There are days, like last Saturday when I ran 13.1 miles to Higgens Point and back on a sunny morning, when I feel I could run forever. Each step seems easy, fast and strong. I feel light on my feet, as I did in my youth, and charge ahead with confident joy. It’s wonderful. 

But it's becoming rarer. 

There are too many days when I feel slow and fat. I think there’s no way I can make it to Higgens, even with the added incentive of seeing the majestic bald eagles. I plod along, each step discouraging, and I want to stop, turn around and go home. 

After decades of running, I still don’t know why some days on the trails are beautiful and some are discouraging. There are days I am sure I can break four hours in the marathon and want to try yet again, and days and I think I can’t do it, it's hopeless, and running 26.2 miles would end in despair. 

Running does that to you. Like most sports, it gives and takes. Victory and defeat. Courage and fear.

For me, it has granted the opportunity to see places like Hawaii, Ireland, Germany and Prague from a vantage point that few know. It has led me on backcountry roads, through thick brush, along rivers, into sunsets, around waterfalls and over mountains. 

It has demanded from me only time.  

I’m thankful.

There have been disappointments.  

I once thought I was fast enough to qualify for the Olympic trials and entered a major 4-mile race in Seattle with thoughts of winning. Oh, I ran well, about 20 minutes. But at least 50 others finished in front of me. I realized then I was not the stuff of Olympians. 

Still, thousands of miles later, running has been good to me and I'm still at it.

Even as my times have gradually, well, dramatically, slowed over the years, I still love lacing on my running shoes and heading to Tubbs Hill. I love circling the boardwalk. I love the 2.25-mile loop around our Sanders Beach neighborhood. I love running through snowstorms, and sometimes, even the rain. 

I guess I even love not knowing how each run will go as I head out the door.

It leaves open the possibility that my feet will carry me along faster than I expected. Or slower than I believed possible.

Or the eagles will put on a spectacular show at Higgens. Or not even one will make an appearance.

Or perhaps best of all, I will have an encounter with an old friend on the North Idaho Centennial Trail and we will stop, trade greetings, share stories, and run on.  Or I will go the distance alone.

No matter.

It is the unknown, and the possibilities, that keep me running.

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Bill Buley is managing editor of The Press. He can be reached at [email protected].