Repost: there is no finish line

I'm editing/reposting this post (my favorite post) which will be my submission to "Humanitas" - MUSC's annual Art and Literature publication.  There's a cash prize, so if I win all proceedings will go towards my search for the finish line.

See you on the other side,

from ken

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there is no finish line

I’ve been running for longer than I can remember doing anything else in my life. 

I ran cross country and track in college and high school.  I was elected captain, not because I ran fast but because I cared.  I spent one summer running 1000 miles, putting in week after week of ninety miles, just to prove to myself that if I was going to be a nothing at running, it wasn’t because I didn’t try.  At one time in my life, I owned more track spikes than my girlfriend owned shoes.  I once ran a hundred mile week, finishing the last run with a Turkish soccer player who could barely speak English and had never ran more than four miles, but as we finished the seven mile run he was sprinting and yelling, “NEVER GIVE UP, NEVER GIVE UP.” 

But over the past few months, I’ve come to see running as a relic of my past. 

a great season

After that 1000 mile summer, I had the best running season of my life.  For those few months, I was a far greater athlete than I ever imagined I could be.

At the end of that season, I ended up as the alternate on our regionals squad.  The alternate travels with the team and hangs out as everyone else broods over the race before them.  It feels helpless because there’s nothing you can do, except supporting your teammates. 

It was at this point that I realized, this is the final lesson running has to teach me.  My role in this life is to be a cheerleader.  My contribution to the world was not going to be about my race, but rather my teammates’ races. 

After that season, my running was never the same.  I lost the heart for it, but I still ran to support my friends and teammates, I wanted to see them succeed more than they could’ve ever imagined.

In the cult classic running novel Once A Runner the protagonist refers to demons that haunt his running.  I remember feeling these demons in my own life.

just another day in the life

The demons would come on in those few minutes just before a race, when you’re waiting on the track, having stripped off your warmups, spikes on, your race is about to start, and feeling like you have to pee for the fifth time in the last fifteen minutes.  I remember telling my friend, if I ever stopped feeling like this, I would stop running.

Perhaps the demons in your life are where your heart is.  And wherever your heart is, that’s where your life should be.

Well, the demons in my life don’t haunt my running anymore, and I have left behind the life of a runner. 

For those of you still running, I really really wish you the best of luck.  There is nothing else like it. 

And of course, to my old teammates, those of you from Kenyon and those from Needham, I hope to enjoy a leisurely run with you again some day.  Or maybe just a leisurely beer.

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 

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

Elm Bank

“There are two ways of exerting strength: one is pushing down, the other is pulling up.” 

     - Booker T. Washington 

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I’ve been thinking a lot about what to write this week, and I can’t think of anything good, so instead I’m going to share a story my friend Amulya wrote about me. 

-- 

It was the fall of 2005, our senior year of high school, and our cross-country team had one of its final meets of the season at Elm Bank Reservation. Ken was one of the faster runners on the team, and I was one of the slowest, but on this fateful day that was going to change. 

During warm-ups, for whatever reason, Ken approached me and he told me - he didn’t ask - but told me that he was going to run with me, and more specifically let me draft off him for the entire race – breaking the wind for me and allowing me to run faster. 

At first I thought Ken was kidding, actually. Why would he slow down and sacrifice his race just so I could shave a few meaningless seconds off of mine? In the answer to that question, as many of you know, lies the essence of Ken. 

As the race began, I started off in my usual position at the back of the pack. But with Ken leading the way I felt myself getting stronger, mentally and physically, with every stride. Together, we continued passing runner after runner until the finish line, and when it was all over I had surpassed my personal best by more than two minutes. As euphoric as I was in that moment, nobody there was happier than Ken. 

Never before, and not since, have I felt that same exhilaration of exceeding all of my own expectations. My best friend helped me realize something I never thought was possible and more importantly, reminded me of the incredible power of relationships. 

-- 

I loved where Amulya wrote, “Why would he slow down and sacrifice his race just so I could shave a few meaningless seconds off of mine? In the answer to that question, as many of you know, lies the essence of Ken.” Sidenote is really just an attempt to understand the essence of Ken, so I figured this would be a good story to overanalyze. 

