The Standard-Extended Route
Last week I visited my parents and, with the turn of the season, I felt a deep urge to run an old running route through the forest — what used to be my “standard-extended”. There is something about the fall foliage, the scent of autumn and a pinch of nostalgia that hits differently on these trails.
There is something comforting and grounding about retracing your old steps and realizing they still exist, while noticing how much your perspective has changed. Which is probably why there is an expression like “a walk down memory lane” — and there might be more of its kind. Let me explain.
In my late teens, I would run every other day, and I had the nearest forest mapped out with routes of anywhere between 3 and 10 km. The weirdest part? I didn't actually have a watch telling me my pace, distance, etc. at the time. These trails were sort of ballparked to their distance based on how long they took and one or two known benchmarks — until the iPhone later confirmed a more accurate measure of the routes.
Running some of them now, I realize how much better I've gotten at running, because they no longer seem that far. My perspective on distance and size has changed. Especially compared to when I was a kid, when some corners of the forest seemed truly magical — inhabited by fairies, dwarfs and gnomes because they were so impressive.
I can also tell how much time has passed. Some of the beaten paths we used to run or walk on have been reclaimed by nature.
There is a scientific explanation for why green space feels so calming — something to do with the wavelength of green light and how easily our eyes process it. But there is also the more philosophical kind of grounding that comes from being surrounded by trees, dirt and open space.
I'm not sure I could be happy living somewhere with no forest or green space in sight.
A friend's boyfriend will be moving in with her at the end of the year. We met that day after I'd run my “standard-extended” route at my parents' place. He mused that he'd realized that morning, while running with his girlfriend along a river, that this would soon become his new “standard route”.
He'd probably never go back to the town where he lives now after moving — at least not to run the trails that currently make up his habitual routes. The same went for his hairdresser, whom he'd have to change after moving.
It's true. Once you move, you rarely go back to the place you used to live, put on your running shoes and head out the door along one of your old routes. Those trails, routes and little corner shops belong to that place and that time. And eventually, they fade into memory.
That's why I like running when I'm on vacation, when the destination allows for it. I feel like you experience your surroundings more intensely. If I stay somewhere for a couple of days, I always start creating a little map in my mind of the neighbourhood. The intersections, the people, the shops, the flora — they all start to take on a new meaning, because in that moment I belong there as well.
And sometimes I let myself imagine: this could be my “standard”.
Would I be happy here? Would I get my coffee at this place after a run or before work? What would become familiar? What would become mine?
Travel allows you to discover versions of yourself that you could be.
Running along Hongjecheon Stream to the Han River, along the Funchal Riviera, or through Clapham in London, I discover a different perspective on the place — and on the people who live there.
I'm grateful that I can run.
And in order to feel less unsettled or sad about the fact that I may never walk in these places again, I like to think about them from time to time and tell myself that I can go back anytime if I wish.
Maybe that's what running through a place does for me: it turns somewhere I've visited into somewhere I remember — and somewhere I belonged, for a moment in time.
xoxo, F
