Finding a Diamond on a Muddy Road

Gudo was the emperor’s teacher of his time. Nevertheless, he used to travel alone as a wandering mendicant. Once when he was on his was to Edo, the cultural and political center of the shogunate, he approached a little village named Takenaka. It was evening and a heavy rain was falling. Gudo was thoroughly wet. His straw sandals were in pieces. At a farmhouse near the village he noticed four or five pairs of sandals in the window and decided to buy some dry ones.

The woman who offered him the sandals, seeing how wet he was, invited him in to remain for the night at her home. Gudo accepted, thanking her. He entered and recited a sutra before the family shrine. He then was introduced to the woman’s mother, and to her children. Observing that the entire family was depressed, Gudo asked what was wrong.

“My husband is a gambler and a drunkard,” the housewife told him. “When he happens to win he drinks and becomes abusive. When he loses he borrows money from others. Sometimes when he becomes thoroughly drunk he does not come home at all. What can I do?”

I will help him,” said Gudo. “Here is some money. Get me a gallon of fine wine and something good to eat. Then you may retire. I will meditate before the shrine.”

When the man of the house returned about midnight, quite drunk, he bellowed: “Hey, wife, I am home. Have you something for me to eat?”

“I have something for you,” said Gudo. “I happened to get caught in the rain and your wife kindly asked me to remain here for the night. In return I have bought some wine and fish, so you might as well have them.”

The man was delighted. He drank the wine at once and laid himself down on the floor. Gudo sat in meditation beside him.

In the morning when the husband awoke he had forgotten about the previous night. “Who are you? Where do you come from?” he asked Gudo, who still was meditating.

“I am Gudo of Kyoto and I am going on to Edo,” replied the Zen master.

The man was utterly ashamed. He apologized profusely to the teacher of his emperor.

Gudo smiled. “Everything in this life is impermanent,” he explained. “Life is very brief. If you keep on gambling and drinking, you will have no time left to accomplish anything else, and you will cause your family to suffer too.”

The perception of the husband awoke as if from a dream. “You are right,” he declared. “How can I ever repay you for this wonderful teaching! Let me see you off and carry your things a little way.”

“If you wish,” assented Gudo.

The two started out. After they had gone three miles Gudo told him to return. “Just another five miles,” he begged Gudo. They continued on.

“You may return now,” suggested Gudo.

“After another ten miles,” the man replied.

“Return now,” said Gudo, when the ten miles had been passed.

“I am going to follow you all the rest of my life,” declared the man.

Modern Zen teachers in Japan spring from the lineage of a famous master who was the successor of Gudo. His name was Mu-nan, the man who never turned back.

I mean, wtf?  The whole problem in the first place was that the man was drunk and neglected his family.  So the teacher helps him see the light by convincing him to permanently leave?  LAME.

Sorry, random rant.

I have to withdraw from running the marathon.

Why?  Because I made a stupid, boneheaded mistake, even when my intuition was telling me not to, I did it anyway.  Let me explain…

In the last three weeks, I started a new job and moved at the same time.  Starting a new job was a great feeling, as I’ve been basically unemployed since graduating in December.  The moving process took all of my evenings and weekends for a solid two weeks, and including the effort of starting a new job, I basically didn’t run for about a week and a half.  I didn’t have the time or the energy to get out onto the road.  This is the first half of the mistake.  The second half of the mistake is deciding that I still wanted to make up for the 20 miler that I missed.  I still had another 20 miler to do, and I probably could’ve gotten by just fine with just one 20 miler, but I was stubborn, and stupid.  My first run in a week and a half was 20 miles.  My intuition was telling me that this was a bad idea, but my stubbornness overrode my instincts, and now here I am with a stress fracture in my right foot, a re-aggravation of an injury from two years ago.

Needless to say, I feel like a total idiot.  I’ve dealt with so many injuries in the past years, and you would think that I would learn from those mistakes, but apparently not.  I’ve had Achilles tendonitis,  shin splints, muscles tears, neuromas (pinched nerve in the foot, it hurts), sprained ankles, sprained knees, hip injuries, you name it.  I’ve been in-and-out of doctors’ offices, gotten custom insoles for my running shoes for my flat feet, and gone through physical therapy.  I’ve been extremely cautious about re-injuring myself.  All it takes is one mistake (one BIG mistake in my case), to knock me off the road for two months.

