Called Unto the Mountain

Flat Rock Ridge - 3 Miles Up

I was summoned to the mountain today. I hadn't really planned on going out there today, nor really planned anything too specific for my run. Something between 8 and 18 miles, which Alison thought was quite a range. Any mountain run is at least 20-30 minutes away. But Flat Rock Ridge Trail was calling to me. This trail, and the others it links to, is about 28.5 miles away in the middle of nowhere and therefore more than a 30 minute drive. I listened to Mumford and Sons on the drive and by the time I got there, I was bursting from my cage. The air was damp and clouds hung on the mountainside in layers as I ascended through them. I was where I belonged. A changing combination of dirt, leaves, rocks, roots, logs, grass, and ice under foot, all often off camber. Trail runner is probably one of the better descriptors of me. Add in mountain and harsh and you are really starting to have me pegged.

I could probably stop there, but most may not understand what I am saying. I'd consider myself an odd mixture of homo sapien. I don't see it as either positive or negative, it just is. To expand, I once thought I was road runner. I was a runner. I ran quite a few road races. Most of my training was on the road. A road has rather straight lines. When there are curves, they are generally smooth arcs. A hard, stable surface is the norm. Conformity, predictability are the standard. My friends are already thinking that's not him. Nothing against road running, it's just not for me if I have a different choice. Of course sometimes things necessitate road running, but even then I'll sneak of the edge at almost every chance. Deep inside or on the surface, I'm a trail runner, mountainous and harsh.

But aren't trails more forgiving to us? I'd like to think so. I believe trails are gentler on the body. Though, I also believe trails make us stronger. Steep climbs and descents leave legs weary. I like it that way. Weary legs one day will be stronger for a future day. Treacherous footing works our entire bodies and mind. One must always be paying attention on a challenging trail. I like switchbacks, up or down. But I do appreciate a trail straight up or straight down a steep grade, harsh. A good mountain trail can look much different depending on your projection up or down. Those switchbacks can turn into never ending upward turns one after another. Or a punishing acceleration/deceleration recitation on a downward plunge. Eighteen percent grades don't look kind in either direction to most, though I'd beg to differ. A hard, strenuous trail to some is a challenging playground to another.

I think a good mountain trail describes me as a person quite well. I'm not for everyone. I'm not easily definable with clear lines, nor smooth arcs. I think of myself as meek, forgiving, though some would say harsh. I'd say harsh, but in a good way. I'll call it blunt, direct. Don't ask for an answer you may not want, cause I may give it. A good trail does that to me. If I complement or praise, I meant it and it was deserved, earned. I don't throw many things about freely, though hopefully grace like a rain shower. I'm probably full of treacherous footing of pointy thoughts, slippery slopes, hard realities. I contain many a switchback, which may look completely different depend on the direction and speed you come at me. As a trail is not always neatly ordered, I am a mixture of grades and footing, unpredictable. I've come to like these qualities about myself, but like them or not, they are what I am. I am a “good” and “bad” Christian all in the same switchback. I could no more pretend that I'm a road runner than a straight and narrow Christian. Maybe I'm a trail Christian. My path is crooked, more like a good mountain trail. Maybe that's why the mountain was beckoning me today.

Canoeing the Nantahala River - February '99

Coach Mitchell Running the Nantahala Falls '98

Life is surprising. Sometimes the most significant events in a person's life might seem ordinary to an outside observer. What is possibly the most significant event in my life, caught me entirely by surprise. It was a canoe trip on the Nantahala River. It was the moment I was standing cold and naked on the bank of the river. To be more accurate the precise moment was just after I put clothes back on, but it sounds more dramatic to say when I was cold and naked. I didn't see this event coming, but life doesn't always happen as one plans it. So here's the condensed version.

The Nantahala is a whitewater river in western North Carolina. I went there for first time in August of '98 with my high school running coach, who taught me to paddle. I was taught old school, open canoes, not kayaks, no floation. I liked the larger rapids and bigger waves on the Nantahala. At the end of the eight mile paddle is Nantahala Falls, a Class III rapid with a tricky entry and a significant hydraulic at the end. On that first trip I ran the Falls upright and fairly correct, but took on too much water and ended up “swimming.” I flipped the canoe. That was my first time “swimming” in my 8 years or so of canoeing. Coach Mitchell said it was good to finally see me swim, I wouldn't say I felt the same. I went back in February of '99 to conquer the river. You can guess that things did not go as planned.

