Reflections of the Creator

 

Creativity Reflects God in Everything We Do

The summer is coming to a close and with it, the need to spend time mowing the lawn and watering the flowers. It doesn’t take that long of course, but it’s one more time suck away from writing. My Cubs games are another one. I paid for MLB network this year thinking I might only watch a handful of games. Turns out, I have the opposite problem. The team is playing well and looking to make a deep playoff run. That means it’s hard to turn off. The biggest reason for not writing as much is the 3 nights per week of personal training I do. This is new since June. I’m busier than I was at the beginning of the year by orders of magnitude.

New Realities

But even with the new responsibilities I could squeeze in a 700 word blog once in a while. Something has shifted in my attitude toward writing and I can’t pin it down. When I started the blog over 10 years ago it was a way to keep myself accountable to the process and improving in the craft. Putting it online is more about having to look at how long it’s been since my last post. Currently I’m only putting a new one out every 3 or 4 weeks. 7 to 10 days used to be the longest stretch I allowed myself without feeling like a slug who watches too much baseball. I’d scribble something out just to complete the empty space on my wall. Now I can' hardly manage that.

A lot of my favorite pieces over the years are thrown together bits of opinion that formed a semi coherent article. That sense of responsibility to the page has drifted away like a helium balloon. It’s still up there somewhere above my head on a very long string. I haven’t cut the string and let it float away just yet. When you start something creative it isn’t easy to just cut it loose. Maybe I’m stretching the meaning of the word “creative” here, but in the most basic sense the articles are mine. The ideas, thoughts and opinions presented on the site went through a filter in my brain and came out as an expression of me. Some were clear and concise, others were muddy and needed a good wash. But the quality isn’t really the point.

Old Examples

It’s how the ideas define you, how they’ve changed and what still remains core to your identity. Not what opinions have been consistent across time, but what intangibles still color your work.

 I’ll use PJ O’Rourke because he’s was a favorite of mine for so long. He was consistently funny and irreverent in a playful way. I was too young for the National Lampoon years and even much of what followed. But his journalism for Rolling Stone and even the books he wrote in the 90s put a smiley face on some very dull topics. His mixture of 60’s hippy and witty libertarian was the perfect attitude for the kind of journalism he pursued. He missed on a few of his books late in life, but I never held it against him. 

His opinions changed over time with the culture, but his writing was always smart and funny. He enjoyed discussing politics and culture, and always found a way to infuse his trips with humor.

I think the recognizable part of a person’s work is what it makes it unique. This is true in all realms of creativity. It provides the color. I was never a big Van Halen fan but I always knew his guitar the second a new song hit the radio. Kindergarten was as far as I got in studying music. The nice way to say it is, music wasn’t a good fit for me. I was kindly asked to try something else by my teacher after a few sessions with a recorder. But even with my unsophisticated understanding of music, Van Halen is easy to pick out. This isn’t to say that all work is brilliant, just that’s it reflects its creator.

Conclusion

A lot of this unique style is unintentional and imbeds itself into our work. The nature of creativity comes from the ultimate Creator though. Even when we don’t acknowledge Him, we are His handiwork as Paul says in Ephesians. Our creative acts are an outgrowth of our Father in heaven. In this, we reflect our maker. If I didn’t write another word on my webpage again, I hope that the small collection at least reflects the God who created me. I hope that’s the color of my writing. 

For we are His creation, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared ahead of time so that we should walk in them. Ephesians 2:10 (Holman)

Responsibility, Busyness and Stress: Learning to Manage

What have I learned about being busy?

Busyness is just a feeling. It’s possible to manage multiple tasks and become more efficient. Like anything else, responsibility is a learned habit. You need reps.

The Seasonal Thing

This time of year is hectic. With fall sports just around the corner, it’s a rush to get everything out the door in time. Youth football starts on the same weekend around the state. For the bigger leagues at least, that means everyone needs a uniform in the same time frame. Production ramps up, hours increase and stress is high. The number of orders being turned in for July and August is tough to keep up with. Phone calls demand attention as customers stream in the door to shop or pick up orders they’ve placed online. Emails fill up the inbox. Waiting to respond will elicit a nervous phone call. “Did you see my email?!!”

