Bald Eagle on Sharpes Creek

Portland has been reached and excitement abounds, but memories of the prairie still linger.  We arrived just days ago, spent the weekend in the city starting the apartment search, then drove to a small farm in the coastal mountains near Sheridan, Oregon to stay and work for a few weeks until finding a place.   Driving in through the Columbia River Gorge for the first time, on the silver cloud streaked, rain and rainbow spattered day, was a grand and stunning entrance to the area.  Two bald eagles, their whites gleaming, deep ochre beaks bright with the sun even through the grey drizzle, a golden eagle and many hawk friends gave their warm welcome.  Even after hiking with friends in Forrest Park and driving the glorious back roads into the coast range, my mind wandered to the beauty of the inland sea, the flowing, windblown Flint Hills of Kansas.  Unlike Mt. Hood or the Gorge it is a landscape much praised for its subtle and slightly less dramatic beauty.   Its endless graces are found and truly appreciated only after unhurried and open-hearted appraisal.

        I only managed to get in two longer runs.  I wanted to go bigger but there was too much to get done before we left.  When I did run it felt good though, beginning to build up the miles again, thrilled with the adventure of seeing new sights, experiencing new vast playgrounds.

        My father's house is on Route 177.  About 10 miles north on that road is the very small town of Bazaar, Kansas.  There are two other ways, besides directly up 177, to get from my father's to Bazaar, or vice versa.  The route to the west (beginning from Bazaar, as I ran it) is via Rock Creek, L, M and lastly Open Range Roads down to the town of Matfield Green, just a 1/2 mile south of the my father's place.  Sonya and I drove the route in reverse from the house, setting the odometer to check the mileage, making sure I was clear on the directions.  When we reached Bazaar the dashboard read 18 miles.  I thought it was going to be longer and I wanted a farther run so we crossed 177 to the east side and headed down Sharpes Creek.
 

Setting off...

Feeling small, adrift in the inland sea

        I pulled over when we hit 24 miles.  I grabbed my one hand-held water bottle, a Bumble Bar, a few fruit leathers, an Emerge-ncy, some almonds, and my camera, drank some water from an extra bottle in the car, had Sonya take a picture of me, and set off.  She ran with me for a ways and then wished me luck and headed back to the car, like a reasonable person.  It was a cold grey perfect day and I was soon warm running up and down the undulating dirt road, by the rich grasses that stretched on in generous overlaps into the horizon.  I passed a small cluster of houses at Bazaar, when I crossed 177 to the west side.  I saw two cars there and a couple a few miles before the end in Matfield Green, but otherwise the roads were silent, deserted save for my two feet.  I cruised along Rock Creek Road, heading due west, along the north side of the elegant, low and snaking valley, by cottonwoods and oaks grouped with their naked winter fingers held prominent against the sky.  The clouds finally revealed tears in its fabric and the sun poured through, making the charcoal masses of the grouped trees shine black like ash and the orange-red of the prairie bluff above glow like fire.

Looking west into the Rock Creek Valley

Fellow runners and friends

        I shared a moment with some horses as the glorious new light enriched the tones; the white of the horse before me pierced the air and the three deep auburn ones pulse with a hypnotic vibrance.  Whenever I passed cows on my run, they would flee scared, a miniature stampede to get away from me.  But horses were different, specially these four, as the sun beamed with rich spirit on their elegant bodies and faces.  As I approached on the road they turned and watched with curious gazes, then came toward me, trotting excitedly.  They came near the fence then stopped and stared eagerly, saying We want to come running, brother! But this damn fence is in the way.  I looked into their bottomless, beautiful eyes, that spoke volumes in the silent winter air.  I held my fist up in solidarity, then brought it down to my heart a few times to show the love.  Word, my friends.  Mad love.  Wish you could come along with me for a few miles.  Well, maybe in the next life we'll get in a good long run.  Peace.  I turned and ran on.

