For fellow runners. Of all species.

The thoughts that occur to me while I’m running are like clouds in the sky. Clouds of all different sizes. They come and they go, while the sky remains the same sky as always. The clouds are mere guests in the sky that pass away and vanish, leaving behind the sky. The sky both exists and doesn’t exist. It has substance and at the same time doesn’t. And we merely accept that vast expanse and drink it in.
Haruki Murakami

I immerse myself in the tar of predawn. In the tropical jungle, just after the rain, this is no metaphorical act. The black air truly sticks to the skin. I begin another day of the “Virtuosity of Sunrises” experiment. For two weeks, I run at dawn along the same path. It breaks off at the edge of a cliff overlooking the Pacific Ocean on one side. On the other, surreal waterfalls feed the river, the mother of an expansive, jungle-clad valley below. Above it, each day, flawlessly, with virtuosity, the sun rises.

The “Virtuosity of Sunrises” is an experiment in repetition. In life, I have thrown myself into many activities requiring systematic work. In those where I persevered, I was fascinated by the progression that stems from routine – how initial clumsiness evolves into ease, sometimes finesse, and in the ultimate cases, into virtuosity and beauty. Perhaps sunrises are the ultimate experiment, and the earliest, billions of years ago, were awkwardly ugly. Trillions of repetitions have brought the Sun closer to the Platonic ideal. I delude myself that daily running in my own tracks will at least transform into an illusion of ease.

The dark-eyed locals sometimes call my green irises ‘los ojos del gato,’ the eyes of the cat. Yet they are of no use to me in the uniform blackness. I start slowly, already well aware, after more than a week, of what lurks ahead. I cannot see it, but I feel it in my panicking lungs and muscles: half a mile of steep hill, the relentlessness of gravity. At the top, I look at my watch. Barely six minutes have passed, yet the thought of dehydration flickers through my mind. Luckily, the next mile undulates gently over hilltops, offering an illusion of respite. Yet the humidity is unyielding. Starting from the second day, I run shirtless, the one woven from sweat suffices.

Invisible vines lurk in the tropical air. They seize any lapse in attention to halt my run, forcing me into an unwitting walk. This never happens to me elsewhere. I realize that running demands constant concentration, a sustained will. Training helps, but dehydration, heat, and gravity ruthlessly strip the will away.

Near the equator, daybreak arrives abruptly, snatching the redness of the clay soil from darkness. To push myself, I imagine the Kenyans running on similar roads in Iten – their technique and running form nearly reaching the Platonic ideal. In exhaustion, this visualization does not last long. The Kenyans fade away. I see only my bulky self, gasping on another uphill, shattering ideals.

The road gradually turns into a path. Fresh after the rain, numerous streams cross it, cascading down into a rushing brook several meters below. The brook, somewhere out of sight, flows into the river, and the river into the ocean. My imagination revives, supported by the image. The streams are the capillaries carrying carbon dioxide away from my weary muscles. They merge into veins, heading towards the lungs. My lungs are an ocean. I take a few deep breaths, I fill the ocean, and momentarily stabilize myself.

Above a dell to the right, a pair of swallow-tail kites circle. They cut through the air diligently, fulfilling their destiny as dictated by their Spanish name tijeretas. Their scissor-shaped tails remind me of the Hawaiian koa’e kea. Of all the birds I have observed in my life, these still soar above the my avian podium. It was on the edge of the cliff on the inaccessible north coast of Hawai’i Island. The place was sacred to the local people, and in its sacredness, virginally beautiful. It was meant to be hard to find again, so our phones were taken away. Feet dangled over the abyss in which the koa’e glided, their long white tails contrasting with the steel-colored sea. The wind carried a fine mist, which settled on our faces as a salty layer. Koa’e kea and tijeretas. Different birds, different times, but now I can taste the same saltiness and feel same the sting in my eyes. Rubbing them, I try to get a better view of the dell’s bottom. Trees press against its vertical walls, like the waves in my memory. For a moment, I feel the cool breeze from many years ago and thousands of kilometers away. I quicken my pace.