Youth football is different from baseball in one major way. The organizations are big, 350 to 400 kids in the larger ones. Everyone in the organization gets the same jersey. They play other grades in the same league. The jersey is reversible in case they play another grade in the same organization. The entire league starts play the week before Labor Day. The trick is getting the jerseys back and sorted before the first game. Rosters are an issue though. Not everyone is on a roster when I need them to be. That means I have to do a second and a third order for the ones who are late.

Most of my stress at least, is this particular variety. No one wants to miss the window for uniform handouts and these manufacturers need time to make them and ship them back out. The trick comes from getting the rosters (with numbers) for the jerseys in enough time to place an order. It’s tight. Some organizations are better at it. They’ve got a process in place that’s as smooth as it could be.

July and August constitute email flurry month however I’ve always got a lot of late kids to add after the fact. Late is defined as beyond the first deadline, which is drawn somewhat arbitrarily around the 4^th of July.

The Current Thing

With all the busyness I’m constantly worried I’ll miss something critical. I’ve learned to focus as much as possible on the current thing.

 Finish it first, then move on. But take as much time as you need. Quick work is sloppy work. Incomplete orders always become a bigger issue than they would have, had I just taken two minutes to review before clicking send. I could write books with multiple volumes on this topic alone. If you’re predisposed to be fast and beat everyone to the finish, mistakes will happen. They’re the proverbial bald tires you never bothered to change before your last lap. For me, it’s usually a critical item or note to the factory about color changes or name spellings I forgot to mention. A lot of these orders go to factories in non-English speaking countries. To say they’ve made some hilarious (if not costly) mistakes, is to state the obvious. Instructions must be specific.

The Visible Stress Thing

Despite the hustle, I remind myself to take deep breaths when angry. I can get short and nasty with coworkers and customers when irritated. No it doesn’t happen often, but it’s unprofessional and customers can feel your anxiety. Situational stress is something you get better at working through the more you’re exposed to it. Confidence in the face of disaster is a skill that’s closer to stage acting than changing your feelings in the moment. It’s artificial, but it’s also better than the regret from a loss of control. Rushing around increases the chance you’ll add to the problem. Slowing down the situation helps to get you to a place where you can think about what to do.

We’ve had multiple issues with the aging software in recent months. We’re using two different platforms for the retail store and they don’t work together. Every week is a new problem. It’s a little awkward when the customer is in the store and I’m trying to troubleshoot or look for a payment to do a refund. If I’m not sure what to do, I’ll write down as much info as I can and try to resolve it later. Usually if I think about it for a while the answer will be obvious. But it’s less obvious in the moment, when you’re under the gun. I can’t say why this is, but my thinking is somehow short circuited by the immediacy of the task. I’m sure others struggle with this too. The good news is that it’s possible to overcome it with effort.

The Sleeping thing

On a few nights last week I had trouble sleeping. Thoughts of the coming day, deadlines and tight shipping schedules bounced around in my head. Normally I head to the gym in the morning but with the loss of sleep I missed more than I meant to. I rolled back over to try and make up for the loss. Sleep is key, the gym can wait.

This is a season anyway. Every job I’ve worked has had a busy season. With other retail jobs it’s always the last 2 months of the year. In school it was the finals week and the subsequent research papers to finish. I’m a fitness trainer as well. January and February see a surge of new members. Membership leads to new clients for the trainers on staff. Most can double their work load if they want. If I’m not careful the schedule can get out of control.

The solution is to plan ahead as much as possible. It sounds simple enough, but clients change their plans constantly and you either work around it or lose them. The closer you stick to the scheduling the better the sleep. You’re not opening up the app and changing dates around for people if you lock them in. I’ve had to say “NO” more often. Not a week goes by without at least one person canceling or trying to get a different time. I’m always polite, but I sleep better now.

Conclusion

 I’ve never dealt with this many emails and text messages in my life. Between the two jobs it can be overwhelming. But I work with others who manage twice the number of accounts and people that I do. They also coach their kid’s soccer team and volunteer at their church. They make it to sales meetings and pack a lot of their own orders. Seeing others thrive with so much responsibility is an encouraging picture of what’s possible in a hectic environment. For someone like me who is trying to put everything in order, it’s a comfort to know that so many can. I imagine I’ll look back on this period of life and smile at how easy it was, and how busy I thought it felt. We should go from strength to strength after all. Responsibility is a habit we learn. No one is born with it.  