        The Flint Hills roll along more than you might think.  I began to realize that this run was much different from a flat 24 miles.  As I turned left on L Road, way out there with nothing but cottonwoods and birds and the big sky all around, I knew I was going to be pretty dehydrated.  There was no where to fill up, the streams undrinkable for the livestock and agriculture around.

        It isn't something I'm proud of, but occasionally this happens: I go too big on way too little food and/or water.  In some cases I call it being Consciously Under-Equipped (CUE) and it works just fine, in other cases it doesn't and I'll admit that it's negligence bordering on slight stupidity (needless to say, most of the time I am quite adequately prepared.)  I was still feeling good though, stopping to take pictures and enjoy the views often but running strong and keeping a decent time nonetheless.  I realized that it was my first run of more than 15 miles since the Rim to Rim to Rim in the Grand Canyon this past November; an unfortunate and unusually long hiatus from big runs.

The view north on the L Road

        The sun was getting lower in the western sky, to my right as I ran south.  The land and the views along that section were uniquely pleasing.  One of the most amazing things about the Flint Hills, a subtle and soft-spoken landscape often overlooked and generalized, is the infinite little variations that combine to make one mile feel completely unlike the next.  Every section of the run was unmistakably Flint Hills, yet each looked and felt differently, like an eclectic group of  sculptors forming the landscape in matching clay.  As I forged on down the L Road I realized that to my left, as the crow flew, there was nothing and no one, except for a few cows, for the 5 miles between me and my father's house.  I felt small and alone, and it was good.

        I ran up what felt like gentle but endless hills, long out of water, my single bottle sucked dry.  Evening was coming, the light dying slowly, as I took a left over to M Road, and then south again for a moment to the Open Range Road.  I began the final 5 miles that still rollercoastered up and down, emulating the grasses.  It was the most open, exposed and uninhabited section of it all, that last section right down into Matfield Green.  After a few miles on the Open Range it was almost dark and I was finally feeling my dehydration in earnest.  Thankfully I was almost home.  I didn't have a headlamp but I had anticipated running into the night, plus I knew my way and it was easy to follow in the dark.   Then, for the first time in 3 hours, I heard a car behind me.  An older woman in the passenger seat rolled down her window to address me.  I kept running but turned to talk as they pulled up along side me.

        "What are you doing?" She asked, looking at me hard like she was interrogating.
"Oh just running, having fun!"  I smiled.  She didn't smile back.
"How far are you going?"
"24 miles."
"How far do you have left?"
"4 miles."
"So you're going to Matfield Green?" She still seemed unamused and the man driving wasn't making it easy either.
"That's right," I said, getting a little tired of this stone-faced questioning, while continuing to run.
"Do you have someone to pick you up?"
"I'm staying there."  She and the man looked at each other like they didn't know what to make of me.  They drove off.

        Not the typical friendly Chase County locals I know.

        The wind was picking up, the temperature dropping, the dark clouds crowding each other and filling the sky.  I took shorter runs often on the Open Range Road and knew what landmarks correlated to the mileage.  I could count down as I went now, ticking off the miles until I reached home.  With only one left my legs began to cramp.  I choked down an Emerge-ncy with no water, and it helped a little as I pushed on and gutted it out, but the cramps came back the last few hundred yards to the bunkhouse.  I painfully finished the job, burst in the door and sat down.  I had felt great otherwise, running solidly, so happy with the distance, but my poor hydration planning really caught up and took it out of me, literally.  An hour after getting home my body freaked out and I threw up and was hurting for a bit.  Note to self: Don't run a hilly 24 miles with only 16 oz. of water.

        That was an unfortunate ending to a great run and an amazing and perspective changing experience in the Flint Hills.  Lesson successfully relearned, now bigger and more, on into the season.   What I really wanted to do before leaving Kansas was to complete the full loop, starting and ending in Matfield Green, via Bazaar, on the back roads.  I checked it out on the map and it looked to be 36 miles, and I had just run 24 of it.  Like always though time ran short, there was too much to do before leaving, projects to finish, packing to do.  I just couldn't afford to take the 5-6 hours to do the loop, but a 2-3 hour run, that I could squeeze in.   So I had Sonya drop me on the edge of 177 at Bazaar, the day before we left.  I was running the eastern route, the 18 miles from Bazaar to Matfield Green via Sharpes Creek.

