Irrational Confidence Guys

 I have this tendency to go through slumps in life, it’s usually when I get busy and I don’t have time to process life. It’ll take something to knock me off course, force me to step out of my life, and appreciate it.  

This time, two friends knocked some sense back into me. 

First, my friend Jason sent me an uplifting email. After graduating, Jason moved out to Chicago where he was mugged at gunpoint, but that was only the beginning. He found himself in an ugly work situation where he hated his job as a technician in a high-powered microbiology lab, so he chose to move back home to the east coast in an attempt to switch careers.  

Despite struggles that would leave me in a one man pity party, Jason capitalized on the positive. After leaving college, Jason wanted to spend time in a research lab, to see what was out there besides the medical school track he’d been on for years. After his lab experience, he was at an all-time high confidence in his medical school path. He explained his confidence: 

“Take my health, take my job, but you may never take my confidence.” 

He struggled through a job he hated, knowing it would ultimately maintain his confidence. I love that about Jason, he walks with that swagger – an obnoxious combination of self-confidence, self-deception, and a heck of a lot of talent. I wish I had that swagger. 

My second friend, Kara, moved out to Portland, OR on a whim. She found herself frustrated with the world, and had this burning desire to shake up her life. After she graduated from Kenyon, she worked in her home of Connecticut, but soon after she committed to move out to Portland. She had no job prospects, no friends, no home, but she still moved, because of this confidence. She believed life was something to be taken seriously.  

After about six months, Kara found that Portland wasn’t the right fit. She didn’t meet the same daring people she was hoping to find, and the culture didn’t quite fit her, so she was packing, again. 

On her last day in Portland, I asked what she was thinking. Surprisingly, or maybe not if you know Kara, she was still confident. I sensed the hurt on her heart, but she still held that familiar poise. She told me of her vision as she moved back to the east coast. I wished her luck, and she left me with this Steve Jobs quote: 

“Stay hungry, stay foolish.” 

After all the struggles that Kara had endured in Portland, she still had that swagger. I have tremendous respect for Jason and Kara. It’s sure as hell not easy to move, nor is it easy to shake up your life, yet they both kept their head up. 

That attitude urged me to reflect on my life. 

About three weeks ago, I opened my email to see this: Invitation to interview at Duke Medical School. A couple years ago going to Duke med was the dream of my dreams. I don’t know where it falls on my wish list today, but I was almost giddy when I saw that email, and I am not the giddy type.

It reminded me that I might be drained – but I’m living the life I’ve wanted for myself for years. Really, at 23, I’m exactly where I want to be. 

See you on the other side, 

from ken 

Feel free to comment! I would love to hear your thoughts.

See you on the other side, friend.

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May the road rise to meet you 

May the wind be always at your back 

May the sun shine warm upon your face 

May the good Lord hold you in the palm of His hand 

May the rains fall soft upon your fields, until the day we meet again 

- Irish funeral blessing 

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I’m into a lot of things, but my obsession is relationships. 

I was reading an old letter I sent to some of my friends, my college cross country team. I concluded it with this sentence: 

“For the time that was college, without all of your friendships, I would never have survived the pile of shit that is life. So, thanks. I appreciate every one of you more than I could ever say.” 

And it’s true, I would never have survived college without my running buddies. People weren’t meant to survive on their own. Allow me to break off on a sidenote: 

I’ve been trying to come up with a signature closing to my posts. “from ken” is memorable, but I’ve been wanting something more. One sign off I like is, “may the force be with you.” 

One of my college mentors told me that as I walked into the room to defend my undergrad thesis, and it’s stuck with me since. It implies that there’s something greater than your own powers that could help you, which is comforting. 

But the sign off I’ve been trying for now is, “see you on the other side.” It means several different things to me, but I like it because if you’re reading this blog, you are my friend. And whether or not I will actually see you again, I like to think that I will. 

I learned this phrase from Donald Miller, a Christian author who used it to sign off his book, Searching for God Knows What. This is a book explaining what it means to be Christian, but I’d guess he saw the other side as a place where we’ll be after earth, heaven. 

I’m not exactly sure what I see on the other side. I think it’s a bit like this. 

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You and I are on one side. There are other people on the other side, but we can’t quite make them out. And for some reason, we’re trying to get to the other side. 

We'll probably have to part ways to get to the other side of the river, and maybe we've already parted.

But my hope is that one day, we would meet again on the other side. 

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It’s hard to remember the important people that have come and gone through your life. 

Go ahead, imagine an old friend that’s not in your life anymore. 

What I’m saying is, the other side of the river is a place where, at least in your imagination, you could be with that person again. 

You’ll laugh about old times, catch up on your lives, and of course, enjoy the other side. I imagine it like a wedding, there will be goofy dancing, bottles of local Portland beers, and it will be a celebration. 

See you on the other side, 

from ken

Why I love Wyoming pt 2: A well earned celebratory hand gesture

One of the big running mile markers, pun intended, is the one hundred mile week. It doesn’t really mean anything, but at the same time, it means everything. I had several consistent 90 mile weeks, but the 100 mile week just felt like a higher level. 

One week I had unknowingly racked up the miles, including a 20 mile long run. Near the end of that week, it was Saturday afternoon, the last day of my running week, and I was sitting at 93 miles. I had scheduled a six miler. 

Was it worth it to go seven miles to reach one hundred? 

Would I just be caving into looking good rather than being good, and wanting that three digit week? 

The answer to both those questions, was yes. But I didn’t know that when I departed. 

