Katy Clark
The cold air freezes my lungs as I jog through the half-frost, half-mud trail. My quads burn and my breath rises in soft clouds. It’s just me (and the assistant trail running leader) bringing up the back of the pack, again.
Up ahead, past the glow of my headlamp, the trail disappears into darkness. Somewhere in that darkness is the rest of the group. At least I think they’re there. My thoughts start coming rapid-fire: Can I keep up? Where did everyone go? Do I even like this?
Wings flutter over my head. A bat! I am suddenly amazed. The night air feels wider, the world looser, and, just like that, I am a child again. This magically surprising moment feels like freedom.
Lately I’ve been chasing the playful curiosity that I felt instinctively before I “grew up,” when playground bruises dotted my shins, making a friend took five minutes, and the best adventures began with I wonder what’s over there?
Photo courtesy of Katy Clark.
Last summer, I found a photograph of myself at age five. I’m wearing a smocked navy dress with a white lace collar, my hair cut in an imperfect Dorothy Hamill style. My chin is tilted just enough to be proudly defiant, and I am smiling with the fearless joy of someone who doesn’t yet know exactly who she is, but whose gaze is steady, uncompromising, and lit with a quiet challenge. I keep that photo close as a reminder of who that little girl was, and who she still wants me to be.
Now I’m looking for that same untamed spark in the uncertain edges of something new, where falling and fumbling are part of moving freely, and feel like proof that I am all in for this life. I return to that beginner’s place – on snow-covered slopes both Nordic and downhill, and on winter trail runs where the dark comes early – feeling my way through every small victory and fall, and rediscovering the quiet thrill of practicing something new.
Trying something new means agreeing to being bad at it, at least for a while. Between trail running and skiing, I have taken more tumbles than I can count, catching my toe on a rock the size of a Tic Tac or watching my skis dart gleefully in opposite directions. As a kid, I wore those falls like trophies, coming home with grass-stained knees and grinning through the dirt. As an adult, I’ve been complimented on my falling technique, and I am proud of it.
Slipping in Stevens Canyon. Photo by Josaiah Clark.
When we are beginners, the landscape of learning stretches wide and unfamiliar, and we follow its contours carefully. As skill and confidence take root, we can still choose a pace where the urgency slows and the journey becomes a shared space. There is time to trade stories, to laugh, to notice when someone is fighting doubt, and to offer a word or a hand that makes it easier to keep going.
Once, in the middle of a trail race, the sweepers caught me. (They’re the ones who quietly pull the course markers and make sure no one gets left behind.) I realized slowly that I couldn’t step aside to let them pass. “Don’t worry about us,” one called, “Just enjoy the scenery!” They stayed with me through the final climb, and talked about life in easy tones while I bent my head to the record-breaking heat and tried to keep my feet moving. Every few switchbacks, one would offer encouragement and remind me how far I had come. Their words were footholds.
At the checkpoint, my body decided I’d done enough. I’d achieved the climb, so I pulled myself from the race. An aid station volunteer drove me back toward the start. We passed a lake, glanced at each other, and agreed we’d be best friends if we jumped in. I can’t recall her name, but I can still feel the cold shock of that water, and the relief of surrendering to it and the moment.
Pre-trail race smiles. Photo by Adam Fixler.
Here, at the back of the pack, strangers become playmates, volunteers become your crew, wildflowers get noticed, and clouds take on shapes. Conversations stretch between breaths. Struggle turns into transformation.
You don’t have to stay where you are forever, but you can if you want. It’s okay to be wherever you are right now. It’s okay to be new at something. It’s okay to be bad at something and still love it. You can step out of the main current and follow a smaller stream that bends toward your own wonder. You can move at the pace that lets you be present, and know that is enough.
As I approach fifty, I keep remembering that childlike wonder lives in ordinary moments, and in the space we give ourselves to notice this wild, elegantly untamed life: the flower growing in the sidewalk, the coyote slipping through a fence, the part of ourselves that moves freely when we are the ones who set the pace.
At the back of the pack, I’m not behind. I’m running with the girl from that photograph, chin lifted, eyes steady, proud and unflinching. I’m bringing her with me, one slow, sweaty, magical moment at a time.
This article originally appeared in our 2026: Issue 1 of Mountaineer magazine. To view the original article in magazine form and read more stories from our publication, visit our magazine archive.