        This day was much colder, there was some snow on the ground and the sky showed signs of a possible "wintry mix" (as the local meteorologists liked to say.)  The melt down my body had experienced after the previous run scared me straight; this time I took two hand-held bottles.  I said goodbye and Sonya pulled away to drive to Cottonwood Falls and photograph the quaint and picturesque little Kansas town, recording the scenes before departing the prairie.  I turned and began running, one foot after another, building momentum down the dirt road.  I crossed a bridge over the South Fork of the Cottonwood River by the big orange-hued, grassy hill upon which the name of the town, B-A-Z-A-A-R, was spelled out in rocks at a scale adequate to be seen from a great distance; a tradition for towns in Chase County.

        The road traversed around the eastern edge of the massive hill, taking me farther into the Sharpes Creek Valley proper.  For a while the road rolled along on the western slope of the valley, up high enough to give great views across to the east, and to the north and south along the length of it.  The grey of the sky made the colors of the earth richer.  The cold, sharp retort of the wind demanded my presence as my eyes scanned the landscape.  As usual, hawks were everywhere.  Red tails and Northern Harriers, and some smaller raptors were ever-present, perching atop poles, gliding, circling high, or soaring and swooping low along the grass, always looking for the kill.  I hadn't brought my camera and had no need to stop, so I kept a good pace, save for a few moments here and there to stand in awe of the sights and enjoy being stunned and humbled and filled with love.  I felt great, getting into the rhythm of the long run again.

        The Flint Hills will challenge your notions of space.  Its dancing grasses drift onwards in great waves to the edges of what we can grasp.  Its expanses consume the mind and body when you place yourself in them.  The road ran along the bottom of the valley for awhile, along Sharpes Creek itself, past a few small farms and then out deeper into nothing.  There was a small lake with cottonwoods around it and a glorious backdrop of rich, endless hills with a mesh of drainages, draws, and valleys carved into them, as if by an ancient artisan who passionately and intimately knew the medium.  I watched a large bird flying along at tree level as I ran, then saw a flash of white and knew it was a Bald Eagle.  I watched as it lit onto a branch of one of the scraggly cottonwoods, snow-white head beaming iconically as it settled into its proud perch.   I stopped and soaked it all in, said hello to my eagle brother/sister, Props and mad love to you my friend, said Peace and continued on my way.

        My route crossed the highway, KS 35, and once more I entered a different world.  It was like things just kept getting bigger, the views, the unfathomable distances to the horizon (the Heartland 100 course shares some of my route in this section.  Psyched to do that race sometime!)  I ran up the biggest hill of the run and stopped at the top.  It can hardly be written what those sights mean to the soul.    Cows could be seen at impossible distances, miniscule groups here and there, sprinkled like black pepper on a never-ending casserole dish of piled mashed potatoes.  I was alone in the cold and wind and great silence as gentle precipitation came down upon me, lighter than drizzle, barely perceptible.  I began to notice the most fascinating ice forms around me.  Miniscule spikes of ice had formed on the grasses and on the barbed wire along the edge of the road.  But only the top third of the grasses and plants were frozen white, making a sharp contrast to the rest of their slender stalks.  Trees far off, adrift in the prairie sea, glowed too with the unearthly icy white.  I peered close at the crystals, at the perfect, delicate forms.  I grinned wildly and shook my head in disbelief, completely stunned by Nature's breathtaking creations.