Although I’m kicking myself, I definitely won’t call the training I’ve done in the last few months a waste.  The marathon race, in my opinion, is merely a celebration of the journey to get there.  The months of training, the hours upon hours on the road to get yourself into a condition to run 26.2 miles continuously is the real marathon.  I’ve run more miles more consistently in the last few months than I ever have in my life, and crested 40 miles in a single week for the first time!  I also lost over 10 pounds! Although I will miss the race, I’ve already hit some big milestones for myself, and after recovering from this injury, will be ready to try again!  I’m already looking at marathons for this spring, with the Spokane marathon or Coeur D’Alene marathons looking like top contenders.  Both are in May, and both are 90 minutes from Pullman, an easy day trip.  I will also attempt another fall marathon, perhaps trying Two Bear again, or maybe trying somewhere else.  This injury is a setback, but it sure as hell isn’t going to stop me!

Last night I ran a 17 miler in the dark.  It’s been brutally hot here in the Palouse, and heat affects me a lot, especially on long runs.  In order to avoid it, I either have to start early in the morning or run late at night.  The sun currently rises at 5:17 AM, and it’s hot by seven.  I would have to start at 4 AM in order to finish 17 miles.  Obviously that’s not happening.  I instead started at 8pm last night, as the sun was just starting to dip behind the wheat covered hills.  I parked at the head of the bike trail linking Pullman and Moscow, grabbed some water, gels and a flashlight and got started.

The run ended up being a lot of fun!  It was me, the stars, and the flashlight leading my way.  Beyond one kind of creepy moment hearing a couple of coyotes howling in front of me and wondering if coyotes ambushed people from the bushes, the run was comfortable.  Ok, it wasn’t comfortable.  It hurt like hell at the end and my legs felt like mush.  I also ate a big burger from Jack in the Box, a bunch of ice cream and a lot of beer afterwards (healthy).  But I finished, right?

Tues 7/14:  3.91 miles in 38.02 at 9:43 / mi

Wed 7/15:  8.04 miles in 1:15:15 at 9:21 / mi

Thurs 7/16:  3.30 miles in 32:21 at 9:47 / mi

Sat 7/18:  8.14 miles in 1:19:02 at 9:42 / mi

Sun 7/19:  17.01 miles in 2:49:51 at 9:59 / mi

Total:  40.4 miles!

I hit 37 miles total for the first week.  The most that I’ve ever run in a week prior was 39, during the peak of my first marathon’s training schedule.  I picked a much tougher schedule this time around, and I’m definitely starting to feel the effects.  Sunday’s 15 miler was… less than comfortable.  The last two weeks of increased mileage have resulted in more fatigue than usual, and that fatigue hit me full force during the middle of the run, severely dropping my overall pace, and making the last few miles extra tiring.  I felt horrible after the run, and it took me a couple of days to recover.  The summary of mileage for the week:

Tues 6/30:  4.01 miles in 41:46 at 10:25 / mi.  Recovery after a long Sunday run.

Wed 7/1:  7.43 miles in 1:11:43 at 9:39 / mi.

Thurs 7/2:  4.03 miles in 41:05 at 10:11 / mi

Sat 7/4:  7.00 miles in 1:06:42 at 9:31 / mi

Sun 7/5:  15.08 miles in 2:40:29 at 10:38 / mi

Total for the week:  37.55 miles

The next week saw greatly reduced mileage.  I ended up taking it very easy, only running a few miles the whole week.  This was partially to recover from the week before, and to prepare for Saturday’s race!  I ran my first trail race since cross country in high school!  It was a hilly eight-mile jaunt through Brundage, a ski resort in McCall, ID on July 11th.

http://www.wildrockies.com/running/brundage_festival.php

It was small part of a much larger mountain biking competition, and there were only 22 runners.  The course was hilly and rugged.  I lept over tree roots, ran through creeks, and nearly twisted my ankle on some very inconveniently placed rocks.  I was pretty nervous about this race, because trail running is so much different than running on pavement.  I used this race as a gauge as a test for the trail marathon.  If this race ended up being really hard, I would have to make some big adjustments to my training schedule.

I lined up on the starting line with the 21 other runners, who all looked like they meant business.  Fit, outdoorsy, probably ran dozens of races like this.  I felt a sense of dread, and imagined myself crossing the finishing line in dead last, with the announcer saying, “And stumbling into LAST PLACE, the moron that actually thought he could run trails, and laughably decided to try to run a trail marathon is Ryan Johnson!  Let’s mock him everybody!”

