Of Bridges

"What kind of crazy nut would spend two or three hours a day just running?"
Steve Prefontaine's comment in Junior High when he saw the High School Cross country team running.

"Bridges!!"
My daughter's (age 4) response to the recent question, "What's your favorite thing about summer?"

In a few weeks, my running buddy, Todd, and I will be driving up to San Francisco to enjoy the unique setting of the city's marathon course. Naturally, one of the sections of the course I am most looking forward to is a first time run across the beautiful Golden Gate Bridge.

As regular readers of this blog know, I am a big fan of the spiritual metaphor to be found in the everyday. Bridges have to be one of the big five metaphors. How, for example, did Steve Prefontaine get from laughing at the thought of running and—what a ridiculous an idea that was to him—to becoming one of the running world's greatest practitioners, ambassadors, and legendary icons?

He crossed a few bridges—in his own mind, in his heart, and in his spirit. And he used his body as a means to effect and manifest those crossings.

And that's the beauty of running—by committing to a physical practice, each runner also commits to a program of emotional, mental, and spiritual transformation. You simply can't sustain one without the other. And then the cycle continues, with the multi-level changes being expressed through the change in physical level experience.

It takes courage and commitment to cross any bridge. I remember crossing some shaky looking bridges when hiking in Nepal, like the one on the left. It requires a sure foot, a lot of trust, and a clear focus on reaching the other side. Our "internal bridges" are just the same. There are, for example, a good number of shaky bridges crossed along the path from addiction to the land of sobriety.

It has been said that we are never given anything in life that is beyond our ability to handle. When life feels overwhelming, we can cross the canyon of doubt by using the bridge of faith. Whenever you hold a picture in your mind and heart of how you would like things to be in the future, the goal you are working towards, imagine a bridge connecting where you are with where you wish to be.

Imagine this bridge as an arc of golden light. This bridge is your faith, your willingness to hold a vision and move in its direction—even when the way may not appear clear. It is only when you are on the other side of the bridge that you will be able to look back and understand how you made the journey to your new life.

This is the very nature of faith. As you go through your day and beyond, keep this vision of the golden bridge of faith in your mind and heart. In times when your goals seem out of reach, recognize that these are the priceless opportunities for building firm foundations for the next bridge that will take you closer to home.

In my own life, it is a time of many different bridges. In three weeks, I will complete a Master's in Counseling Psychology form the University of Santa Monica and begin an Internship as a Marriage and Family Therapist. A bridge into a new career and out of what had seemed an endless path of schooling!

I have crossed a number of long and sometimes darkened bridges with my longtime running buddy, Todd, this year. He has been recalibrating his life after the unexpected end of an important relationship. We have run hundreds of profound and sometimes humorous miles together, wondering about the workings of relationship.

We have explored the nature of love, of integrity and honesty, and about the journey of the heart. It is a journey rich in beauty, and one that also has some rocky trails. Todd is a barefoot runner, so those sharper rocks can sometimes dig deep.

Even in the midst of the sadness, loss, and search for understanding, he and I have created something new and filled with hope: a deepening friendship that has become a strong and reliable bridge for us both—and one that has carried us both further into the beautiful landscape of trusted friendship. What a blessing!

The Hardest Part of Running

"Injury is a master teacher. Heed its lessons well and you need take the class only once. Remember—the goal is to graduate, not change the school." iRunInspired.com

For myself—and many runners I talk with—the hardest part of running has always been not running. However hard the long runs may be, the weeks of increased mileage, the mind-bending, quad-busting hill training, the marathons, the ultra distances, it is rarely the running that presents the biggest challenge. It's the NOT running.

Not running from choice is one thing. Developing the muscle of self-supportive discipline to build in rest days as a regular part of your running schedule is a foundational skill. You may not think you need it in your twenties of even thirties. But if you intend to still be running at 40, 50, 70, even 80+, you must develop it. Must.

Not running because you can't is quite another. There's really only ever one reason why I CAN'T run and that is because of injury. All the other can'ts that I might create are just that—creations, better known as choices. Work, time, busy-ness, etc, etc, these are all reflections of the things I might choose to prioritize over my running. But injury is different.

I've had my share of injuries over the years, the latest of which has been a bout of Achilles tendinitis. As I saw the swelling on my left tendon grow over the period of a couple of weeks, I watched my habitual mind jump in: "It'll go away on its own; You just need to run it out; it's nothing serious."

