The Rush of it All

Post-race running stories fill me up. In the army we call them there-I-was..., but they're only stories if you tell them... Tell your story!... Post-race running stories fill me up. They come in a frantic, exuberant flurry after a race — at the finish line, on the way home, on social media in the weeks afterward. The best of them stay with us for years. They remind me of my own stories, or else th...

As I approach my 10th (and final) Hyner 50k, I'm thinking about margins and frontiers, and conscious decisions about deliberate transitions... Transitions I’m interested in margins and frontiers , in boundaries, borders, transition zones and phases; the interface between here and there, before and after, old and new; the indistinct liminal spaces around edges and borders, and the gradual subtle ch...

Thoughts on the Ukraine invasion (and Apollo-Soyuz) from an old Cold War soldier... When I heard about the Russian invasion of Ukraine this morning and started seeing photos of tanks and personnel carriers, it took me back more than three decades. When I arrived in West Germany in 1988, my first task as a tank platoon leader was to learn our role in the NATO General Defense Plan. Our cavalry squad...

A practical cycle of activity, and the how-to core of a philosophy I try to live by (pay attention, tell about it, keep moving forward)... The rhythm of my days, of my life , is much simpler now than it once was. When I retired from the Army, I traded a rewarding but highly disruptive career for something much more stable and predictable. I’m still navigating that transition, but as time passes I’...

I want to be like Scotia. I want to pause in the woods on a cold night and stand at the edge of the darkness, sensing forward with my whole body. I want to see-hear-smell-taste-feel every nuance of the night, its mystery and promise. (Can anything be more alive than a dog is in that moment?) I want to run with her when this pregnant and sensing pause becomes an exuberant charge forward. No fear or...