How to instagram a run

You can't. 

Plain and simple, which is one of the largest downfalls of instagram. I try to be consistent with posting pictures, but I am rarely good at it having 10 one day and then zero for the next week. Probably why I can't make it in the social media world, but I'm working on it. 

I think one of the reasons that I don't instagram as much as I should is because you can't instagram a feeling. And for me, running is all about the feeling. 

Yes, it's about the sunrises and the sunsets, the brilliant blue skies with white puffy clouds and the snow speckled mountain peak in the distance. It's about all of that. But it's also about the air in that mountain, and the wind that blows between those white puffy clouds and the warmth that comes from those first rays of sun as you watch the sun come up over the fog glazed lake. 

You can't instagram a night run. Firstly, because phone cameras don't seem to be able to capture the glow of the moon quite right, but more so because they can't capture the feeling of a night run. That chill that's in the air when you set off in the late evening. When you leave the warm glow of your home and enter into the darkness of a winter night, into the unknown. There is something secretive about a night. You can't see what is beyond you, beyond your own space in front of you and around you. There is a certain kind of trust that you develop with the night, turning off your senses and settling into the comfort of the darkness. 

You can't instagram an emotion. That feeling you get when you have settled into your run and your starting to pick up the pace; and that one song comes on. Suddenly, within the darkness you feel stronger. You feel invincible and you feel like it is just you can that song, and nothing else in the world. You start to push yourself a little more, letting the beat of the music drown out your thoughts and fill your head. Your breath starts to to get heavier and your body heats up with the speed of your legs but you can feel the chill in the air on your cheeks and see the warmth of your breath in the air in front of you. 

You decide to face the challenge of the run. The challenge of the night as it calls out to you. You turn the corner for the last half mile straight away and accept the challenge of your legs calling out to you, digging in deeper and deeper as the night gets darker and the music gets louder. You focus straight ahead and tune everything out. Hands strong, focus strong, breath strong, legs strong. Pushing yourself to the limit; till, even just for a moment, your flying. 

You can't instagram what it feels like to fly. 

And you come back down to the ground. The song has changed and you slow to a walk, then stop. Standing on your front lawn again, right back to where you started.

But your different when you return. Your breath is heavy, filling the night sky with each exhale. Your body is tired and your mind, if even for a moment, is perfectly clear. You sit for a moment there and stare at your house, back into the warm glow of your life, excited to go back in, but savouring every last ounce of the feeling.

Looking up into the sky, the night is clear and the stars are bright. You were up there for a moment tonight. There are things in this world that you will never be able to share. Things that are held so deeply inside, locked up tight and although you wish everyone could feel the way that you do in those deepest moments of life, you know they will never feel what you do. 

I hope that everyone can find their own moments they will never be able to instagram. Make as many memories as possible, and fly as high as you can.