It was cold, probably 30s, but the river is always 45 degrees as water is dumped into the stream from the bottom of Nantahala Lake on top of the mountain. If I flipped at the Falls, it'd be no problem as it is at the takeout. Fortunately, I was not so arrogant as to not prepare for the unlikely possibility of overturning on the eight mile paddle down to the Falls. I had a change of clothes stashed in a dry bag, just in case. I would not have fared well being wet for an hour or more in 30 degree weather. I set out on the two hour trip with the river all to myself. I rolled through Patton's Run, Pyramid Rock, Delebar's Rock. This river was far too easy, was the water low? I was ready to get to the Falls and conquer, find a more challenging river. Of course, that is when life happened in the form of Quarry, a rapid with some of largest waves on the river. And I had always tended to aim at the biggest waves or toughest part of a rapid. The canoe went half airborne, I had done that before. Only now, the wave kicked the canoe tilted to the left. I knew I was in trouble as soon as the canoe shot up out of the wave. I was out of the canoe and in the water immediately. The tame river just moments ago didn't feel the same as I grappled for paddle and canoe. Getting to the shore was a struggle, the current was strong and volume was high, not low. When my feet found riverbed, they were met with the jolt of stationary rocks as my body was now part of the fast moving current. I finally got to the shore about ¼ mile downstream. I was cold. I grabbed the dry bag and stripped naked. I was colder. I got dry clothes on, packed up the wet ones, dumped water, and prepared to return to the river. Then life really happened and I paused. I had the strangest feeling and even stranger thoughts. It took me a moment to identify the sensation. Then I recognized it, it was fear.

Honestly, I don't think I had ever experienced real fear, at least not since childhood. I was a good paddler minutes before, I was now a sloppy paddler. I didn't act on instinct, I thought, I doubted. I made bad strokes. I was actually not a very good paddler for probably a year. I'm probably still not as good. (Or maybe just a different paddler?) I questioned if I could even make it down river to the Falls. I questioned if I should go over the Falls. The fear grew, I was afraid of what life held for me. I became more fearful about life than about the river. And then I knew life was about to send me a rapid that I was not going to run dry. I was going to “swim.” I prayed a lot on the rest of downstream ride and not about paddling. I believe in God, so personally this experience was God's preparation for me to not get trapped in a hydraulic of life and drown.

For the next hour, I continued to question whether to run Nantahala Falls or pull out above the Falls, give in to the fear and go home safe. Most canoe paddlers don't run the Falls anyway. People are often surprised to see a canoe try the Falls. But another thought began to echo in my head somewhere, “I didn't come here to not go over this Fall.” I did run the Falls, but badly. I'm not sure if I even made a single paddle stoke to orient the canoe correctly toward the Falls. I never had a chance, I was sideway and rolled in the hydraulic like a novice. I did save the canoe from getting wrapped around a rock, but got my hand trapped between the canoe and rock. A couple of new scars to add to my work beaten hands. Deciding to run the Nantahala Falls, knowing I was going to “swim,” was one of my best life decisions.

A week later I was in the river of life, no longer riding on it. I think I swam for years, not a ¼ mile. But the more significant life experience was being on the river, in the river, cold and naked on the shore, on the river a different person, and “swimming” again. Not the Class VI rapid of life that I eventually survived. I tipped over the precipice on February 28^th, the marriage downturn that led to Kathy's and my divorce. Not sure of all the life lessons that began that cold February day. I did eventually learn to deal with fear. I did learn how to “swim” when forced or warranted. I learned that I don't control life as much as I thought. I became more human. When describing this experience to a teenager in our church youth group shortly afterwards, he said, “Welcome to being human. Not to be mean, but its good to see you fall off your pedestal.” I said that I had never tried to be on a pedestal, but he said I was on one nonetheless. I was definitely not on a pedestal any longer. When nerves hit on the starting line of races or doubt creeps in during a race, I sometimes think, “I didn't come here to not go over this Fall. Sink, swim, or conquer.” I say this phrase to myself often with various life experiences. I did go back and run the Nantahala again, almost 7 years later in December 2006. This time Alison was shuttling me, last time it was Kathy. I promise to post that story in March, a little tease. That trip had more life lessons and two unique twist at the end.

My advice is: Of course, run the rapid. You never know what might happen. You probably won't die.