I set out the door that afternoon settled on a six mile run, and I saw one of my buddies, Samet, a Turkish soccer player. He was about to leave for a short twenty minute jog to stay in shape, but when he saw me running I could sense his competitive side awakening. He casually asked to run with me. 

We set out jogging easy, and I told him I was planning to run six miles. He told me he’d turn back when he felt tired. We checked past the two mile marker, and the three mile marker. Eventually, we passed the tree that signaled three and a half miles. 

We would be running back on the same road, so at that point I knew. I had one hundred miles this week, in the bank. It felt a bit surreal, but it was hard to take in at the moment because Samet and I were in the midst of a heated discussion about the philosophical aspects of our sports. 

We talked about what made us train at grueling levels and why we fell in love with our sports. We had lots of aimless tangents, but ultimately settled on one point. These sports, these challenges, they tested our character. They tested the amount of soul we had in our fragile human bodies. Maybe we were just too proud to give up. 

As we went on, I realized I was doing most of the talking. A rare thing when I'm with a new friend.  Samet was breathing hard, real hard. I paused my ranting for a second to check if he was ok. He told me, inbetween breaths, that he had never ran more than four miles. At that exact moment we were approaching six miles. 

I tried to encourage him, but I knew this was out of my hands. He kept telling me he had to walk it in, he had to give up. I didn’t know what to say, so I said nothing. I just kept running. 

Before I knew it, the employee dorms were just a short 100 yards away. When we turned that last corner something in Samet’s dead tired body just clicked. The way it clicks in a toddler’s head when he first walks on his own two legs - Whoa, I can do this. 

At that moment Samet muttered, “Thanks,” and with that he took off in a dead sprint. Samet was screaming at the top of his dried out lungs, in broken English, “NEVER GIVE UP, NEVER GIVE UP.” I get chills just putting those words down on paper. 

Samet had gained noticeable ground on me as I got back to our starting point, the employee rec hall. When I stopped, I made eye contact with him and silently acknowledged that we had helped each other reach a higher level of ourselves. He had ran a longer distance than he ever thought possible, and not only that, he had proven to himself the exact reason why he got into soccer in the first place. He never wanted to give up. He wanted to give his best, every moment he was alive. 

And for me, I had reached the seemingly impossible. When I started running in high school, I was a below average runner at best, struggling to break 20 minutes in the 5k. I never thought I would attain the level of running and strength it took to run a one hundred mile week. But here I was, standing with Samet, 100 miles logged on my legs over the past week. 

I will always remember that moment. Seeing the look on Samet’s face, I knew we had attained a connection only possible for those working together, shooting for levels of life higher than the normal person would dare to imagine. We had achieved, together, what life was like when you stick to the grind. 

I stuck out my hand, and he slapped me five. A good day.

See you on the other side, 

from ken  

Feel free to comment! I would love to hear your thoughts.

Why Wyoming is my favorite state pt. 2: The Trial of Miles

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“You know people just don’t, people just don’t see how much work is really involved in this rap shit. I didn’t know it, I didn’t see it, I never saw it until I was actually in it. You really gotta be in it, to understand what it’s like, but you always gotta, people always gotta see you smiling, you always gotta put on that fake, you know what I’m saying? Like, no matter what you just been through, it has gotta be right.”

        - Cypress Hill

When I shipped out to Wyoming, I made a list of five goals.  In retrospect, I don't even remember them.  Except for the one I stuck to: Running 1000 miles in the 90 days I would spend in Wyoming.  Some quick math reveals that, on average, I would need to run over eleven miles every single day.

It was the summer before my junior year cross country season.  As everyone who has run cross country knows, the real preparation is done in the summer, and when the season rolls around in the fall, it’s all just fine tuning.  That summer, everyone on our team knew we were getting ready for a huge season.  We had a strong class of seniors, and we knew this would be our big shot at making nationals.  Everyone was amped, and the summer really showed it.  Every week people were putting up 70, 80, 90 mile weeks like it was nothing.  It is not nothing to run over 10 miles a day.  It is hard.  And it takes a toll on your soul.

When I reached my summer training grounds, Wyoming, the first challenge was adapting to the climate.  For one, there was snow until late June.  On top of that, it was over 6,000 ft altitude.  My first run was a three miler - for a runner at my level a three mile run was the equivalent of walking down your front steps to pick up the morning paper - but the second day I got there when I went on that three miler, I thought I was having a heart attack.

The second challenge was deciding where to train.  There was a gravel/dirt road, Grassy Lake road, that lead out from our ranch all the way to Idaho.  So everyday I chose to run on that road, out and back.  It could have been nice to train on different terrain and varied scenery, but there was something unexplainably valuable to training on the same road day in and day out.  So after the snow melted, I began my daily ventures on Grassy Lake road:

It took me a couple weeks to shake off the rust and get my legs back underneath me after the track season, but soon enough I was hitting the high mileage.

There are always different philosophies on training, but I was always a big fan of two a days.  I got up before work and cracked out a real easy half hour jog.  It got my heart rate going a bit, and helped my legs recover from the main afternoon run.  In the afternoon, after work or between shifts, I would pound out the main session – a good hour or more.

On my days off, I would crank out a good two hour long run.  Those runs were thrilling in the sense that they made me feel powerful.  I saw my pre-conceived limits bowing down to the reality I was creating.  One such reality was the volume of running my rail-thin body could handle.

To be continued next week.

See you on the other side,

from ken 

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