Now I've run "through" a couple of injuries in the past. The first was a hip strain and the second was plantar fascitis. I kept going as I sought to smother the wisdom my own body was seeking to share with me. In the end, my body had the final word in both situations. The hip thing sidelined me for 9 months. The plantar fascitis for 18 months.

I thought I knew better than my body. No longer is that deception running in my mind. Nevertheless, to take the recommended 10-12 weeks off for the tendinitis is a tall stretch for any runner. 3 months. Geez. After completing the Long Beach Marathon last October, I committed to do just that. I did not run again until December 23rd, for a total of just over 11 weeks.

There's only so much fun I can derive from stationery biking and I find swimming crushingly boring. I lifted some weights and worked on my core strength and slowly moved into rehab exercises, balance, stability, and the like. But all the time, whatever I was doing, I was NOT running.

For eight weeks, there were the mood swings, even depression, dark thoughts, introversion, an overall weight gain of about ten pounds. I was hating life. Myself. My world. No writing here either. Then I got the inspirational text message at the start of this entry and everything shifted. The funniest part about that was that I wrote it! I subscribe to my own service and it had sent me a message I had not remembered writing as part of a database of many hundreds of messages.

Some other, wiser part of me was reminding me that not running is always a part of running. And that injury, for almost every runner, is a part of our landscape. Hopefully, it is one that we do not visit too often. But the more prepared we are to find our way around in that landscape, and to listen to the professional guide of our body as we do, the less time we have to spend there. A sensitive, mature, patient approach to injury rehab is an integral part of the runner's toolbox.

I missed the rhythmic cadence of my foot fall over those 11+ weeks. I've missed the early morning sounds of my regular routes: the water birds along the LA River and the lapping waves along the beach. But there is also one sound I have not heard during that time that I do not miss—the sudden, shotgun snap of a tendon pushed too far. A sound that would have announced a minimum of six to nine months recovery.

I eased out on my first run, December 23, in the deep snow up in Idyllwild. What a way to return! Out in the wild, in the snow, at over 6,000 feet. Moving slowly, tingling with joy. I felt alive once again—and even more so as I came across the fresh mountain lion tracks in the snow. That wondrous blend of aliveness and fear that comes from recognizing that I am part of the food chain!

I'll be running the Surf City Marathon in 3 weeks— a wonderfully flat course, perfect for my evolving recovery and strength building. It has been a delicate balance to build up my mileage a little quickly, while still listening to the feedback from my body. So far, so good.

With continued care and the ongoing willingness to listen to what my body has to tell me, I will complete Surf City and graduate from injury school with honors!

Bulldog has Quite a Bite!

With 29 miles completed and just two miles to go, my calves cramped with such force that I was thrown to the ground. Writhing in the dust of the trail, muscles locked shut, I screamed with pain and frustration. So near and yet so far . . .

My day had started at 3 a.m. and preparation for the Bulldog Ultra went well. By the time Todd and Tiffany arrived to pick me up at 4:30 a.m. for the drive to Malibu, I was buzzing with excitement and apprehension. Six months of training were about to be put to the test.

There were plenty of nervous giggles on the way up, but predominantly we traveled in silence, each of us acclimatizing to the magnitude of the adventure we were committed to. "It's not too late to pull out," I joked. "Yes it is," came a unified reply from the front of the car. We were, clearly, in this together. It felt good to know we would journey our first ultra together.

All too soon we were gathered with a couple of hundred other 50k entrants, stretched, fueled, and lubed. I said a prayer of gratitude for the early morning mist that would keep us cool for the first 10 miles or so. After the first calf-crunching 7-mile climb, the trail broke through the marine layer. The view was spectacular, reminding me of trekking in the Himalayas, with numerous mini peaks jutting through the low cloud. Here, there were just a few hundred feet below the clouds, but it might as well have been several thousand. The trail was quiet, wildlife still waking.

A quad-busting decent took me back down to sea-level, and by the time I arrived at the half-way point at a little over fifteen miles, about three hours out from the start, I was ready for a major refueling stop. Fresh clothes, peanut butter and honey sandwich, fluids. I emerged from the aid station refreshed and ready for the real challenge of the second half.

First time around the two-loop course, I had run through the first aid station at four miles, chatting idly with other runners as we moved past. This time, temperatures now in the 90s, I stopped willingly. Ice was poured into my hat, freezing cold water sprayed on my body, my bottles refilled, and encouraging words thrown at me . . . "Just another 3 miles of unforgiving, calf-busting climbing to go!" they joked as three of us headed up the slope.