An Odd Running Talent, An Odd Basis for Faith

Alison and I are driving up to Mt. Washington Road Race. Mt. Washington is my type of running. After 200 yards the rest is all up, 7.5 miles at 11.5%. Alison and some close friends are probably the only people who really understand the oddity of my mountain running. I started running the first week of December 1988 in high school. I got serious fairly quickly and won the small school NC Cross Country State Meet the following November, running 16.37. That is still my 5K personal best. I struggled with plantar fascitis for the next 10 years. After my quick cross country success, I felt there was a good runner lying dormant inside throughout those years. I ran, but never more than 25-30 miles a week. I finally got the fascitis resolved and returned to training seriously for about the last 10 years. Through my early 30s I basically just proved I was not as talented as I believed I myself to be. Yet, I remained delusional, I could be good if I could just find what was limiting me. I did run 16.46 for 5K this past fall, so maybe I'll improve my PR someday, but I doubt I'll ever break 16. My half-marathon personal best is 1:18.10, marathon is 2:43.42. Times that say I'm okay, not nothing great.



Then I discovered running uphill. In my early 30s, I ran Pilot Mountain at home periodically just for fun. I knew my times up it were relatively good, but I was only running a bit faster than 8 minute pace. I didn't know that was good for ~10% grade. Then I met Alison and we started running together. She wanted to know why I was running the hills so hard. My response: I am taking a break on the hills, running easy. I did a local NC hillclimb at 4% and did rather well. I was racing with guys I was never close to in regular road races. Looking on the internet, Mt. Washington looked seriously steep, plus it was the Mountain National Championship. The logical step, right. So June 17, 2006 I woke up a decent local road runner. Then I ran Mt. Washington and I was a mountain runner. At Mt. Washington, and other uphill races, I can race with much more broadly talented runners than me, i.e. generally faster. For example, that first Mt. Washington I was racing with a former US Mountain team member who had 14.20s 5K on his resume. I had discovered my running talent, an odd talent, but I'll acknowledge a natural running talent. I hadn't really done anything to develop my uphill running talent. It was just laying there undiscovered. Looking back, it was there from the start as I had always hammered people on the hills. Good for cross country.



Why I run up mountains so well is hard to put a finger on. My best guess is that I have some biomechanical difference that can't be obviously seen. When I discovered this talent, I couldn't help but think what if? What if I had the same natural ability of some that guys I race and my uphill ability? I'd be seriously good. Maybe. I would now say that is foolish talk and worthless. I'll take the talent that I have, develop it, and make the most of it. What ifs are dead end roads. Since there are a limited number of uphill races and many off road. I discovered that was good as well. The rougher, more technical the terrain is, the better I do. Longer races, ultra races are better for me. Repeated climbs in races are good. The bounds of my running talent seems to have expanded, maybe. My running talent: Not slowing down. I just seem to not slow at the same rate whenever there is something that causes running pace to be lost. An odd talent. It is still most dramatic climbing mountains.



So how does this relate to my faith in God? My faith in God has been a struggle since high school. I tend to believe what I see. I like being able understand things, prove the basis of things. God does not lend himself too well to that. God is a something you can't quite put your finger on. There is no proving God exists, just seeing the evidence of God. (There is also no proving God does not exist, or any other possible origins of life.) Running has always been a somewhat personal connection to God for me. But my uphill running talent made God make more sense to me. I believed there was a running talent inside me even in the years it would have been impossible to prove. Even after discovering my talent, it is hard to define or explain. I am still nothing especially fast for anything flat and easy. (Side note: Sometimes I wish my talent wasn't doing hard stuff. It means I get to hurt/suffer a lot. But "ifs" are still dead end roads.) If I could believe in my running ability, I can believe in God. My running experiences has made a passage from Hebrews 12, thus faith in God, make more sense for me. "Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." Faith or belief is often required to take the steps to see the evidence of something.

So Mt. Washington stands before me again tomorrow. To be honest, I'm a bit unsure of how it'll go. I like to predict my time at races. A little hard this time, since the last two months training has been all over the place. I finally settled on 1:05.30. Two months ago, I would have said a good bit faster. Two days ago, I would have hoped at least sub 1:10. Whatever it is, I'll run hard. In fact, I pray often that I glorify God with my running. Not sure what that exactly means, actually. I don't pray that just for races. I say that prayer on workout days that no one sees, long runs, slow easy runs in the woods. I hope my running is a thing of beauty. To be honest, when I picture myself running, it is to me. I had a thought yesterday that I want to place well for myself. I think that's okay, but I still come back to back to glorifying God regardless of place. I'll just plan on making the most of the opportunity to turn uphill once more.

WARNING: You may not want to read this, Crystal.