The starting gun goes off, and we take off down the trail, through dense pine trees.  The trail was very narrow, so nobody could really pass each other for the first mile.  With the Tour de France on my mind, our tightly grouped line of runners felt like a peloton.  The course was beautiful.  Anybody who has grown up in Idaho around the mountains knows the feeling that I felt as I ran through forest and flowering meadows.  The air was thin from the mile-high altitude, and I could feel it through a slight burning in my chest, along with more labored breathing.  The first hill, also the largest and steepest, revealed itself as we turned a sharp corner.  At this point, living in Pullman paid off.  No run that I do in Pullman is ever flat.  In fact, I live near the top of a hill, so regardless of what direction I return from, I end my run by running up a hill.  I suddenly found myself dropping a large chunk of the group, and at the top of the long hill, found myself in 8th place out of 22.  Needless to say, I was surprised.  I was even more surprised when only one person passed me for the remainder of the race, putting me in 9th out of 22 people!

I felt pretty happy about the race, for the most part.  I finished, but felt pretty sore afterwards due to the rough trail.  I’m worried about the possibility of rolling an ankle, espeically as my leg muscles weaken towards the end of the race.  I suppose that’s part of the risk of doing this, but I can’t say that I’m entirely confident.  The only thing that I can do is finish the training and make the attempt!  Here’s the summary of the week:

Tues 7/7:  1.53 miles in 14:11 at 9:17 / mi

Thurs 7/9:  3.08 miles in 28:42 at 9:19 / mi

Sat 7/11:  Trail race!  8 miles in 1:20:10 at 10:00 / mi

Total: 12.61 miles

A hang glider takes off from a ridge just south of Palmdale, CA.

An ex roommate of mine was avidly into hang gliding, and a couple of weeks ago I stumbled upon some photos I took from a day invited me to come out and spend a day in the fascinating world of unpowered flight. Though I work extensively with air and space craft on a daily basis as an engineer, it is always a pleasure and a privilege being invited by a pilot to tag along and see the front lines of aviation, where it all happens. It turned out to be a fantastic experience, and I came away with a new appreciation for the science, craft, and art of riding the wind.

Hang gliding sites see traffic rise and fall with the seasons and changing wind patterns; this being a late-winter/early-spring day, the launch site just a couple of miles from my house (at the time) on Avenue S in Palmdale, California is in prime condition. “The Santa Ana’s are blowing today,” my roommate tells me, referring to the east, northeast, and northern winds that pick up in colder weather. “This should be good.”

A group of about 8 pilots and 5 observers and ground crew get down to work setting up for the day. As they unpack, assemble, and flight-check their gliders, I get some shots of them working, and scour the mountaintop for good vantage points from which to capture the moment of takeoff. The late February wind at around 4,000 feet altitude is a bit chilly, and I am glad for my jacket. The birds don’t seem to mind however; looking up, I can see hawks and ravens alternately swooping and hovering, riding on the ridge lift. It strikes me how artful they are, how simple and elegant their construction — efficient, aerodynamic, and optimized in their environment to a degree our best aircraft cannot hope to match.

Hang glider Darin Flynn prepares to take off.

I snap a few shots of the hawks, and wander back to the setup camp, where the older veterans are imparting some last words of wisdom unto their younger colleagues. After one last equipment check, the time has come. The pilots don their helmets, and it is the moment of truth. The moment that requires them to trust in their equipment and team, to set aside everything their primal, survival-seeking inner selves are screaming… to take a running leap off the side of a 4,000 ft ridge into the arms of winds that don’t give a damn who they are or how much they paid for their gear.

It’s breathtaking.

It’s wild.

It’s more than a little bit insane.

And most of all, it’s beautiful.

Just after takeoff.

In trying to capture the dynamism of the moment when the pilots first take into the air, I find myself nearly tumbling off of the ridge from running with my face glued to the eyepiece. There is excitement, certainly; but it is juxtaposed oddly with the profound silence of it all. After the final “all clear” to the ground crew and that last step on terra firma, only the wind can be heard, whipping over the jagged rocks and through the scant trees on the windward side of the ridge. It’s the kind of wind that muffles your words, quickens your breath, and makes your eyes water; a wind that dares you to come up and play, yet warns you that you had better be able to handle its own particular kind of game. In the end, I am left with a sense of wonder, breathlessness, and a strange loneliness, as if the vastness of the air somehow swallowed my friends up for a little while. It’s a long, quiet drive down the ridge to the landing zone to pick them up.

I don’t care if I nearly fell off the mountain backwards getting some of these shots; you can bet that the next time someone I know is going up, I’ll be there camera in hand… and perhaps with a part of me wishing I was up there too, riding the wind with the best of them, armed only with a wing and a prayer.