        I ran down the hill and eventually back across the highway, nearing the end.  Getting a little tired but well-hydrated and thrilled, buzzing from the sights, the land, the rhythms of the run.  A Red Tail perched in a tall tree and called piercingly as I ran by and the bright white feather-duster tails of three deer appeared ahead on the road, moving nimbly along.  Word.  I entered Matfield Green from the east by the old school house.  A nice man named George and his flock of goats live there now, used books from his bookstores of old filling the classrooms and gymnasium.  I took the back way to avoid the half mile of paved road, cutting between the fields where the coyotes sang nightly and we'd watched one hunt by daylight from our door.

        Well, 18 miles wasn't the 36 I'd wanted but it turned out to be a new favorite run.  I reached a deeper level in my relationship with the Flint Hills, gained a new appreciation for the land and the landscape and a new understanding of its energy, its personality, its tones and moods.  The path from Bazaar to Matfield Green via Sharpes Creek made me feel small and humble and reminded me of the proper order (see Under a Giant Sky) and I was fortunate to see many animal friends along the way.  It also made me feel connected to the prairie's pulse, made me feel an inseparable part of the wonderfully heart-wrenching continuum of life and death.  And I finally realized that you don't always need mountains to be in awe, that truly special land has many faces.

        I can't wait to go back.

The Major Clarification

      I am writing this from a coffee shop in Boise, Idaho on a fresh grey day, in the midst of the journey back West.  We're in the downtown, amongst cool historic buildings, near the Bittercreek Ale House, where we ate locally produced food and swilled marvelously hopped beverages last night.  Yesterday we drove up here from Salt Lake City, through the vast plains and low curvaceous mountains of southern Idaho to the edge of the Sawtooth National Forest and that mouth-wateringly large green area on the map.  Looks like nothing but National Forest and wilderness from here all the way north to Missoula, Montana as the crow flies.  Just looking at it makes my heart beat faster and my legs tremble with desire.  My mind wanders: A run from Missoula to Boise, that'd be epic! Sick! I need to start planning, I need maps, maps, maps!


Reign it in Willie, reign it in dammit!  Get back to the topic at hand.  


Ok, this is what I wanted to share:

Just go for it, anything! Now! The time's a wastin'!

       

        There's something that needs to be clarified here, something of the utmost importance.  To truly and fully know Animal Athletics, this point must be understood.  

        Of course Animal Athletics comes off as pretty hardcore and a little crazy, potentially even scary to some.  To most people who haven't chosen to push themselves in those ways, hearing these harrowing tales may be exciting and possibly somewhat inspiring, but the adventures may generally just seem unaccessible and too extreme to ever sanely consider for themselves.  Some may see Animal Athletics as an elitist group, young men taking risks, able to spend the time training and escaping to the outdoors.  Fun to read about (clearly!), but only really applicable, and accessible, to those fit enough, crazy enough, and pain-seeking enough, to run 50 miles or more in the mountains.

  This is not the case.

        Finishing your first 1 mile run or your first 100, your first 5 or your first 50, would elicit the same response from Animal Athletics: You are a freakin' Badass! F*** yeah, Halleluja, Yeehaw!  (High fives all around, poppin' bottles, etc.)  'Cause YOU went for it, did something that was big for YOU.  Nothing else matters.

        One of the things that I love most about participating in races is the variety of people you get to run with, men and women, old and young, short and tall, stout and skinny.  All out there by choice, battling away, suffering for fun.  I love seeing people run in general, around cities or towns, on the streets as you drive by.  The variety of gaits, all the unique, quirky, sometimes downright funky personal styles of moving along, step by step.  The simplest act, partaken by free will.  All different kinds of people, sharing a common instinct, united by the experience.