Fall 25 Running Cycle Kickoff: New Roles

 

Jogging with Friends and Taking on Extra Responsibilities

Today was the first day of another group training cycle with Runner’s World Tulsa.

This is always the longest break between sessions. The spring session ends in April right before the Oklahoma City Memorial marathon. There aren’t any Saturday runs again until mid-July. It's best to put your own plan together for the off season or face hot temps with an out of shape body.

The Price of 'Leadership'

I was asked to be a run lead this year. We get a voucher for new shoes and if you’ve seen the price of running shoes lately, you wouldn’t refuse either. I’ve been a De Facto leader the last few years anyway. I memorize the route every week and show up through any type of weather. The one exception was near the end of the cycle, just last year. Tulsa had a brutal storm come through. I checked out on that one. I’ll run in the rain, but those conditions were nuts. I talked to someone from the group the next week about it. Very few people showed up and the ones that did--cut their distance to just a few miles.

The thinking from Runner’s World is this, we don’t cancel because races don’t cancel. You’ll have to run in difficult conditions so get used to it.

The second marathon in Fort Worth that I ran had a similar storm the night before. It was bad enough for them to push the start time back a few hours. That seemed like the best option. Marathons are fund raisers after all. Without tornadoes and lightning it’s not likely they’ll cancel. About the best you can hope for is a delay. We did eventually start and finish the race. The course was soaking wet and sloppy, but also clear. On sunny days it’s packed full of pedestrians walking the path and getting in the way. A clear, albeit messy, track was a silver lining to a race that a lot people didn’t show up for due to poor weather.

A summer rain on a Saturday morning isn’t the worst thing anyway.

The Price of Being Out of Shape

The summer heat is rough on new joggers especially. Starting early helps, but eventually it slows you down if you aren’t acclimated. I’ve spent the last few months staying in running shape. I’m not in the kind of condition needed to run a marathon yet. I’ll run more during the season and get my mileage above 20 for the week. But I kept at it all summer. Conditioning your legs to hold up in the heat and your lungs to breathe will pay off. I told someone today that I enjoyed the heat. It’s only partially true. I enjoy the results that come from training in the heat. There isn’t a good way to replicate that on a treadmill.

Whether jogging indoors or outside, I’m busier this year than ever before.

 I have a full schedule of clients for my personal training position. For the last couple of months I’ve been doing part time work through a gym. This is in addition to my regular 9-5 at the sporting goods store. I’ve had this idea about working sales and doing personal training on my own at some point. I mean working for myself of course. For now I just need to experience practicing with various groups and putting together work out plans for them. Gyms are good places to find a mix of people of all ages and stations. Some need rudimentary functional exercise and others need a high intensity challenge. Others are retirement age and hoping to increase muscle endurance. It allows me to do a little research and practice techniques and sharpen my methods.

Conclusion

For now at least I don't have time for anything else. In previous years I would've have passed on the chance to be a run lead. But it’s not a lot of responsibility and I’ve been halfway there, responsibility wise. Besides, it feels like I’m in a season of new responsibilities across the board. From the new accounts I’m managing to the new people I’m training. It’s all moving toward larger roles. I won’t make more of it than that. It’s just an interesting development that I’ve noticed. Some people collect responsibilities the way others collect seashells. Organization is practically their love language. Not me. I’ve never been one to take on projects or teams on a voluntary basis. That’s probably more a function of not wanting to be bothered, than about some lack of organization. Maybe that’s finally changing.

I am finding out that I prefer to be busy than have a lot of free time. Weird.

 

 

 

Love Day 25: God Works Through Community

 

We Grow in Community: Love Day 25

Today was “Love Day” for Church on the Movers in Tulsa. 

