I WENT BAREFOOT ON TRAIL the other day.
It was for a photoshoot for the upcoming Edition #3 of Trail Run Mag (what?! you haven’t read number #2 yet? Well get on it!).
Anyway, the idea was to get an image for a story by Nick White about turning up to a trail event sans shoes (he forgot them). I thought a cracking shot of some mud between the toes might suffice. Conceptually, it didn’t work. Or maybe my photography was just not up to scratch.
It was raining. But not cold. There was a small stream running down the centre of the trail, muddying things up. Perfect. I ditched the shoes (Merrell Sonic Gloves, since you asked – read the trail shoe test in the next edition), and sunk my slabs into the mushy dirt. It squidged between my toes. Glorious. I got my hands in there and started throwing mud at my legs and feet.
How much fun is throwing mud at yourself?
Never tried? Go. Do. It rocks.
There’s some kind of freedom about it.
But here’s my point. The feeling of earth against my skin brought back memories of a childhood spent revelling in the stuff. I could smell it through the rain drops. I could feel it getting under my toenails. It was slippery, a little gritty. It felt real. More real than anything I’d felt for a long time. It felt gooooooood.
I came back to my front door, greeted by my four year old looking quizzically at me:
“Dad, why are you muddy?”
“Because it’s fun, beautiful. So much fun. You should try it.”
At that moment, I was more kid than my own kid. That’s a gift.
Point is, sometimes it’s good to feel something in the flesh. There’s just something better about it; the touch, the feel – it’s skin on a solid reality.
Which is why we’re so smack happy to bring you Trail Run Mag in the flesh. It’s real. You can touch it. If I could’ve I would’ve smudged every copy with real dirt (but Kiwi customs told me they’d burn the lot – something about contagion. We’d already transgressed with a possum, apparently).
Anyway, get the dirt: get your hands on a real copy of Trail Run Mag.
[of course we still want you to read the ezines here… they still make your computer screen reek of trail, such is the genius of designers The Bird Collective. But the hardcopies are special. There’s only a limited number of them. So get in now before they go. No reprints. They are, in reality, collectables.]
Oh, and give me a week and you’ll also have edition #3 of Trail Run Mag popping dirt all over your screen. It’ll be here when the time’s right.