Although my legs had started to feel painful at about mile 22, making each step of the final descent uncomfortable, I kept taking in plenty of fluid and what I though was enough nutrients. As I came out of the last aid station with two miles to go, it was going to be hard, but not, seemingly impossible. And then it happened.

To be thrown to the ground by my own body was a new experience. And as I sat up to stretch my calves, my thighs cramped in response. I had never know cramps this intense, strong, or long lasting. When another runner stopped to praise open the muscles in my legs, I could see him sweating with the effort. As he pulled me to my feet, my body weight on my legs was enough to fire my calves into cramping again. For a moment, I thought the pain was going to be enough that I would soil myself. Right there on the trail in front of my fellow runners. This was going to be a day of many firsts!

That moment passed, thankfully, without becoming a first. But I was still just a mile and a half from the finish with not even the ability to crawl. I lay on my back and started to laugh. I started to think of all the stories I'd read in the last month of long distance runners in moments of bodily breakdown. Each one had survived by invoking the same ritual: focus on one step. Take just the next one step.

My running buddy Tiffany arrived up the trail and volunteered to gently massage my legs. When they cramped, I swore at her out of pain, imploring her to pull on my muscles harder to unlock them. Eventually, they stayed looser for several minutes. Another runner gave me some Endurotabs to swallow. After sitting for 15 minutes, I stood up. Ouch. Horribly painful yes. Throwing me to the ground. No. This was progress.

As I shuffled up the trail like a robot, wincing with each step, an EMT came running up the trail. "You guys seen a runner down? We have reports of a runner down." I think that's me. But I'm up, I'm OK. Behind him came the race director. I was getting the full experience.

She looked at me with concern. I could tell she was considering pulling me from the event. A little more than a mile to go and I was about to be pulled. "Who's running for President?" she asked. "Obama and McCain," I answered. "And who's going to win?" Obama of course. "Wrong answer!" she replied. And then laughed. "I don't think I can pull you for that though. OK, I want you to go in to the finish with these guys," she said pointing at a race volunteer who had been at the previous aid station.

I hobbled off the trail and into the last mile-long section of covered road that lead to the finish. On the flat, I was able to break into a slow run with Tiffany one one side and Deb, a longtime ultra runner at my side. When she heard this was my first ultra, she beamed. "Awesome! You're gonna make it, I promise you."

And I did. Eight and a half hours after starting, I cruised over the finish line, where my wife and daughter were waiting. Their homemade sign said, "Ultra dad. Ultra husband. Ultra marathoner." That moment was one of the sweetest in my 15 years of running.

Now Sheehan's quote had become more than inspirational. It had become a lived experience . . .

“If you want to win anything—a race, yourself, your life—you have to go a little berserk.”

8,000 — 32 — 100+

“Success means having the courage, the determination, and the will to become the person you believe you were meant to be.”
Dr. George Sheehan, Author, Running & Being

8,000 feet in elevation gain; 32 miles; heat in triple digits . . .

This year, one of my goals was to move beyond marathoning and into ultra-running. This Saturday, August 23, that goal will be realized as I, along with my training buddies Tiffany Forster and bare-foot running stud Todd Byers, will complete the Bulldog 50 kilometer event in Malibu State Park. (Todd will be wearing shoes for this event, the first time I will have seen him run in shoes in almost 18 months!)

While finishing the event will be a big accomplishment, it is the six months of training that are the real win. As a result of that success, this event will mark a new beginning as well as an end. Bulldog now also heralds the start of my year-long training for the Goretex Trans-Rockies Run, a 6-day, 125 mile event in August 2009.

My run at this new level also requires some thank-you's:

To my family: Teresa and Hayden, who have adapted to my training schedule, long weekend runs, and occasional (?) crankiness, while showering me with encouragement every step of the way;

To Tiffany: training buddy extraodinaire, for the joy, humor, and mutual support we have shared over hundreds of miles—and for reminding me that youth is a state of mind and heart;

To Todd: for an bottomless stream of tips, training guidance, and wonderfully bad jokes that have made the miles fly by;

To Drs. Ron and Mary Hulnick and the staff, faculty, and fellow students at the University of Santa Monica: after many years away from running due to injury, in 2000, it was what I learned in the M.A. Program in Spiritual Psychology that showed me how to get running again in a sustainable, enjoyable, and self-caring way.