Love is a Verb

It’s an annual community serve day in July where we offer help to our neighbors. Opportunities exist all over the city to clean up, renovate and remake a lot of our common areas. Not everything is about hard, manual work though. Some require prayer and relational help. Most Love Day serving requires gloves and elbow grease. I signed up for the Food on the Move nonprofit that grows vegetables for the community. They have a lot of indoor and outdoor farmland. It benefits the residents who often, don’t have enough money for basic groceries.

At the start of the day, the director gave the volunteers a short history of the facility. Started by Taylor Hanson, the 90’s pop star from Tulsa, after a Q&A with a former ambassador to South Africa. The diplomat told Taylor to engage the community instead of going through the official channels. Locals needed food. I’m not familiar with how the Apartheid regime handled food, but it sounds like it was withheld because of politics.

Deep Roots

 Whether or not South Africa’s situation on food scarcity is relatable to America, I can’t say. But taking care of those in need is smart policy in any country. Communities thrive when they support each other. Like those vertical planting towers that are so ubiquitous at Food on the Move. Water and nutrients trickle down from the top and feed the seeds all the way down. It's an efficient system when space is limited. 

My task today was to power wash the planting towers. I got a close look at them. 

Eight-foot plastic tubes with holes in them, serve as a plant towers for vertical growing. I included a picture at the top. They're filled with dirt from top to bottom and the seeds are placed in the upward facing extensions. The roots develop inside the tower and the plant grows out the side. The towers get gunked with dirt after a planting cycle and need to be sprayed out. It sounds easy, but the tricky part was trying to pull out the remaining dry roots. They don’t want to leave.

 High pressure water gets most of it, but you need a ramrod to knock out the roots that made a comfortable home inside. It took us a few minutes to finds something like our ramrod, a shovel handle.

Rain Soaked Morning

I had two companions, a father and daughter. We worked outside on a concrete slab and cleaned one after the other, getting sloppy wet and dirty the whole time. At first we thought the volunteer day might not happen. Tulsans woke up to a heavy storm this morning. We've seen too many this year. For whatever reason it’s been a rainy year. The thunderstorm subsided shortly after 7:30 and everything went on as planned. I can’t say that every group went ahead though. 

While filling out the Love Day registration, I noticed a few landscaping options to sign up for. It wasn’t exactly a mowing kind of day. After the first 30 minutes of work, it started raining again. I’m not sure if we were more wet from the power washer or the rain. It didn’t matter in either case, we had a job to do.

Why We Serve

I think we could’ve stayed all day. The farm had more towers that needed to be cleaned. They had a whole trailer full of them. Since it only took 3 of us to share the power washing duties, the other volunteers pulled weeds and harvested some of the vegetables. I would’ve liked to see the operation a little closer. But our washing kept us away from seeing the rest of the place. I’m sure the regulars that worked the farm would’ve been happy to show me around. But after the cleaning and the rain, everyone headed for the parking lot. I didn’t want to be the only one hanging around.

Most of these Love Day’s are characterized by brutal heat. It’s July in Oklahoma after all. If there is a silver lining with rain, it’s that the temperatures stay low (70’s) and the sun hides behind the clouds. It might be humid but it’s manageable. As long as the lightning and monsoon rains don’t overwhelm, it’s possible to do a little outdoor work and not wilt like a daisy.

 These community volunteer efforts make everyone involved feel good about their service. I can’t speak for everyone, but I usually have a pang of guilt over doing this only once a year. It’s not like serve opportunities don’t exist. I think there is even a Saturday serve option available on the small group finder. Without even looking, I can promise it’s the least attended of any of the groups. Not because people are terrible and selfish and uncaring. But because it’s not glamorous. It’s labor intensive and messy. It’s a little too much like real work.

But it’s also appreciated in a way that food deliveries and car service and back to school shopping sprees aren’t.

Conclusion

Some people have a knack for building, repairing and cleaning. Remodeling a person’s home in particular, adds a kind of dignified thrill that isn’t possible any other way. Groceries are great too, but adding a bedroom, a deck or a bathroom is a gift that elevates the occupants. An old home with inefficient windows and paper thin walls can feel luxurious with a decent remodel. Your neighborhood is the same but the place you spend the most time is suddenly new. What could be better?