Sharing a common instinct

United by the experience

  Plain and simple, the essence of it is this: it's not about running, or climbing, or any of that at all.  Not about how fast or far or high.  It is only about pushing yourself, in whatever way that may be for you.  It's about taking measures to break up the routine, to continue evolving, to avoid stagnation.  It's saving up money for a trip to a place you've never been, never seen, getting up the nerve for a walk at night through the woods, running around the block without stopping for the first time, drawing something even though you think you suck at art, making something by hand, doing it yourself.  It's about snapping out of it for a second and reexamining, giving Nature another look, another thought, taking stock with fresh eyes, thinking about what you're eating, feeling how you're feeling.  It's about trying, somehow, bit by bit, to get the better of the Fear that runs through our lives and permeates our culture.  So do something, make a big goal, plan a trip, just go for it, anything! Now! The time's a wastin'!
        
        In summation, when we say All are welcome we mean All are welcome.  As we've said it's about the love, and love doesn't care if you run 7 minute miles or 10 minute miles, or even if you run at all.

Make something by hand

Avoid stagnation

Continue evolving

 

Please enjoy this week's music video:

Framing the Heart of the Bay

"'Cause I've already suffered much, I want you to know,"

                            -Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeroes, Up from Below


    This is how it started, how Animal Athletics came to be.   

    I lived on 54th St. in Oakland the summer of 2005, fresh off a painful break up, drowning my post-college confusions and lonely melancholy in prolific art making.  The house on 54th St. hummed with creative energy, filled to capacity with the love of and need for creative expression.  Sweet music was birthed from the front room nearly round the clock, the air thick with soul and ripe with skill.  The room often overflowed with friends and neighbors, free-styles abounding, or funk or jazz or reggae resounding.  I roasted raw, green coffee beans in a frying pan on the range top in the morning, bought from the Ethiopian/Eritrean corner store down the block, then sat and drank coffee hour after hour, learning to play the drum set.  I relished the streets, the people, skateboarding the black top, broken glass shining like ice in the California sun.

(Joe Chambers, Luana Coonen, Anthony Bianco, Drew Bennett, and the founder of 54th St., Arlen Ginsburg, are some of the artists and musicians who inspired me greatly that summer and continue to do so today.  Check them out!)

    Needless to say, I was unemployed that summer.

North Oakland

Our old liquor store, 54th and MLK

    That summer was greatly cathartic and renewed my love of artistic endeavors, inspiring me to go further and make more, but something was missing.  It has been clear for a long time that I need a physical outlet, an activity to challenge and test both mind and body.  I have climbed since I was young and have explored that magnificent thrill over the past 18 years, but I had an accident that changed my relationship with the activity.  Priorities were shifted, risk reassessed, and my perspectives changed.  I still loved climbing but needed to be able to push hard and go as big as I could possibly go in an arena that was a touch less lethal than the vertical world.  So I began running. 

    I finally found a job in late August as my money was running out.  I moved to the Mission in San Francisco, as my room on 54th St. was only a sublet, and ironically had to start commuting back to the east bay for my new job with the after school program at the Kensington School.  The school's location was stunning, situated directly on the ridge top of the east bay hills, with the school yard facing west, looking over Berkeley, Oakland, and San Francisco, and the other towns and cities receding into the distance.  The ocean shone and water gleamed all around, with the Bay Bridge, the Richmond Bridge and the Golden Gate, and the smooth silhouetted curves of the Marin Headlands on to Mt. Tamalpias, framing the heart of the Bay.  The back, east side of the school's property, directly abutted Wildcat Canyon and Tilden Regional Parks.  The park land is local trail running heaven, and reassuringly wild; I was told that a mountain lion once approached the back fence of the school licking its chops and eyeing the small prey, as the kindergarteners played innocently by the sand box and four square.  Recess ended immediately.
   
     Every afternoon we would take the kids to the yard and play games and run around into the early evening, seeing sun set as Red tailed hawks rode the winds above us, hunted and made short, piercing calls, effortlessly navigating gusts among the tall and blowing pines.  The air made music through the needles as I tried, evening after evening, to get the kids to look and appreciate the jaw-dropping vista that lay before them every day. 