To Spirit: I have shed so many tears of joy, gratitude, and humility on my runs. The gift of my running experience continues to grow, inspire, and open me to deepening levels of beauty in my life.

So, starting at 6:30 a.m. on Saturday morning, your prayers, blessings, Light, and/or general groovy vibes of your chosen persuasion are welcome for all the runners in the Bulldog events.

I'll close with words from the master, George Sheehan, once more, “If you want to win anything—a race, yourself, your life—you have to go a little berserk.”

PS: I'll be celebrating with two of my very favorite things:

• A weekend at Disneyland, (including several repeat rides on Space Mountain!)
• Attending the guaranteed-to-inspire Graduation ceremonies at the University of Santa Monica. These are held this Sunday, August 24, at 2 p.m. at Royce Hall on the UCLA campus. This year's speaker is the remarkable Roberto Assagioli.

PPS: Want an insight into the mental attitude that keeps me on track for six months of high-intensity training? Click here to find out. �

What Does $250,000 Look Like?

You've seen those movies too, right? Ransoms, pay-offs, robberies, safety deposit stashes, that kind of thing. I'm always intrigued as to how much space that amount of money takes up. What does a hundred grand look like? In singles? In twenties? In hundreds? A duffel bag? A suitcase? What does a large sum of money really look like?

Well, this past weekend, I got to look a quarter of a million dollars, right in the eye. Literally. And I have to say, there are few things more beautiful.

$250,000.00. That's the goal of a group of almost 100 Team in Training members in Long Beach alone. And they'll do it to. 100 extraordinary people with shared, extraordinary goals. And this 250 grand comes is all denominations. Shorter, taller; older, younger; heavier, lighter; blond, brunette, and dark hair; all races, creeds, and abilities. $250k never looked so good!

I was facilitating a short clinic for them on the mental aspects of running. We talked about what it takes to keep the mind focused and clear—in short, how to use it as a tool to empower marathon level running as opposed to being used by it and experiencing fear and negativity. Thanks to the generosity of Robert Foster at I Live Inspired, I was able to plug them into my inspirational channels for runners and walkers for free—they'll get individual, daily motivational messages to their phones as part of their training at no charge.

100 people, the vast majority or whom will be running or walking their first marathon. Are they doing it for weight loss? Increased fitness? Bragging rights? To test themselves? Partly, for sure. But that is not what will keep them on track with their training and fundraising goals. Not when the going gets tough, which, somewhere along the line, it will. It's part of the journey.

Time and again, people ask me, "How can I stay on track with my fitness goals more consistently?" I ask, "Imagine you have already attained your goal. You are that fit, right now. Do you see that? OK. Now—what will you do with that level of fitness?"

The answers vary, but they all get pretty personal pretty quickly:

• I'd be able to run with my son a little. He's training for college track. I'd love to run with him occasionally and share in that.
• I'd pick up my granddaughter and swing her around in circles and hear her giggle.
• I'd feel strong enough to take my grandfather out in his wheelchair and we'd spend the day at Huntington Gardens.
• I'd be able to hold my head high, knowing I was caring for myself.
• I'd have the energy to really spend time with my family/volunteer/start my dream business
  
• I'd raise money for . . .

THESE are the things that will keep you on track. Commitments that involve serving others. That are founded in giving, sharing, and caring. That's where the fuel is to feed the engine of commitment.

The Team in Training organization knows that. And 360,000 participants have raised $850 million dollars doing it while completing marathons, 100-mile bike rides, and triathlons. It's a system that is proven over and over again.

Neale Donald Walsch once said, "Discover that your life has nothing to do with you, and it will becomes your more than ever." Team in Training is that vision made manifest.

Create a vision and live into it. If you want to learn more practical ways to do that, read the step by step approaches in my book.

Create a vision. Use your run to build it, energize it, and make it real.

Happy trails!

What You Get is What You See

"What do you see?"

I turned to the group of runners peering into a large, mile-long, 100-foot deep gash in the earth adjacent to our running route along the Los Angeles River in Long Beach. Silence. I prompted them to throw out their answers.

"A big *#@!ing hole." Good start. Anything else? "A scar. Nothing. A grave."

"Anything else?" I did not want to answer my own question unless I had to.

The youngest runner (why was I so surprised by that?) gave me what I was looking for . . . "An Egyptian Queen, floating on a gold colored barge, slowly floating down the Nile."

I watched the other runners as he spoke up, and saw all their faces soften, open, and the group started nodding. They did not have to say it, the youngster had given them all a valuable lesson.