If it sounds like I’ve been there before, it’s because I have. Members of the church I attended as a kid did a full remodel on our family home. They asked electricians, roofers, plumbers, dry wall workers and general contractors to pitch in on a particular day. It took 2 full days but the result was impressive--a fully remodeled house from basement to attic. I was in the Army at the time, but I saw the full scale of it when I came for a visit. 

God works through communities. I’ll never forget that.   

“Don’t do anything for selfish purposes, but with humility think of others as better than yourselves. 4Instead of each person watching out for their own good, watch out for what is better for others.” Philippians 2:3-4

Bunker Busters and F Bombs: Iran isn't Going Away

 

Trump avoids War but Gets Sidetracked by Foreign Conflicts

The news is usually my source of writing inspiration, but I’m struggling to understand what’s going on in the Middle East right now. The only thing I have is my instincts and they’re telling me to pump the brakes on this ceasefire. Trump isn’t falling into the war trap that so many seem to be pushing him towards. He agreed to destroy the nuclear facilities in Iran with bunker busting bombs. That part was successful, we assume. But just before the ceasefire was supposed to begin, Iran broke the ceasefire.

Israel retaliated. It’s not clear to me if Israel retaliated for the missiles that hit a US airbase in Qatar, or if they retaliated for an attack on their own soil. Trump was pissed when reporters asked him about it. He said Israel and Iran don’t know what the ‘F’ they’re doing. After supposedly getting both countries to agree to a ceasefire, they unloaded their munitions. After Trump’s tweet the internet got silly. MAGA types started posting the tweet and bragging about DJT’s “Skillz”. I count myself among the MAGA faithful but this was seriously stupid. I wanted to scream “This is the Middle East; it’s never over!”. Frankly Trump was a bit too eager to claim victory himself. Using dopey language about no more hate and peace and harmony in the region. 

He wants to move past this quickly and I don't blame him.

Trump believes everyone can move past old hatreds. Just toss in a few incentives and get the business interests on board. Who wouldn’t want to make a deal and start developing condo’s in the Levant eh? For all of his straight talk and no nonsense attitude, he seems to genuinely think he can make lasting peace. But the US should be done with the Middle East if the military is asked to intervene. Israel should remain and ally. Saudi Arabia should be a business partner that we keep at a distance. There is a mess to deal with in Ukraine after the last administration, foolishly pushed that country into an unwinnable war.

Trump told the world that the Ukraine was would be over as shortly after his term started. That’s probably the biggest misstep of his presidency so far. It’s clear to me that he wants to be a domestic president and focus on spending, immigration and law enforcement. He gets very irritated with these foreign conflicts and sees them as a distraction from his domestic agenda. A president that wants to focus on his own country is a welcome relief, but these foreign conflicts keep pulling his attention away. Like Michael Corleone, every time he thinks he's out...they pull him right back in. 

But the good news from this so called '12 day war' is that he seems to have sidelined the neocons this time. He agreed to destroy the nuclear facility in Fordow but not do the regime change that the Israelis wanted.

Israel has every right to demand regime change in the region. But they must do it alone, and they clearly won’t. As time frame’s go, it’s probably right for it. Iran is weak, their proxies in Yemen are beaten and their army in Lebanon (Hezbollah) was destroyed by the IDF. But we’ve given so much blood in the Middle East that I think it’s time for someone else. The Israelis are natural allies, but Trump made the right call to avoid doing more that bombing the facilities. As a concession to not demanding regime change, it’s a better option. 

I hope this latest cease fire and subsequent bombing shakes Trump out of his naivete. At the very least, stop calling every minor statement from world leaders a win. Foreign leaders lie. There is a reason why president’s avoid doing “deals” in the Middle East. Those people are full of ancient hatreds and deep resentment going back thousands of years. I’m making a cultural statement, not a racial one.

I recognize that America is deeply involved and ignoring these conflicts isn’t possible. But the president should be above grandiose statements that fall apart in less than 24 hours. The worst part is that anyone older than 30 could tell you this would likely happen. But even MAGA voters get over their skis all the time on this stuff. They love their big Trump-as-badass memes. But they look silly in no time flat. I think it’s time for some humility all around.  

On Blogging and the World since 2020

 Complaining About the Deep State and the Nature of Blogging

I’ve lost my nerve a bit on writing. Not that I’m not doing it. I am, but my blog pieces are getting further and further apart. 

