My First Nighttime Trail Run
…It’s a place I’m not sure I want to go, but if I get into any of the longer ultras (which I am not at all saying I intend to do) I will have to deal with that. For now, I’ll just consider it an interesting sensation, and I’ll empathize with those who do go long…
Intimate Places
It’s a gift, and a mystery that requires imagination, to love a place and feel that it loves you back the way a dog might. ... Yet there’s some undeniable reciprocation… a secret, sacred empathy…
Boston Marathon bombing
We take a breath, realize that we’re still alive, realize that we can stand back up. And then we stagger forward again, as that man did, towards the finish line. Not in anger, probably with defiance, but mainly because we know that we really have no choice. (Rough #5)
Quantifying the good and bad in people
...humans aren’t simple in that way. The balance between the good and bad a person does is irreconcilable — the one doesn’t count against the other, they don’t cancel each other out. No one is innocent and all do good and bad... (Rough #4)
My neighbor mutilates his trees
He sees no ugliness in what he does. He didn’t shudder at the thought of trimming the row of beautiful rhododendrons against the side of his house just as they were beginning to truly flourish... I wanted to cry; he proudly pointed to his work and said “they was getting a little high.” (Rough #3)
Time (gratitude and greed)
...we must find a balance between that gratitude for what we have and that greed for more of it. To somehow be both satisfied and searching, to reconcile our gifts against our hunger. (Rough #2)
Permission to publish rough work
Could I take what I just wrote, which is rough but not too bad, and put it up on my website? To get to Yes on that, I’d first have to give myself some permissions, a new set of rules that apply to... (Rough #1)
Barkley 2016
On March 31, 2016 (a year ago today) Leon Lutz and I did an all-night drive down to Frozen Head State Park in eastern Tennessee to attend the annual running of a once-obscure ultra-running event called the Barkley Marathons. Leon was working on a feature for Ultrarunning Magazine, covering the Barkley experience from the perspective of five participants, and I was along to get some photos to go with his story. The result…
Knee Rehab Without ACL Surgery: Six-month Update
This past weekend was the 6-month anniversary of the knee injury that claimed my right ACL, so it seems like a good time to give an update on that. While I'm very pleased (amazed, actually) with my results so far, I'm not posting this as a brag, but rather as an example of what might be possible if you find yourself in a similar situation, with decisions to make about surgery, etc. For what it's worth...
Soccer Faces
Sometimes I need to restore my faith in the basic soundness of our species, because sometimes I see and hear too much that takes me in the opposite direction. So I watch for examples of our better nature. I look for displays of people at their best, in moments of earnest engagement when they are so involved in doing something they love that they forget to pose, when they lower their defenses and let go of their cynicism and sarcasm and pretension and become pure.
Christmas Letter 2003 (from Iraq)
I hope you are all well, and I wish you happy holidays. It’s a most unusual season for me… mobilized for Op Iraqi Freedom. … You may not find the usual levity in this year’s letter — it just doesn’t feel appropriate right now. But maybe I can bring it around to something positive by the end. Please bear with me — the theme is paradox.
A Running Start (force of wonder)
I crave the solitude of running alone, the private battles and private joy. But two years ago I became a father, and solitude became scarce. It also became less important, because my son is now my running partner.