Running in sand

June 22, 2016

Since my first days as a runner, a mere 8 years ago, I’ve never been one to stick to the main road. If I see an interesting path, a trail, a sidewalk that goes off into the unknown, that’s the track I want to take. Taking the main road for an entire run, never discovering where I could have gone, would always nag at me; make me wonder what new exploration I could have done.

Sometimes this works out great. I have seen much of Niece, France, by foot and found old pine parks set high up in the hills. Sometimes this leads me to trouble, running past bars of drunk Cameroonian police officers in uniform. Often, when I’m running in the bush I’m most happy and calm until I get comments from running mates like, “You should be careful of snakes when running through these grasses.” Then I spend the next few months avoiding the grasses, which are, of course, everywhere until my mind feels like it will explode from the stress of one main route traveled twice a day, everyday. I always inevitably concede to what my brain and feet want, which is the exploration of what feels wild and new.

Running in Botswana is a totally new challenge for me. The sand is unbelievably deep and for every step forward I take two steps back. The sand penetrates running shoes almost immediately and after a good run, you inevitably have blisters at the tops of your toes from where the sand was trapped. Perhaps the most interesting running challenge at the cattle post, Xachirachira, where Ecoexist has built camp, is running through a thousand elephant footprints as soon as you step off the main road. It reminds me that earth is not men’s alone. Humans may feel equally at home deep at sea as in outer space, and though I love hearing the elephants when I’m tucked safely in my warm bed, surrounded by the jolting presence of an electric fence, I prefer to avoid stepping foot into a huge, wrinkly footprint left by a thirsty elephant on his way to drink at the Delta’s edge. Sadly all of the trails that look interesting for exploration are in elephant country, and surrounded by their tracks, you can’t help but feel incredibly insignificant. I prefer to admire their tracks like stars in a night sky, and I’ll have to settle for runs that are less than exciting, because any run that is more than exciting might be my last.