Putting something on my website happens like twice a month now. It’s a serious fall from the previous 10 years or so. The first couple of years I was still finding my footing. I don’t count 2014 or 2015. They’re both a blip on the radar of a blog that was still finding an identity. Did it ever find it? I’m sure a clever person could scan it and find similar points of interest or a singular ‘voice’ as the writers say. The topics changed quite a bit, or at least I thought. Politics, especially foreign policy, held my interest so much in the early days that I shared my thoughts. Like most bloggers most of my opinions were like anyone else’s, off the mark by a wider margin than I’d like to admit.

That’s hardly the point. It’s really the experience and accountability I was after.

Know It All

I don’t think you’ll find a persistent arrogant or obtuse tone throughout. I tried to clean up most of pieces though the editing process. Smugness is a crutch for young writers fresh off their media studies class. I won’t deny that I had a touch of that. I will deny that they overwhelmed my writing as to make it sickening for the reader to consume, like a fountain coke mixed with too much syrup. There are times when I went too hard I’m sure. But I always tried to sound reasonable. I hope I do in real life as well. Hopefully I was smart enough to recognize that not all writing holds up well over the years. One day’s ‘SOB’ is another day’s ‘Honest Abe’. How many times has public opinion shifted on Kayne West? In the last 5 years or so the world’s changed a lot and I’m thinking differently about everything.

Know Even Less

I said 5 years because it’s about when Covid hit and we were never the same. The world didn’t change really, it just got revealed to be something darker and uglier than I think I understood before. The stolen election of 2020 was the first pillar of American greatness to fall. Such an obvious theft should have been a wake up for all Americans. For many it was, but it’s hard to believe that when your guy won the election. I’m not sure I would’ve listened either if Trump had won on such shaky grounds. But to me it showed that the deep state runs the ‘important’ affairs of life. The president doesn’t (can’t) do much in the way of changing policy. Congress doesn’t either, by the way. An Executive Order (EO) does not a policy make. Someone needs to put it into practice.

 The Constitution was a brilliant piece of legislation and even worked for a time. We’re off it now, same as the gold standard. The language persists, we still use phrases like separation of powers and judicial review. But they’re applied haphazardly if at all.  

Know For Sure

We say deep state now because it sounds more sinister. It’s also a better phrase than bureaucracy because it suggests an entrenched, network of shadowy figures with malice and greed in their hearts. A bureaucracy is just an inefficient blob of well-meaning civil servants. It’s the guy at the DMV who didn’t approve your permit because you didn’t fill out form 1455 correctly. The deep state includes those people and adds NGOs (Non Governmental Organizations) and private companies. A lot aren’t even government employees. They contract with certain federal authorities and pull down millions of dollars through various cut outs. The exposure of the USAID, via DODGE, and its nefarious dealings is one such example.

The deep state is an impossible network to quantify but it does have access to a lot of money. In that way they’re a bit like the KnightsTemplar in the Middle Ages. A group of professional soldiers started a small Christian army to protected the territory acquired by the Crusaders. They provided safe passage for traveling Knights who warred against Muslims in the Holy Land. They set up banking houses and issued legal tender all over Europe so Crusaders didn’t have to carry large sums of money. They became incredibly wealthy with their private army and land holdings. Eventually they emerged with their own order, customs and ceremonies. They were a government unto themselves. What started out as charity of the church, turned into a group of wealthy mercenaries who dictated terms to kings and rulers through their banks. Philip IV eventually had them arrested on charges of blasphemy and sodomy. He pillaged their holdings and dissolved the order.

Conclusion

It's not a perfect comparison but it works. Like the knights, the deep state has a vast network that expands to a vast number of interests. The only way to get at unraveling their influence is to hold individuals accountable for their crimes. Or at the very least, threaten someone who is obviously guilty and make them give up names the way the cops do in mob movies. The lack of any real punishment is why the deep corruption persists. I’m not suggesting they be held accountable for false crimes the way the Templars were. But their power should be reined in and their kingdom taken away.