For those of you like my friend, Crystal, this may be one of those blogs you will want to skip.  She has said that she can only handle me in small doses.  Thankfully, Alison can handle a large, continuous dose.  Though I may leave some of you wondering how.  This blog actually came about from my recent thinking on how good life is for me right now and thinking more about the Bel Monte race.  I guess I could have written a nice, overly romanticized blog about a seemingly perfect life.  Problem is that is not real, for me anyways.  I doubt I would see life as so wonderful without the un-wonderful portions.  My life has had the surviving sections, just the same way Bel Monte had a tough surviving section.  That is one of the great things about ultras, many times the races will have ups and downs, literally, and emotionally, and physically.  One of the biggest impacts on my life was going through divorce.

Going through divorce changed me and changed me more than any other life event I can think of.  I use the phrase "going through divorce" because just the fact I was once married and got divorced isn't the key factor.  It was all that I had to deal with personally, how I view life, and how I had dealt with life previously.  It would be a book to write all of it so I'll just hit the high points.  One, I wasn't ready to be divorced.  I was a Christian, in some ways strict.  I'd only be married once, only know one woman, love forever.  I still love Kathy, my ex-wife.  Personally, I don't understand how you once really love someone and stop.  I do believe in God's love, the agape love, and in living it.  Most people only seem to apply this to children.  Kathy and I are still friends and talk regularly.  Some people don't understand this.  I don't understand any other way and haven't lost a rational discussion on the subject.  The love has changed.  It's not romantic or sexual.  I love my sisters, I don't need to say more.  But part of my dogma is once I care about someone, I don't stop regardless of the situation.  Some folks have said they couldn't deal with my views toward Kathy.  I guess that is one reason in a list of why I'm not married to them.  I couldn't deal with someone who doesn't get my point of view, cause all they could offer me was a temporary love or concern.  The point is that changing that type of love with Kathy was tough and rocked me to the core.  What did it say about me that I would say I want out?

I also kept myself neatly packed inside in my younger years, before 26.  My internal life was like a post office mail box.  Everything was tidily categorized and ordered.  Some boxes were locked shut.  Things went in and disappeared from my mind.  My divorce dumped everything back out on the floor for me to sort through again.  I spent years sorting back through my past life, some parts I'd seemed to have forgotten.  I'm not sure what I've done with all that crap now.  I've written quite a few poems and some journals.  To be honest, I drank some on nights I felt too overwhelmed.  But one description of me now is that I am not afraid to be naked.  If something about me is good, bad, indifferent, it is what it is.  I'm not ashamed of any of it.  I struggled with being a "perfect" Christian before.  I'll just say that I don't now.  I know that bothers some people, especially when I say exactly what that means.  If I did it, I'll tell you.  I might say it was or is bad, but I did it and in some instances will probably do it again.  To use Christian terms, I sin, I know that I will repeat some sins.  I'll try to sin less, but I sin as a willful act, a choice.  I don't believe in the "it's not my fault, I couldn't resist."  I'd rather own my actions.  I might not be a perfect person, don't even want to be, but I'll be honest with you.

Somewhere in that rambling is how divorce upset my previously perfect, and falsely, balanced life.  Divorce was a hard process for me that brought out some good things in me, some bad.  It definitely changed me for better, and worse.  I do like that I am more like I was as a kid.  I wish I could recover the naivety I had as kid(that will be a good blog sometime), but I won't.  One of my best lessons was that life, time, the movement of the sun and moon stops for no one.  We each have a limited amount of time and I plan on living mine up.  I don't want a gravestone when I die(don't believe in that, for me), but if I did I would want it to say, "He did too much," or "He did too much living."  The second sounds a little arrogant, but I can live with that.  I also have much greater appreciation of life after divorce.  I am much more thankful for anything, even some of the "bad" and "difficult."

Below is a poem that I wrote this weekend.  It's a first draft, which I seldom like.  I like some of what this poem says, but not exactly how it says it.  It was brewing in my head for years and finally fell out.  Anyway, I thought I'd toss it out there.  So the point of all my rambling is that some parts of life must just be survived.  During my process of divorce, I made some different choices from before.  I didn't try to be perfect.  I shouted at God, cussed God, questioned my belief in God, but I talked to him and I talked honest.  I was merely surviving for a year or more, and not doing that well.  Just as I had to survive a large section of Bel Monte 50 Mile.  You force yourself to put one foot in front of the other, whether it is fast or slow, running or walking.  When you can, you make yourself run and good things can happen.  If you walk when you could be running, you'll miss an opportunity.  Other people can judge whether I'm good or bad, better or worse.  You can judge.  I'm not sure how much sense this blog makes, but who cares.  It's me.  I'm definitely different and not afraid to be judged or disliked or liked.  But I plan on using my time up and I'm not afraid to be naked.

