The Quiet Between Footsteps
I started running more than fifteen years ago for a simple reason: I could step outside anytime and move. No schedule to negotiate, no gate to unlock. Just shoes, air, and the promise that twenty quiet minutes can change a day.
At first, running meant recreation — a space to calm my thoughts and reset after long days. I joined local fun runs, felt the buzz of community starts, and returned home lighter, quieter, somehow renewed.
Over time, the habit deepened. I kept running through winters — the kind that ask you to zip your jacket higher and trust that warmth will arrive in the third kilometre. What began as exercise turned into one of the steady rhythms of my life. I run on roads when I want the clean repetition of even steps; I run on trails when I want to listen.
Where the Trail Begins
In the last two years, the forest has been calling me back more often. Trails thread through the trees like old stories, and moving along them feels less like training and more like remembering.
There’s a part of the climb toward a nearby hill where the path begins to wind gently through the trees. It passes an old beech — its roots spread wide like open hands — and then curves into a section where the late afternoon light pours through the canopy in soft, golden sheets.
The moment I reach that stretch, everything loosens: shoulders, jaw, the plan I thought I needed. Breath settles wider and lower; thought dissolves into the rhythm of steps. From there on, each footfall feels like a quiet conversation with the forest.
A Bridge Back to the Hive
Often, after a run, I drive to the apiary. The heart slows, but attention stays bright. Ideas arrive there — small, practical questions about the colonies that somehow took shape between kilometres: Do I need to adjust the entrance reducers? Is the new queen laying evenly? What did yesterday’s weather tell them that I missed?
Standing by the hive, I listen for tone. A calm, even hum means things are as they should be; a thin or restless note asks me to look closer. Running tunes me for this listening. The trail teaches patience, and the bees reward it.
I’ve learned that both practices — moving and keeping — are less about intensity than continuity. Keep showing up, keep noticing, keep your hands gentle.
The Years That Built a Rhythm
Looking back, I can trace the arc: a casual decision to move becomes a season, a season becomes a year, and then one day you realize you’re the kind of person who runs through winter on purpose. I didn’t plan a philosophy — it emerged through repetition.
On the road, rhythm is a clean line drawn by breath. On the trail, rhythm is an agreement with terrain: I’ll lift when you ask, I’ll slow when you lean, I’ll trust the next corner.
The forest gives me the same feeling I had as a child exploring — present, curious, unhurried — and movement through it amplifies that feeling until the day feels properly tuned.
What Running Leaves Behind
Some runs shimmer; others ask for patience. I’ve stopped grading them. Bees have heavy days and light ones; the work continues either way.
A run that starts clumsy can end with a single clear thought, and that is enough. The measure isn’t pace but whether I met the day with attention.
When I get home — shoes by the door, a thin line of trail dust on my socks — I carry the quiet with me. Emails read simpler. Tasks line up without protest.
The best part is that nothing dramatic happened — just breath and steps and a path I’ve taken dozens of times. Continuity, not spectacle.
Two Homes, One Posture
Beekeeping taught me that presence is a posture you practice: soft hands, steady breath, eyes that notice more than they judge.
Running gave me a way to rehearse that posture away from the hives — long before I lift a frame or open the door at the back of the AŽ rows.
I don’t run to escape; I run to arrive — so that when I’m with the bees, I’m actually with them.
Somewhere between the sixth and seventh kilometre, a small promise always appears: keep it simple, keep it kind, keep returning.
That promise is the line that connects the trail to the apiary and back again.
An Invitation
If you’ve been carrying a busy day, may a short road loop or a quiet trail into the woods offer you the same permission it gives me — to move without hurrying, to listen without demanding an answer.
I’ll finish my run and, more likely than not, head to the hive with a pocket full of quiet questions and the patience to hear what the hum says back.
One rhythm, two practices, the same homecoming.
Buzz. Run. Repeat.
