Guest post: Dan Riggins

Dan Riggins is my friend from Kenyon College. He was my most important collaborator in my undergrad E. coli lab, one of my training partners during my last cross country season, and of course, a key drinking buddy. Here are some of his thoughts on planning and adventuring...

Running up Wayne Hill in Traverse City, MI is perhaps the most pure and regular form of personal sadism I have accomplished in my life. This particular hill exists solely just to fuck with runners' minds. Well that and it has one of the best views in town, but I'll get to that. According to google maps, it's only about 0.64 miles from bottom to top, but this is one of those hills where you truly feel like you might accidentally fall backwards and never stop falling, like from the side of cliff. This fucker is steep. And once you get to the top, you're one and only option is to complete a loop that takes you right back down to where you started from. That is to say, in running this hill, you ultimately accomplish nothing.

And yet my last year of summer training for high school cross-country, my teammate Geoff and I made it a point to run this thing at least two or three times a week. I'm not sure why, I don't remember if we ever talked about it. We would just do it at the beginning of most of our distance days. It was less than a mile from where we met each morning so we'd huff and puff up to the top, take a breather and enjoy the view, plan where we'd go next, then head out on our way. I really should stress that the view from on top is spectacular. We could see almost anywhere that we could possibly go for the rest of our run.


In any case, one morning, a training companion of ours decided to shake things up a little. After we had rested for a bit, he suddenly hopped that barrier thing that keeps cars from running off the road, and ran straight down this ravine into undergrowth that encircled the neighborhood. Laughing, but a little dumbfounded, we chased him down, down, and down, at ridiculous speeds into the forest. After the euphoria of running fast had subsided, we realized we had no real idea of where we were or where the nearest road was. Unfortunately, we decided that the only thing stupider than blindly running on into the woods was climbing back up the side of the hill. We crashed around for maybe ten to fifteen minutes and finally ended up somewhere on M-72 which we followed back into Traverse City.

It ended up being a great time. Someone could have twisted an ankle, we could have gotten lost, an angry resident could have called our Athletic Director regarding trespassing. All of these scenarios had happened before, but in this instance everything just worked out. We laughed about our adventure for the rest of the week. For example, in the midst of our exploring we came upon a random Christmas tree farm we never knew existed. I dunno, maybe you just had to be there.

But my point here is that sometimes, every once in a while, taking a risk and doing something spontaneous has its rewards. I don't want to discount the importance of working hard and planning things out. But sometimes you got to lighten up and try something new. Geoff and I loved to consider where we would run for our routes. We agonized over what way we should go and when, yet despite all this, we were decidedly bored with all of our routes within two or three weeks of training. That impromptu adventure was just what we needed.

I have another example. I think Ken and my high school coach Dan Zemper would get along great. Like Ken, Zemp is a thoughtful, caring, and passionate guy. He's also the King of Shooting Shit (as Ken might put it). In any case, he retired last spring so he could devote more time to his athletic therapy home business. I got a chance to see him this winter at a Alumni reunion gathering, and while I could see that he was still the same guy I know and love there was this profound loneliness in his eyes that I had never noticed before. It's probably only partially due to retirement; he's dealt with some pretty harsh circumstances for the past few years, but whatever the cause, it made me sad.

This morning I got an email from him saying he's going to Ethiopia. Apparently at the very last minute he decided to travel as an athletic therapist with this group of runners who are trekking across the country in support of an effort to build three new schools for children there. These runners will complete 400 kilometers over the course of twelve days. Doubtless, they will be in sore need of the the kind of therapeutic services Zemper can provide. Sure he could catch some weird African disease or run into trouble with the locals. I can only imagine the financial sacrifice he will be making while away from his business. But the bottom line is that by making a spontaneous choice, my coach has the chance to feel young again, to have an adventure, and to make a tangible positive difference for some African children. He might even stave off his loneliness.

I personally have always been a planner. If you ask for my outlook on life, you'll find that my opinion of experiences in the past and present is almost always a little disappointed or even embarrassed. Yet my feelings about the future are usually optimistic. For some reason, I think that if I can just lay out everything in just the right arrangement, I'll finally attain the elusive happiness I crave.

Perhaps I'm wrong though. (I often am). There are so many things to constantly consider. I want to go to med school, I want to be a successful doctor, I want to have freedom to pursue creative hobbies, I want to stay close with my girlfriend after graduation, I want to live the Pacific Northwest, I want, I want, I want. Pretty soon all these considerations become bonefied worries.

Maybe rather than planning my life, it's time to start living it.

It takes a lot of psyching up for me to abandon my figurative agenda in the sky, but maybe with just the right amount of informed instincts, it's worth it to occasionally make things up on the fly.

What do you think?

Feel free to comment here or shoot me a message at rigginsda@gmail.com.

photo by Kim Cronin