In a lot of movies there are these key scenes where the heroes of the whatever stories live-through an important change. A change from bad to good, a change from deepest sorrow to sheer luck or the rediscovery of a supposedly forever-gone knowledge/ability/emotion. It starts with faintest memories of it which slowly but surely solidify and finally fully returns so that the whatever story hero can thrive again and complete the story to its destined end.

Distance running can as well feel long-gone during certain periods. Periods with (almost) no running; periods in which each step feels like a wasted effort. May it be periods of injury, periods full with this emotional/physical emptiness after a tough adventure or just periods in which life had different challenges along the way which did not leave enough time for running.

But still.

Some things never completely vanish.

Staring into the pouring rain outside –

– faint memories of literally climbing steep trails which turned into rivers due to heavy rain suddenly appear in front of the inner eye

– or that one glorious moment of stupidly crossing a well-filled and tearing river up there in Hautes Fagnes in mid-winter in ice-cold water

Walking back that few steps from the car into the warmth at a freezing day –

– remember these ice-cold km where we discussed for hours how best we would wrap ourselves with gold foil as an extra layer of clothing (one day that moment will come)

– or this day where we desperately wanted to rest for a few minutes but it was just too cold to stand/sit still

Lying down in the warm bed –

– we lost count of the nights without sleep full of running/walking/crawling/hoping/hallucinating somewhere out there

– all the countless 10-30 min sleep breaks plain on the ground protected with a thin crackling aluminum foil – uncomfortable, painful moments of awful power-naps just to endure horrible first km of restarting shivering with the whole body

– the sound of dripping rain on aluminum

– or that glorious break where we “broke-in” into that small barn and lay down on a almost unbelievably comfortable hay stacks

Arriving at the car on an average day –

– ok, no mistakes now: unpack, undress, get dry cloth on, empty trash from backpack, refill water bladder, refill coke bottle, repack food, replace batteries in whatever devices, sit in car, power-bank phone and watch, eat for 10 minutes, sleep for max. 30 min,
GET OUT OF THAT CAR AND CONTINUE

But wait.

All is well – those are memories from the past. No one would deliberately want to re-life all of this. No one.

But still:

Some of those batteries are probably charged. Oh look: the tracker – just charged it yesterday. And, how funny, the watch is fully charged and has some .gpx files loaded. After all: what is that little bit of rain, snow and darkness. I better pack the head lamp. And a spare battery. Some of those gels are close to expiry date. Oh wow – still 10 emergency blankets left (ALWAYS PACK AT LEAST TWO). Will I need the poles? Let me activate the guys

– it is time to do what we do