It’s strange that all my life I have hated running. As a child, I couldln’t really run. Any attempt always felt slow and heavy, as if the air had suddenly turned to treacle with sticky tentacles that attached to only me to slow me down and make running 10 times harder for me than it was for others … like in those dreams where you’re running and running, but not getting anywhere.

Recently, however, I have found myself doing a short sprint when coming back up the small hill after feeding the horse. Almostly thoughtlessly. Just because I feel like it. Or to be more precise, because my body does.

An interesting phenomenon was the one instance where I felt super light, my legs pumping effortlessly under me and a brief, euphoric explosion of joy inside my body—this is what they all talk about. This is why people run.

Brief. Gone. Hasn’t returned. But if I’ve done it even once I have within me the ability to do it again. To feel it again. So something that I had totally written off as not part of my life experience is looking possible for the very first time.

It’s not just because I weigh less than I have in years. I have been light before—considerably lighter than now, in fact. So what’s different? Why now? Or how now? I’m not even sure of the question I  am asking, just that there is a question.

I know there’s a possibility that sprinting for a few dozen steps doesn’t mean much in the grand scheme of things … but what if it’s an indication of change within me on a cellular level? That starts to look pretty exciting, doesn’t it?

I’ve always thought that even though I’ve been an abject failure at it, sprinting is something that mankind is built to do. Primitive man depended on fight or flight, and of course the age-old balance problem from only having two legs doesn’t apply when you’re at speed, because running relies on your body being off balance.

If you saw me doing my little sprint, you might think me ungainly or at the least not really a sprinter, with no technique and no true speed. I don’t see me that way at all. I am moving with the most speed I have ever attained in more than 50 years and I’m doing it as part of an almost automatic response to my body. I don’t see that as a few quick steps—for me, it’s a huge leap. More like a bloody miracle, really.