The view from the ridge top

    Then, one day, Tony returned.  I didn't know who he was and I was suspicious, seeing him waltz in like he owned the place.  I was still settling in, trying to win the kids over and get on their good sides, trying to seem cool, when in walks this tan muscle-man, long blond hair flowing beneath a crisp SF Giants hat cocked deliberately to the side, and they all go crazy.

    "Tony! Tony!" the kids screamed, circling around him.  They were just so thrilled, adults and teachers too.  This guy looks lame, I thought, what'd he do to get so popular?  I forced a smile and tried to act cordial while holding my territory by the snack trays and juice cups; I'm in charge of snack time now, buddy, so just back off, you've had your day.  He had worked there before, I soon learned, and was visiting after returning from a trip to South America.  He was back to his hometown of Berkeley and figuring out what to do next.  Eventually he came to work at the school again and we soon became close friends.  We shared a love of being active, being outside, pushing ourselves, and going hard, and we are both crazy; so, of course, it snowballed from there.
   
    Our first adventures together were all day, exhausting affairs beginning at my apartment in San Francisco.  We would get up early and bike the dark and empty streets from 24th and Capp, cruising sleepily over the remains of the night, past bars recently packed, dance floors recently bumping.  Out of the Mission and the murals, we'd roll on through SOMA to the Embarcadero by the Bay Bridge, and along the water, past the Marina and Crissy Field, finally gazing up at the beautiful Golden Gate still set in winter morning darkness.  Once we crossed the bridge (~15 miles from my apartment,) we'd lock the bikes and start running.  We'd reach the top of Mt. Tamalpais after ~16 miles of trail, boulder around on the rocks on the summit, soaking in the sun and the views of a city now dwarfed by nature, made miniscule by distance.  Then, of course, we had to go all the way back to the Mission, now a tiny buoy in the vast ocean of land and water, impossibly far away from our throne-like perch on top.  These death marches were our first real endurance running events, although we weren't focused on the running aspect yet and inexperienced at it anyway.  We were just thrilled with the idea of going long and pushing ourselves hard, seeing what we could take.  Covering land, moving over terrain, being an animal, suffering; the good stuff.

The Golden Gate with Mt. Tamalpais beyond

San Francisco dwarfed by Nature, made miniscule by distance

    We finally made it to the Mission, exhausted and happy.  Back at school, in the evenings as the sun set gracefully in the western sky, we could now point dramatically at the clear route laid out before the kids and say "We biked and ran from there to all the way over there, and back!"  They seemed fairly impressed, for about a minute. 

    The snowball rolled on and Tony and I went on more and bigger adventures together.  I taught him how to climb and, of course, threw him right in the deep end as I tend to do sometimes with less-experienced but highly motivated and bull-headed friends.  Luckily Tony handled it, every time.  We climbed glaciers and peaks and suffered heartily in the North Cascades, bushwhacking through the Luna Creek Cirque in the Northern Picket Range after climbing Mt. Challenger.  We snowshoed in and climbed Mt. Lassen in winter, sleeping huddled beside one another in the snow cave we'd dug.  I dragged Tony up the hair-raising North Arete of Mt. Banner (5.7), belaying the wide-eyed Berkeley kid on dead vertical, loose climbing on a nearly 13,000 ft. peak, hundreds of feet above snowy chutes, steep couloirs jetting downward.  We chose our own route up Fin Dome in Sequoia/Kings Canyon National Park, one of Tony's first technical climbs, climbing a stout 4-pitch 5.8 to the fang-like summit, buzzing with the altitude and sublimity.  I watched with sick satisfaction, belaying from above, as the novice climber grunted and struggled up the awkward wide crack at almost 12,000 ft.  We did a 50 mile out and back in the Yosemite back country, relative rookies, testing the distance, not able to run it for real but loving it regardless.  We did a 60+ mile day there too (after we aborted an ~80 mile loop in the dark of night and backtracked and rerouted down to Yosemite Valley), rookies still.  We ended up in fetal position for warmth, trying wretchedly to get some sleep trail side in the early hours before dawn.  A friend of mine dropped us at Point Reyes once, at Bear Valley in the middle of the night, and we ran back to San Francisco from there on trail, 50+ miles worth, the Golden Gate a grand finish to a stunning day.  Two days later we got a small group together (an informal Animal Athletics event, complete with the best homemade organic energy food around) and ran the 18 miles from San Francisco, through glorious hills on wonderful trails, to Stinson Beach.  There the ocean, friends, food, beer, and a ride were waiting patiently.  We started running races, road marathons, then ultras, laughing and making animal calls while other runners gave strange looks.  Fine days those were; many more to come.