Just before plunging into the jungle, I pass a decaying ranch. In a cramped paddock, a bay mare orbits around an aspiring vaquero. The mare, too, suffers from the heat, with latherin foam accumulating around her longeing girth. My genome lacks the latherin protein that evenly distributes sweat. It is a minor loss, as I also do not have fur encoded in my genes. I thank the heavens of evolution and sympathize with the mare. Despite this, her tense muscles make my confidence wane. I then remember the incredible fact that in this terrain and temperature, I would win a marathon against her with ease. My confidence grows, and the ranch disappears behind the impenetrability of the jungle.

The terrain becomes relatively flat, and I regain my rhythm. I hear a small waterfall, a promise of coolness. I also hear raucous cries, a promise of encouragement. I veer off the narrow path, and the cries intensify. I see them in the lower canopy layer. Some hang just above me. Spider monkeys, the most agile of primates, the most intelligent in the New World, raise a clamor. It reminds me of the crowd shouting my name at the Amsterdam marathon. The spider monkeys seem to be shouting it too. In my euphoria, I steal their agility. The stones I hop across on my way to the waterfall become larger, flatter, more stable. I stop thinking. Distances, angles, joint positions, muscle tensions calculate themselves. The only thing I remember is to avoid grasping any plants for balance; they offer only thorns, spikes, and poison.  

I dive under a jet of cold water. Although I am standing still, time on my watch keeps running. Not wasting seconds, the chill marks a new beginning. I turn back, stepping carefully on mossy stones. A giant dragonfly, with a stunning vermilion abdomen, alights on my forearm. I clearly see its pterostigmata, elongated black spots on the edge of the wings. The heavier pigment ensures the wing does not vibrate during gliding flight. I scan my body for a similar, mechanical adaptation. I want to feel like a machine created for running. My thoughts alight on the nuchal ligament, the connective tissue that, during running, prevents my head from bouncing like in a dashboard bobblehead. Instinctively, I straighten up, aligning my neck and chest. In the image of the taut ligament, I find relaxation.

In the final straight, I see my own straight spine. Dawn pierces through a gap in the forest wall. Reaching the rocky edge, I pause my stopwatch. Time becomes irrelevant, fading into the majesty of the landscape. To my right, the navy blue sky is torn by distant flashes. In the opacity of the storm, a cape in the shape of a whale’s tail looms. Hundreds of meters below in the treetops, howler monkeys engage in a dialogue with the thunder. To the left, the sky is clearish and the sun peeks over the mountains enclosing the valley, timidly meeting my eyes. Sweat evaporates from my shoulders, rising as a tiny cloud, mirroring the great ones that emerge from the swath of trees stretching to the horizon. My calming breath merges with the breath of the landscape. I recall what Fernando Pessoa wrote:

Today, before each landscape, no matter how fresh, I stand as a foreigner, a guest and pilgrim before it, an outsider of what I see and hear, old to myself. I’ve seen everything, even what I’ve never seen nor will ever see. Even the memory of future landscapes flows in my blood, and my anxiety over what I’ll have to see again is already monotonous to me.

The “Virtuosity of Sunrises” exposes the falsity of this thought. I cannot be a foreigner to something with which I am one. I cannot be old to myself if with each dawn I rediscover this place, and myself, anew. I have seen nothing and I have no anxiety about it whatsoever. The “Virtuosity of Sunrises” also exposes the falsity of repetition and perfection. It is all an incessant search and discovery. It is the uniqueness of every sunrise that gives us the sense of virtuosity.

I reset the time. I take the last breath. Then the first one. Then, my breath halts in my chest. Turning back, I see a jaguar gazing at the same landscape. We talked about him at dinner last night. He killed two rams on a nearby farm a few weeks ago, suffocating them without removing even a single organ. Our gazes cross. He looks at me. I look at him. The moment extends too long, time moves on, but I remain still. The jaguar tilts its head. Maybe it is mine that tilts? I keep my eyes locked on his. These are los ojos del gato, the eyes of the cat. I realize I am looking into myself. The jaguar seems to smile faintly, then retreats soundlessly into the jungle.

I jump down from the rocky ledge unusually softly for my thirty-three-year-old-ninety-kilo self. I move forward soundlessly. Thoughts race, but I am faster. I leave them behind, thoughtlessly reaching the camp. I scoop up a glass of water from the stream and add a teaspoon of salt to it. The thoughts catch up with me. Not allowing them to evaporate, I sit down at the table. Dripping sweat stains the white paper before me. It does not matter. I must detail the symbolism of my totemic credo. Before it transforms into a tiny cloud above me.