Drunk and Naked on the Floor

Looking back,

it was just a night 

alone in the sea. 

At the time, 

it was night after night, 

drunk and naked, 

alone on the floor. 

Where was my God? 

Though I've asked, 

he hasn't spoken. 

Too many nights, 

I couldn't sleep 

and the Comforter 

never came, 

maybe my hard words 

kept him away. 

No one wants to see 

a bare soul on the floor, 

naked and drunk. 

Someone came and walked away, 

a man stripped a little too much. 

They'd worry in silence. 

I'd suffer alone. 

Sometimes you have to 

swim on your own 

or drink 

yourself naked and drunk 

on the cold soil.

It seemed like years, 

it seemed like a night or two, 

maybe there's little difference. 

A bad mind lost time, 

a day, a year, 

I remember little of either. 

So looking back, 

maybe just one night,

maybe four years, 

a minor detail 

of a corrupted mind. 

Not sure who rescued me, 

or if I swam the ocean alone 

and found the shore. 

God hadn't walked away 

having seen me stripped bare 

ranting in my nakedness.

Shrivel feet on course soil, 

clothed once more 

suddenly appropriate again, 

but not underneath. 

Though, the Comforter 

could cover 

a multitude of nakedness. 

She'd say I still wasn't right, 

though she found me 

far from removed 

from the shore 

only sometimes 

naked and bare.

Just a single night 

alone in the sea 

left me different and bare. 

Maybe God needed 

a man, 

naked and bare.

CENSORSHIP

My close friends are going to say, "Well that sounds about like Jason."  This is your warning on reading further, some of you may wonder what's wrong with him or not.  On a lighter note, I'll make the next blog about running.

I think one of the things that has kept me from doing a blog is censoring myself.  I really don't like doing it.   I could simply write about my running and all the niceties of life.  It would be a normal blog, maybe a normal running blog.  I like reading my friend's blogs, but their personality is not my personality.  I'm not normal, some of them aren't either.  Writing has always been my outlet, so blogging falls in that category.  Personally, I think that I am a rather odd person, which is probably one reason I like runners.  Many runners are a bit different.  I realize many or most people think that they are odd.  Though over the years, I have had many friends confirm my above average sense of weirdness.  An added problem is that I'm quite comfortable with my uniqueness.  Why be ashamed of who you are?  I don't require or expect people like me.  I hope people do, but I don't spend much time worrying about it.

Many people that a person knows or are acquaintances with only know a small part of you.  Blogging can put yourself out there for all to see, at least with me it will.  Even family only knows certain side of you.  Which a friend of mine told me today that I may not want to tell my family about my blog.  My family is rather religious, Christian, Southern Baptist.  My father is a pastor and has been for the majority of my life.  An example of my dilemma is "curse" words.  I rarely use them, in fact I never used them until I was 26(a blog for another time).  I do sometimes now, but I am generally careful around whom I use them.  Although the majority of my cursing has taken place while talking to God in the years between 1999 and 2002(also maybe a blog for another time).  I also don't really believe in "curse" words.  I believe in bad or inappropriate language.  But is an individual word "bad" just because most of society deems it "bad."  Back to my example, I have never heard my parents use "curse" words.  Many friends and most of my family have never heard me use "curse" words.  My parents would be surprised and disappointed about some things they would read on my blog.

I like being real, though.  Probably too real for most people.  Probably too real for my wife, Alison.  I believe she is concerned about what I will write.(She is going to censor my blog for now.  For your own protection she says.)  Though, realness is one of the things I love about the Bible.  It is no holds barred, real.  Church tends to hide from this, one of my issues with church.  I like reading about people in the Bible and seeing its truth.  Abraham followed God on a journey.  He made many poor decisions, laughed in the face of God, but eventually learned to have real faith.  I once gave a message to some youth titled, Noah got Drunk, Peter fished Naked, and I mooned my Sister-in-Law, You're Probably Okay.  I believe Christians too often spend their time pretending to be perfect or very close to it.  I will claim to be wholly imperfect, but believe God is okay with that.  He may instruct me on being better, but I'm not going to make it to perfect.  That is my journey.  I believe we have the opportunity to be Living Bible Stories.  I like getting to know people, the real person, warts and all.  Those are the people I learn the most from and experience God in.  I doubt anyone can really shock me.  I know that I am full of s___, but I'm willing to share it.  Maybe later I'll stop censoring myself so much.

Stacey, you said you try to write as if you are talking to me, or Coach, or Crystal.  I tried to write as if we were talking at a meet or on the bus.  What do you think?