Fin Dome

Mt. Banner, the North Arete follows the right skyline

Mt. Challenger (left most summit) and the Challenger Glacier

    Along the way we've slowly defined what Animal Athletics is and what drives us to do what we do.  Honoring nature and humbling ourselves to it is a integral part of our philosophy (see Under a Giant Sky).  Wanting to be an animal, to be animal-like in the outdoors, also lies at the heart of it.  And so, one day, wanting to find a fitting title for our 2 person freak show, the name Animal Athletics was thought up and its ring resonated with our primitive desires, like feet striking trail without thought. We can be a bit unorthodox, seemingly reckless in the scale of our undertakings, peculiar in training style and so on, but these things matter not.  It is the love that is paramount and, let there be no mistake, Animal Athletics has the love.  The joy.  The child-like wonder.  The giddy and disturbing need to do something like run 50 or 100 miles, dropping Biggie Smalls lyrics between hawk calls, dancing down single track in the mountains.

    Life has been taking Tony and I in different directions lately but Animal Athletics remains, like the wind, gusting through our lives.  It is a devotion to passionate action, a drive for truth and beauty, and re-unity with the ties we've broken; it is a commitment to love. 
   
    So please, join us.  All are welcome.



Please enjoy this week's music video:

Under the Giant Sky

...While the world waits for an explosion

That instant of light that wipes the slate clean...

...While the world waits for an explosion

That moment in time when we are set free.

        -Bright Eyes, Train Under Water, I'm Wide Awake It's Morning

In these lines, Conor Oberst is alluding to the events of 9/11 and the impact that such catastrophes can have on our lives.  He implies that we actually crave those times of re-examination, those moments when our self-centered, often petty concerns are immediately put into perspective.  We are forced to reassess and simplify, and in the process find ourselves present, focused, and aware.   For most people, although the event itself may cause considerable emotional and/or physical pain, this presence in the moment and respite from the ego-based burdens they carry feels like being set free, and thus is a positive and grounding thing.  In 2004, in January of my senior year of college, I slipped while ice climbing without a rope and fell 50 ft. face first to the snowy earth.  I survived (clearly) and for many months as I recovered and went on with life I felt exceedingly calm and content, thankful for the simplest of things and present at every moment.  I was free from rethinking the past and anticipating the future, stressing about classes to be finished and graduation and what lay beyond.  Unfortunately that feeling didn't last, and that's precisely the point, we need those events to check our reality, to remember what's actually important, and to be happy and feel truly alive. 

  Catastrophes of the natural kind hold a very special importance.  I am writing this lying in bed in a renovated railroad bunkhouse in Matfield Green, Kansas, glad to be in a warm place and out of the bitter elements.  Sonya, my girlfriend, and I arrived two nights ago to my father's home in the Flint Hills and awoke the next morning to a raging blizzard on the prairie. The wind burned any exposed flesh on our handful of trips back and forth from the bunkhouse to the main house over the day, our tracks buried every time by the incessant storm.  The snow blew hard against the grasses and on the rolling hills and valleys and grew waist deep in sculpted drifts, driving into our squinted eyes as we trudged along.  We worked in the 0 degree, -20 wind chill day, removing large amounts of bird shit from the second floor deck of the barn; honest work for pay.  The good projects were soon to come.

