It's 9AM

And Just Who Are You

Advice is easy to come by.

Just ask anyone.

It’s funny when a fifty year old offers a suggestion to a twenty year old.

All sorts of judgments come into play.

And people, most people, are excellent at judgments.

Especially in the South.

It’s the way we were raised.

Sent to Church and told let God do the judging.

Then went to school and divided into cliques and talked down to the kids who didn’t have Izod or Levi’s or Nike’s.

At least until The Breakfast Club came out and we realized we could all get along.

Because there’s a rebel, a nerd, a prep, a jock and a weirdo inside all of us.

Five wolves fighting in your soul, according to old Cherokee legend.

Which one wins?

The one you feed the most.

(Hint: it’s the jock. They’re always hungry.)

John Hughes was older when he gave that cinematic advice to a bunch of teams.

He even signed the film with a signature shot and song.

Don’t you forget about me.

But we did forget.

And we kept on judging.

Because, let’s face it, it’s fun.

We are human.

Competition is in our DNA and making judgments is a way to measure how we’re doing against “that poor So and So.”

I have not detached myself from material possessions.

I can’t imagine my life without a laptop, a smartphone, a warm bed and food in my belly.

But I have suffered.

And been judged for suffering because I only talk about the times I paid for it.

Sure, there are brief mentions of the way I grew up.

If you were raised in the South, you can read between the lines.

I suffered on purpose because learning to persevere when it’s hard, makes it easier to build grit.

Once you learn to recognize grit in others, it gets easy to see the world from their perspective.

You realize that you have very little idea of what anyone is going through.

Or you see the signs and know where they are in that particular stage of life. (or race)

I saw a sign once that said,

“If you want to run, run a mile. If you want to experience a different life run a marathon. If you want to talk to God, run an ultra.”

A hundred mile run will teach you many things about yourself.

And yet, I can’t help snorting at the guy on the side of the intersection holding up a sign saying he’s hungry.

I get frustrated because there’s a Salvation Army serving three hot meals a day six blocks from where he’s standing, and another mission eight blocks away doing the same.

But I don’t know his life.

I don’t know what he’s going through, his mental state, the things he endured that broke him.

I don’t know what stole his grit.

I fail at judgment all the time.

I just wish I was a better learner from it.

Learning how to recognize it when it’s happening, how to clamp it down and shut it off.

That’s the hardest part about running long distance.

The walls come down after eighteen miles or so, all those weak intellectual defenses we put up to shut down the voices in our heads.

After that much sweat and that many steps, the voices get loud and the feelings rush up like a tsunami.

Then we start the worst thing of all.

Judging ourselves.

Nobody knows you like you do.

And nobody can press your buttons better than you can.

You can be your own worst enemy at times.

You know exactly what to say/think/do to knock you down and kick yourself around.

No one can steal your grit faster than yourself.

When that happens at 18 miles (and roughly four or six more times in longer runs), there’s only one way to stop it.

Keep going.

Keep your head up. It’s easier to breath when you don’t drop your head and block your windpipe.

Breathing brings oxygen to the brain, which fires neurons in parts of the gray matter that aren’t working so well because your body is trying to stay alive.

And focus.

Focus on the good things. One step in front of the other. The next aid station. The sun on your face.

Drink water. Or beer.

I was eighty three miles into the Key West 100 and done. My body was wiped, the 110 degree heat and 100% humidity knocked down the walls fast and my back was gone on the 7 mile bridge twenty miles back.

A Course Marshal saw me stumbling along in a zombie phase and pulled over.

“What do you need?” he asked. “I’ve got water, juice and two beers.”

He popped the tailgate on his Tacoma, propped me against it and cracked open a cold Mich Ultra.

“I think this will help.”

I leaned, and drank and listened to him talk about the race.

How close I was to the finish, how fast seventeen miles can go. Things to look for on the side of the road as I did.

Five minutes on a tailgate, drinking a cold one with a new friend, changed my perspective.

Changed my attitude and I finished the race.

It was four more hours of hell and torture, but it got done.

So never discount the power of a beer and a friendly ear.

Even if you’re not the one talking.

This started out to be practical advice for my twenty year old.

Save 10k as fast as you can and put it in an ETF indexed to the S&P 500. Don’t touch it until you retire.

Travel as much as you can across the US.

Treat the earth nice.

Don’t eat at chain restaurants if a local option is available.

Things like that.

Things a twenty year old might not want to hear from a fifty year old.

But like a lot of things I start, it turned into a lesson for me.

A reminder.

Don’t judge people.

Because there are souls out there who will stop and help, who will smile and wave and nod and acknowledge.

Maybe the best advice I can offer anyone.

Don’t judge yourself.

You’re not qualified to do it, because you’re too close to the subject.

Leave all the judgment until after you’re dead.

Then you’ll have a lot of experience to compare it to.

Because throughout your long life, you’re going to be…

A jock.

A prep.

A nerd.

A weirdo.

And a rebel.

It just depends on what you’re going through.

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