way home.
- Breathing.
More Writing from Zoë Rom
- All the Brilliant Things About Running
- My Earnest Attempt to Master the Art of Wintering
- Get to Know the Terroir of the Trails
- The art of accepting abject failure and moving on
- The Art of Taking Running Seriously, But Not Too Seriously
- 3 Things I Learned from Coming Back From Injury
- Closing the Gap Between Ability and Ambition
- What Causes a UTMB DNF? Here’s What The Data Says
- Nine Lives: My Life in 9 Transcendent Pairs of Shoes