  We'd come from Chicago where we'd been home for a few months, working freelance and visiting family, in the midst of relocating from Berkeley, California to Portland, Oregon.  We decided to stop and work for three weeks at my father's in Kansas on our way back west.  Days before leaving Chicago, the city was crippled by some hard winter weather of its own.  I ran down the lake front to the Lincoln Park Boat Club on the stinging night it was supposed to hit, worked out with my sister, pulling hard on the rowing machines in the little Rocky-esque, one-room facility, then ran back as the snow began to swirl about, the temperatures dropped and the sky to the west grew thick.  When it finally arrived in earnest, midday the next day, it did so with great gusto. The frozen sky shed upon the city in unending volumes, stranding people and their cars for 12 hours on Lake Shore Drive as the snow piled up around their windows.  A total game changer as always: businesses closed, schools out, people immobilized.  If you've lived in such climates you know how it can go.  

                                                                                                                                  

Chicago winters, now and then

  Extreme weather and natural disasters, like the events to which Conor Oberst is refering, have the ability to reset our thinking, to instantly ground and humble us.  The difference is that natural disasters display the fury of nature while 9/11 displayed the fury of man, the latter being far more frightening in my opinion (but that's another topic.)  The outcome, the reality check, is the same: you seek comfort and community with friends and loved ones.  You help and show concern for others,  and forget some of yourself, your baggage and self image, and about the deadline next week or the date that could have gone better.  You finally realize (again) what's essential and what's filler, and are content with less.  

        The most valuable lesson to be learned when Mother Nature is teaching (which is always) is about the proper order of things.  Living in cities and suburbs and not venturing into the unmanufactured outdoors, as is the case for so many, makes it easy to think that we have things neatly under control, with manicured landscapes and lawns, sterile and ordered parks, cars and pavement, and all the amenities you could want.  In places with no large scale natural presence (mountain range, desert, ocean/major lake) the grandest sights are the buildings, the man made edifices, which are sometimes intelligent and beautiful but regardless have a somewhat ill-effect.  The result is a skewed sense of order in those living there since we are not the biggest and most significant.  Our greatest achievements, inescapably flawed as born from human hands, can never compare to the perfection of the natural world.  

        In other words, walking down the center of a normally busy street in Chicago in sub zero temps, knee deep in snow in a graveyard of entombed autos, with stores closed and people bundled miserably against the bitterness, shows you who's boss again.

Remembering the proper order

        It is one of my greatest pleasures, and a founding principle upon which Animal Athletics is based, to make a habit (dare I say addiction) of humbling myself to the forces of Nature.  I willingly suffer at the hands of it over and over again like a deranged penitent trying to show his undying love, commitment, and devotion.  We (at Animal Athletics) love to be cold and hungry, sleep-deprived and starting to hear falling water speaking words through the forest.  We want to be seasoned by the seasons and taught lessons by their raw power; Nature's forces lashing us as we run, showing us the way of things.  We want to stare back at the eyes in the woods at night, under the moon, then see animals up early with the sun as we run into the day.  Only by loving Nature fully, by bowing before it and showing deep and true reverence, and finally and most importantly by trusting in it, can we develop a strong bond with it.  It is because of this slightly insane yet deeply loving approach (and, of course, a great deal of experience and training) that Nature has responded favorably, harboring us safely, and allowed us to share moments with real animal friends as well.  We must approach with open hands and open heart, waving white flags, willing to challenge popular notions of "comfort" and "safety" in order to get to know it.  

Appropriately small, running in the Flint Hills of Kansas

        The storm passed a few days ago and the sun has been stronger and melting things quickly.  We've been doing good work and working hard; finish carpentry, designing and building (photos and more to come later.)  I've started running the back roads, trying get my spring training underway, but I'm way overdue a long run.  So I've been scheming and have a few plans in the works.  I've mapped routes through the blue stem, over the rolling land under the giant sky, to remind me of the proper order, to surround me by views guaranteed to make me feel small.  

        Running through the prairie, on my way back West...

Please enjoy this week's music video: