Meeting God on my runs, revisited.

It happened to me during tonight’s run. I wrote about this experience before, but let me describe it without copying and pasting from my story last year.

Today’s run was very easy. I did intervals yesterday, so I had to run easy today. Maybe I didn’t “have to,” but I never do two hard workouts in a row.

I started around 5.30 in the afternoon while my son was doing his two-hour water polo at a local high school. The weather was great. It’s still warm during the day here in Southern California. In the mornings and when the sun sets, the air is fresh and sometimes even a touch cool. When you’re running, you still get warm very quickly, but it’s a fresh kind of warm.

I was taking my run really easy, my heart beating slowly, even by my standards.

I wasn’t thinking about anything. I don’t really think when I run. I was in the present moment, enjoying the relaxed rhythm of my shortened steps and relaxed arm movements.

It hasn’t been an easy week for my family. In fact, this entire month has been hard for all kinds of reasons. There were even days when I couldn’t find the mental focus to step out for a run, which is very rare for me. Today though, I was feeling fine. I was relaxed. I was listening to music during my run.

Then, it happened when I was about three and a half miles into my run. It just happened. It’s not like at that moment, I started paying attention to the beatiful sunset (it was hidden by the trees on my trail…