The Knights Templar didn’t lose their power until Jerusalem fell in the 13^th century. Without a controlling army in the Holy Land, the Templars lost their reason for being. The deep state is full of little fiefdoms with a ready supply of funding and a legal system that covers their flank. I had hoped Dodge would be the beginning of the end of their reason for being. Sadly, it’s going to take more than that. But it will happen.

The lack of real understanding about political issues is why the blog has changed so much. It’s hard to write about things you don’t fully understand. I do feel like 'first principles' will focus less on day to day politicking going forward.

 

 

 

 

"A Runner's High: My Life in Motion" A Review

 

 

Dean Karnazes and the Crazy World of Ultramarathon Running

I had to google Dean Karnazes after I read his book “A Runner’s High: My Life In Motion”. I picked it up off the shelf at my local Barnes & Noble on whim. I wasn’t particularly looking for a book on running or even a book with a sports theme. But after getting lost in fiction and checking out the new authors, I traipsed back to the sports section. Sport themed books can be a mix of biography and history, business and self-help. I wanted something easy to absorb, not a deep dive. Golf had the most authors per square inch but running managed a few slots. The first one I grabbed turned out to be a textbook. It was a detailed plan for a running program with tips in between. Nothing against schedules and planning but I wanted something more personal.

That’s when I grabbed this Dean Karnazes book on ultramarathon running, his 4^th to date.

Looking Back 

Now I’m not an ultramarathon runner and I have no interest in it. But I love jogging and even marathon running. I wanted to know what got him started in this insane sport. Maybe he would answer the “Why would someone do this?” question. He does in part. But this book is an examination of the life of an aging athlete, finding a new way to endure with a different set of goals. A good chunk of it is looking back on a brilliant career and savoring the success while training for the Western States 100. Along the way he examines if he’s been a distant father, a loving husband and good son. There are some touching moments with his dad, a man who still accompanies him to his races and provides that much needed encouragement.

Dean Karnazes has a few books under his belt already. I didn’t read it but, "Ultramarathon Man: Confessions of an All night Runner” was a best seller in 2006. It put ultramarathon running into the public conscious. For years it was an obscure sport that only endurance junkies had anything to do with. It likely wasn’t the only book or film that did this, but it certainly made regular people aware of it. I still think it’s a sport for endurance junkies, it’s just that we have more of them now. 100 miles at any pace through the open desert or woods is a crazy thing to do. Certain people need to push themselves beyond the limits of what even endurance runners go through.

A Very Different Sport

In Runner’s High, Dean settles into the reality of his age and what’s still possible given the miles he’s put on his body. Understandably, there is a lot of comparison to his former self and his former successes. As a Western States alum, he is acutely aware of his progress when seen in contrast to his previous performance. Spoiler alert, he isn’t the runner he used to be. He was 58 or 59 when this book was published. That’s over 15 years since his first book. That’s a lot of miles for an aging athlete. But the same grit that got him through the 100 milers when he was a younger man is still there. He just needs more of it. He nearly drops out on multiple occasions but manages just enough push to finish.

Endurance running takes otherworldly mental toughness. It’s one advantage that older athletes have on younger ones. Dean doesn’t say this in the book but it feels true. Your body won’t move as fast or recover as quickly, but if you’ve finished before you’ll do it again. It won’t be pretty, but you’ve solved a big piece of the puzzle on how to complete a big race while exhausted. Having others there to cheer you on helps a lot. Help and support are difficult to measure, but essential for finishing strong. Karnezes gives a lot of credit to his family and friends for joining him. During the Western States race, he encounters a few former runners who help out as volunteers at the aid stations. Their encouragement and motivation is often the difference in the late stages of an ultramarathon when you’re starting to fade. His son Nick and both his parents, along with multiple volunteers, got him over the hump.

Conclusion

The book is less than 250 pages. It’s light on detail and doesn’t bog down on race particulars. There is just enough of his personal life in there to keep this a human story. Dean explains well the emotional highs and lows of ultra racing and provides the reader with a reason for why he runs. It won’t make sense to people who don’t run though. You’ll get an answer to the question “Why would someone do this?” but you won’t like the answer. It just doesn’t make sense to most people and that’s OK. You will understand, and feel, his passion for this niche sport though.

It may even make you start jogging whatever your age.