It took about two, maybe three years, but that "big *#@!ing hole" is now one of my favorite two miles that I run. When I get there, I'm three miles into my run, or have three to five miles to go on my way home. I'm in full flow.

I run the narrow dirt path alongside the tranquil water-filled channel and drink in the energy of life—an explosion of wild flowers, tall reeds, elegant Cranes, Blue Herons, Snowy Egrets, and, each week, more and more birds whose names I don't know. Rabbits, butterflies, and in the early, misty mornings, coyotes.

What is it that transformed that "scar" into a burst of wilderness that replenishes, invigorates, and inspires me each time I run in it (in it, not through it)? Vision—the ability to look at what is, to see what can be, and then living into that. Action—the ability to create the transition from the one to the other. Commitment—the willingness to embrace and reconfigure challenges that come up. Whatever they are. Accountability—the fearless and consistent tracking of action through to successful completion.

One person's "big *#@!ing hole" is another's wilderness-refuge-in-waiting. Whether it's in relationship, at work, your initial training run in preparation for a first ever 5k, or at the base of a steep hill at mile 23, I promise you this: It's never a case of "What you see is what you get."

What you get, rather, is what you choose to see.

Happy trails!

For Crying Out Loud

It's not unusual to see tears at the finish line of a marathon. Tears of joy, pain, relief, laughter. However many shades of tears there are, they have probably all been spilled at 26.2. I've certainly shed my fair share of finish line tears.

But starting line tears? For me, this was a new experience—and one I recently had at the San Diego Rock N Roll Marathon.

Don't tell anyone, but I had purchased a last-minute bib from a friend of mine who was not able to run. Not having run the even t before, I surfed around the web and read intimidating posts about difficulty accessing the start line, challenges with parking, and a course with numerous challenges: freeway surfaces, big camber for several miles, noise of the every-mile bands.

I had no concerns about what my run would be like—I know I get to choose that for the most part. But I was concerned about getting to the start line in time, so I left wonderfully early and arrived two hours before the race was due to begin. In fact, I left Del Mar (about ten miles away) an hour earlier than my running partners Todd and Tiffany left Long Beach (about 120 miles away!).

It proved to be the best choice I've made in a long time.

What I experienced was akin to the night my daughter was born. Sure, when I arrived, I had my pick of the bananas, electrolyte drinks, and unused portapotties. But I'm talking about something else.

I'm talking about not just seeing, but feeling the day build. Individuals and groups arriving. Some in silence as they stretched, some laughing. Nervous laughter, bold laughter, playful laughter. I positioned myself by the Elite Runners corral, and watched as the wheel chair athlete's arrived. I saw rigorous independence as each one moved out of their day use chairs and into their competition machines."

The Marine band arrived, including two musicians who would be running the event. I saw strong young men and women with gleaming eyes and uniforms. I felt the vibrant energy of the marathon building, an affirmation of life, and thought of war, an affirmation of death. To have both feelings inside of me at once stretched my heart further.

And then the elite runners arrived, led by a group of tiny African men. They were small in physical stature, but that was all. These men are lions. I could feel it, see it, sense it. I thought of the history of Africa. As an Englishman, now living in the United States, I am doubly aware of the impact of imperialism, centuries of ruthless exploitation, and slavery on the entire continent of Africa.

And as I looked at these men, I had a visceral sense of their power. The power that would carry them across the finish line when I was only half-way done. The authentic power that lives in any being who is doing what he loves the most. That gives himself and his god the clearest form of expression through devoted action.

And in that moment, as I stand in the wake of the quiet, fierce, powerful humility of these men, I realized that whatever it was that my ancestors had sought to plunder from Africa and its people, they never found it. It is not something that can ever be taken; it is something that can only be given.

And I cried. For Africa, for its people, for the errors of its subjugators, and for the rivers of blood that have flowed across the centuries. For forgiveness.

And then I cried for joy. For running; for runners; for the way that our sport can transcend history and brings us together into the now. This event. This stride. This breath.

Apparently I ran the slowest marathon I have ever run that day, four hours and fifty minutes. I did not know at the time, because I had no watch. And every timeless step of the way, even the ones that hurt, I continued to bask in the simple beauty of our shared humanity as runners.

That day I truly experienced my own dream come alive. Much sweeter than running longer, or stronger, my answered prayer is to run deeper. Can I get an "Amen"?

Happy trails.