Saturday, November 5, 2011
Nostalgia: TZ/KN and Running
I had a meeting with a Professor yesterday. The topic: my future. The question: what lies next? He told me about his college degree and after working for a few years, that he realized very quickly that he loved geography and wanted to be involved with that for the rest of his life. "You know, work is going to suck no matter how much you love what you're doing at times. That's just the nature of the beast. But at the end of the day, it's gotta be something you're going to look back on with nostalgia."
Kenya was a lot like that. Today, I can only remember the amazing times that I had there. The way the dried up grass would often prick your feet or the same old food day and day out seem to escape the minds eye and are replaced with moments of ecstasy. Nights when we had guacamole, finishing my first research paper or going to Happy Days for a Tusker after long day of class fill my mind. There was one time when we were less than 72 hours away from crossing the border to Kenya that I went to the bartender, made a deal of an early happy hour with 1000 shilling shots of Smirnoff (about 80 cents) and agreed to be the bartender. It was probably the most fun I have ever had at a bar, EVER. We left and I remember Moses driving the land cruiser up this 2 km hill to get to our home. The farmed hills had never looked so beautiful as the sun gave her final shimmers before heading into the west. It was almost a godly scene. The pupils of my eyes couldn't close enough to it looked like a place that you could picture heaven. Actually, you know that scene at the end of Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, where Gandolph the White rides down the hill and the entire sky looks white and heavenly. Yeah, imagine that. But in a distant land. See, that's what I remember, the good not the bad.
Now, getting back to the point. At times it sucked. It really sucked and all I wanted to do was go home and eat a delicious cheeseburger with a milkshake. Yes, I would fantasize a lot about the Convention Grill's meal that would be awaiting me upon my return, probably too much. In the end, there is nothing more than I loved than waking up every morning, watching the stars at night, being removed from society and learning about who I am without the distractions of a world where my surroundings are concrete structures and not Kilimanjaro. I love the outdoors. There is something about being secluded that is liberating, much like running.
Now fastforward to last night. It's a late Thursday night/ early Friday morning and the craziest game of baseball I have ever witnessed has just finished. I'm walking into Mcdonalds with my stomach dead set on a quarter pounder with cheese and all of the sudden, I see my pledge brother, Brandon Rukin. He's a great athlete and stellar golfer. We talk for awhile and then he asks me the staple question that almost every person I meet now asks me "Why in god's name do you run that far and how do you enjoy it?"
The answer isn't simple.
Running goes back a long long long way. All the way to third grade when we first ran the mile. It was an autumn day and the sky was clear. I was running for the first time on a track that would become the home to all my track workouts. My teacher said go and I went. I just ran. Nothing, I was in the lead by half way through the first lap and it kept on growing. I was better at this than everyone I knew. I could just keep on going. I remember thinking how big the 400 meter loop was. I won the race by minutes.
In fourth grade, we were to play cops and robbers every day at recess. My high powered gas tank made me a permanent cop. I would run around for 20-30 minutes at a time and just chase people. I had so much energy and I took it out on the playground. I was fast and the robbers were scared. Very scared.
My running never really took off in high school. I was injury prone and there were kids who were a lot better than me. I was getting too caught up trying to prove myself in practice when I should have been trying to prove my self during the races. I would do workouts at speeds that were too fast and wouldn't let my muscles recover properly on easy days often turning them into progression runs. As I started to give up hope on myself, so did my confidence. Running had become part of my soul. It's just who I am.
After a fun, yet disastrous freshmen year of college, I saw myself looking at a bit heavier Elliot in the mirror. Something was missing. The fire that I had as a kid had been completely extinguished. Then the kindling sparked. I put on a pair of running shoes and ran, slow, but ran, and didn't stop. For the rest of the summer, I would go to the gym every day and lift complemented by running. It was hard work, but hey, there wasn't much else to do in the Minnesota suburbs.
I'd kept this up for a few years, until I went to East Africa. I met a guy named Will Stafstrom, who may be the most influential running partner I've worked with. He runs for Bowdoin and runs a 26 minute 8k. Fast kid, much faster than me, but every day, he would slow his pace down so that I could run with him. Slowly, my pace started to drop (as in I was getting faster) and that fire that I had as a young kid was rekindled. I was running one day in the middle of one of the intense school days of directed research. About 2 laps into the run, I had this epiphany. Could I run 26 laps? Could I run 26 laps fast? I bet I could. I knew I could. I am going to. Twin Cities Marathon, I'm doing it.
Ok. So now that I've given a good reason as to why I chose to run that far, I still really haven't answered the core question: Why do I run?
Well, I run because I'm pretty good at it for one thing. Not many people in the world are as good at running as I am, and being someone who strives to be good at whatever I do, running is the sport I excel at most. When I run, I feel free. I am a invincible when I run. Most of the crazy ideas that I have ever thought of and gone with have come during my run. It is here that I decided to go on SFS, it is on a run that I decided to major in Environmental Studies and it was very likely a run where I decided to apply early decision to GW. On my runs, I am free to think about whatever I want and have the time to sort the problems out in my head that truly challenge me. It is on a run that nothing seems impossible. I am immortal when I am on the road. I am liberated. Runs remind me that nothing you want in this world is impossible. That someway, if you really do want something, you can achieve it, and runs allow me to figure out how to achieve it and most of the times, my dreams have become realties. Without running, a part of me would be lost. It is ingrained in my DNA to run. It is where my best thinking comes and my thesis for papers are derived. Without running, I am lost.
Kenya was a lot like that. Today, I can only remember the amazing times that I had there. The way the dried up grass would often prick your feet or the same old food day and day out seem to escape the minds eye and are replaced with moments of ecstasy. Nights when we had guacamole, finishing my first research paper or going to Happy Days for a Tusker after long day of class fill my mind. There was one time when we were less than 72 hours away from crossing the border to Kenya that I went to the bartender, made a deal of an early happy hour with 1000 shilling shots of Smirnoff (about 80 cents) and agreed to be the bartender. It was probably the most fun I have ever had at a bar, EVER. We left and I remember Moses driving the land cruiser up this 2 km hill to get to our home. The farmed hills had never looked so beautiful as the sun gave her final shimmers before heading into the west. It was almost a godly scene. The pupils of my eyes couldn't close enough to it looked like a place that you could picture heaven. Actually, you know that scene at the end of Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, where Gandolph the White rides down the hill and the entire sky looks white and heavenly. Yeah, imagine that. But in a distant land. See, that's what I remember, the good not the bad.
Now, getting back to the point. At times it sucked. It really sucked and all I wanted to do was go home and eat a delicious cheeseburger with a milkshake. Yes, I would fantasize a lot about the Convention Grill's meal that would be awaiting me upon my return, probably too much. In the end, there is nothing more than I loved than waking up every morning, watching the stars at night, being removed from society and learning about who I am without the distractions of a world where my surroundings are concrete structures and not Kilimanjaro. I love the outdoors. There is something about being secluded that is liberating, much like running.
Now fastforward to last night. It's a late Thursday night/ early Friday morning and the craziest game of baseball I have ever witnessed has just finished. I'm walking into Mcdonalds with my stomach dead set on a quarter pounder with cheese and all of the sudden, I see my pledge brother, Brandon Rukin. He's a great athlete and stellar golfer. We talk for awhile and then he asks me the staple question that almost every person I meet now asks me "Why in god's name do you run that far and how do you enjoy it?"
The answer isn't simple.
Running goes back a long long long way. All the way to third grade when we first ran the mile. It was an autumn day and the sky was clear. I was running for the first time on a track that would become the home to all my track workouts. My teacher said go and I went. I just ran. Nothing, I was in the lead by half way through the first lap and it kept on growing. I was better at this than everyone I knew. I could just keep on going. I remember thinking how big the 400 meter loop was. I won the race by minutes.
In fourth grade, we were to play cops and robbers every day at recess. My high powered gas tank made me a permanent cop. I would run around for 20-30 minutes at a time and just chase people. I had so much energy and I took it out on the playground. I was fast and the robbers were scared. Very scared.
My running never really took off in high school. I was injury prone and there were kids who were a lot better than me. I was getting too caught up trying to prove myself in practice when I should have been trying to prove my self during the races. I would do workouts at speeds that were too fast and wouldn't let my muscles recover properly on easy days often turning them into progression runs. As I started to give up hope on myself, so did my confidence. Running had become part of my soul. It's just who I am.
After a fun, yet disastrous freshmen year of college, I saw myself looking at a bit heavier Elliot in the mirror. Something was missing. The fire that I had as a kid had been completely extinguished. Then the kindling sparked. I put on a pair of running shoes and ran, slow, but ran, and didn't stop. For the rest of the summer, I would go to the gym every day and lift complemented by running. It was hard work, but hey, there wasn't much else to do in the Minnesota suburbs.
I'd kept this up for a few years, until I went to East Africa. I met a guy named Will Stafstrom, who may be the most influential running partner I've worked with. He runs for Bowdoin and runs a 26 minute 8k. Fast kid, much faster than me, but every day, he would slow his pace down so that I could run with him. Slowly, my pace started to drop (as in I was getting faster) and that fire that I had as a young kid was rekindled. I was running one day in the middle of one of the intense school days of directed research. About 2 laps into the run, I had this epiphany. Could I run 26 laps? Could I run 26 laps fast? I bet I could. I knew I could. I am going to. Twin Cities Marathon, I'm doing it.
Ok. So now that I've given a good reason as to why I chose to run that far, I still really haven't answered the core question: Why do I run?
Well, I run because I'm pretty good at it for one thing. Not many people in the world are as good at running as I am, and being someone who strives to be good at whatever I do, running is the sport I excel at most. When I run, I feel free. I am a invincible when I run. Most of the crazy ideas that I have ever thought of and gone with have come during my run. It is here that I decided to go on SFS, it is on a run that I decided to major in Environmental Studies and it was very likely a run where I decided to apply early decision to GW. On my runs, I am free to think about whatever I want and have the time to sort the problems out in my head that truly challenge me. It is on a run that nothing seems impossible. I am immortal when I am on the road. I am liberated. Runs remind me that nothing you want in this world is impossible. That someway, if you really do want something, you can achieve it, and runs allow me to figure out how to achieve it and most of the times, my dreams have become realties. Without running, a part of me would be lost. It is ingrained in my DNA to run. It is where my best thinking comes and my thesis for papers are derived. Without running, I am lost.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)