Smiling in pain on the ridgeline

This was the running-trails summer. Southern California, dry hills, the coast range stacked up blue and hazy in the distance and a soft ceiling of marine layer sitting below the ridgelines.

Trail running out here was a fulfilling sufferfest — long climbs, dry heat, the kind of effort that only makes sense from the inside. A practice, really, of smiling in pain: learning to hold something close to joy while your legs are arguing with you. The views were the reward and the bribe both.

I stopped for this one. Up ahead a stranger stood under the only tree on the hill, just taking it in, the whole faraway scene composing itself around him. Some views you run through; a few you stop for. This was one I stopped for.