I'm not running Vancouver

Last night my mom and I and Michael went to the Keg at Granville Island. I ate so much food that I amazed myself. I ate calamari. Then I almost finished off my steak. Then I had creme brulee (I LOVE CREME BRULEE). I drank copious amounts of wine and also had a Spanish coffee.
If you know me, and you don't, you would've been most impressed by my caloric intake because I just don't eat like that. I eat salad. I like quinoa. I sometimes mix granola in my organic yogurt. It's really low key on the eating front.
So, full to the point of bursting and a little buzzed I hit the hay while Michael stays up to watch television. The alarm goes off at 7am this morning and he gets up to run 8 miles with the clinic (damnit, I do miss those guys and I later found out that the pace leader that I ran with for at least three clinics showed up - he's not part of the clinic this time around either - and stood outside the store in his civvies and jokingly asked Michael "is this some kind of running club?". I love that guy. He was so great and encouraging to run with and I brought him back some coffee from "Bean Town" to say thanks for training me for Boston).
He comes back and, yep, I'm still in bed. He makes me breakfast (who is this guy?) and I schlep over to the couch and we watch "The McLaughlin Report" which Michael has renamed, substituting my last name in place of McLaughlin because family dinners, especially when my dad was around, are animated. To put it politely.
Then I go and I decide that I will run a half marathon. I am not sure why I came up with this magic number because I am actually in training for a half marathon which is months away, but I have it in my head that I will run the Seymour Demonstration forest which I have never done (20k) and then I will tack on an additional kilometre at the end so I can legitimately say I ran a half.
I do it. It's beautiful. There weren't many people out. I was intent on listening to the latest Tragically Hip album that I bought yesterday. I'm running along this paved and undulating path that winds through the forest and it's foggy and I secretly don't think I'm going to finish it off and I know that if I turn around at the 6k marker I'm good for 12k which puts me on par with Michael's run (competitive much?) and I know because it's an out and back that every step I take I have to re-take on the way back. And I'm looking at the kilometre markers as I run past them and I'm clocking eight minute miles and I'm a bit surprised. But I'm having a good time and I stop looking at my watch.
I pass the 9k marker and am literally at a crossroad and I see a recumbent cyclist there and I almost ask him where the 10k marker is but I don't, I just cross the service road and go looking for it and I find it and I stop my watch at 50 minutes. I used to struggle to get a 10k in under 50 minutes and am pleased that I hit 50 minutes and was just having fun and feeling good. And I take a gel and pull out the headphones and all I can hear is the water dripping from trees and I am totally alone, surrounded by some poplars and firs and I am staring at the craggy face of the jutting mountain right in front of me. Wisps of cloud are blowing across it and it's stunning and immense and I think that something that big, that grand, shouldn't exist so silently. It should be emitting a loud roaring or rumbling sound but it's not: it exists impassive and immovable and silent and I just am in awe of it.
And I think about all the things that had to occur in my life in order for this specific moment to have occurred. For me to run 10 kilometres into the forest with the knowledge that I can easily manage the remaining 10 kilometres back. That I would end up in North Vancouver. That my life is so good, my base needs so adequately met, that I can pay for the shoes on my feet, the music in my ears, and run marathons in my spare time and that I can end up, at the base of this mountain, my heartbeat slowing, steam rising up from my body, listening to the distant birdsong.