I had thought about pacing Amulya through a race all season, but I wasn’t sure if it would just be embarrassing for him or if it would even help at all.  But I remember something about that day feeling right, and about a mile into the race I realized how epic this day would be. 

We were going around a sharp turn in the woods, and he told me to pick it up. I remember at that moment having one thought going through my head, “That’s what I’m talking about.” From there we picked off runner after runner, all guys that Amulya never races with, and he was flowing past them effortlessly. 

There was this indescribable energy flowing between us with every step we took. An energy greater than either of us could experience individually.

Sidenote - I’ve been sitting at this coffee shop for a couple hours trying to articulate exactly what this energy, flow, or spirit is, but I can’t explain it. I know that it’s the sort of energy that makes life worth living, and that it’s the sort of energy that can only come through supporting the dreams and lives of others. I know that it’s that energy that makes me believe life is about relationships. Maybe you can describe or articulate this energy for me? If so, please comment! For now, I’ll have to think about it more. 

See you on the other side. 

from ken

What is greatness? A KXC tribute

“Running to him was real. The way he did it, the realest thing he knew. It was all joy and woe, hard as diamond. It made him weary beyond comprehension, but it also made him free.”

- John L. Parker, Once A Runner

So I’ve been thinking about this post for a while, but never really solidified what to write.

I recently finished Bill Simmons’ The Book of Basketball. Simmons is an ESPN columnist called the Sports Guy, a Boston-bred sports fanatic that religiously breaks down sports and pop culture. I think he is the funniest person alive.

I loved the book, and definitely suggest it to any sports fan. I think it’s a must-read for any basketball fan since he takes being a basketball fan to a whole new level. He breaks down the best teams and the best players of all-time, including a 96 player pyramid ranking.

The most important thing the book made me think of was something I think about all the time. The topic of greatness. In his 96 player ranking, Simmons analyzes exactly what made a player great. He highlights players that introduced dunking, players who revolutionized the point guard position, players that had unstoppable shots, and so on.

Of all 96 players that Simmons breaks down, the player that stood out to me the most was No. 72, Chris Webber.

Webber entered the league labeled as a sure-fire hall of famer, and he lived up to it.

Kind of.

He was a great player, but he was only ever good enough to finish at 72. He was hurt a lot, which isn’t entirely his fault. He never won any titles, so he’s accused of not always showing up when it counted, but that can be attributed to the quality of his teammates. He had the potential to be better, but it isn’t really his fault that scouts overrated him. All that said, here’s Simmons’ conclusion:

“So yeah, Webber finished no. 72. But he still goes to sleep every night knowing he could have been forty or fifty spots higher. And if he doesn’t think about it, then that explains everything.”

This made me think about my own experience in sports. I ran cross country and track for seven years of my life, and I can think of one or two runners that I would say were truly great athletes. I’m thinking of one teammate in particular, my former roommate Jim Boston.

Those of you reading this that had the good fortune of running with Jim are probably nodding along in agreement.

First off, Jim was consistently the fastest runner on our team, so he had the talent. But there was more. Jim was the sort of the runner that Simmons would rave about. The kind that obsesses over greatness. The kind that loses sleep because he knows he could run just a little bit faster. The kind that makes unreasonable sacrifices for greatness.

He was the kind of runner that John L. Parker writes about in the epic novel Once A Runner. I saw Jim as the kind of person that found life and meaning in the suffering involved in the quest for greatness. That’s what I always admired about Jim.

Of all the lessons of greatness I could graft from sports, I think this is my favorite. To be great, maybe you have to be obsessed. You have to care, not just more than everyone else, but more than other people can imagine. You have to be the kind of person, that years later, we still remember how they cared a little too much. You have to have such a life, that it might be filled with exhaustion and struggles, but you couldn't imagine living any other life.

I believe that in a world filled with Chris Webbers and Jim Bostons, I'm in the foxhole with Jim Boston every time.

from ken

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