A Comeback

Tuesday night, yesterday, I ran a 6k tempo on the track, and it took me 22:12, which is 5:57 pace per mile. It's pretty exciting to be doing a workout at sub 6 minute pace, but it's also a long way from the 20:12 6k tempos that I ran back in 2011 and 2012.

I don't know what is next for me. In many respects I've accomplished what I set out to, I was on Team USA, and I climbed Mt. Everest. The motivation changes as I age. Yes, part of me knows that what I have done is not enough, not as much as is possible for me, and racing faster and climbing more challenging routes still call, and are very possible for me, but then again the couch also calls after work some days when I just don't feel like exercising.

Perhaps this is my seven year sabbatical from difficult physical sports? In 2010, being unemployed, I played a fair amount of video games, ran in the middle of the day, and read quite a lot. While I didn't like it at the time, applying for every available job I could find, in hind sight it was nice to have that break, at least for the first two months.

In the moment, it's hard to really know the extent that something has an effect on you. It's also terribly hard to identify having peaked. Meb Keflezighi ran his fastest race and won the Boston Marathon at age 38 in 2014. When I saw him at the 2007 Olympic Marathon Trials in New York struggle to the finish in 8th, I thought at age 32 his career might be over. A win in New York and Boston, and fourth place at the London Olympics later... I was obviously wrong.

All Time Low

A song came out a few months ago called “All Time Low” by Jon Bellion and while I am certainly not going through my all time low, I am going through a bit of a low. Again, nowhere near the kind of lows I've had in the past. It's like the movie "Inside Out" where sadness can be a key part of our core memories that shape who we are. In other words, it's important to have low times as well as high times, you can't be emotionless.

My family had a fight while we were in Arizona. Turns out five days together with only one rental car is too much of us in a small space. We can’t even agree on when to eat breakfast. I like to imagine that I have an amazing family, you can call us perfect if you want, we certainly aren’t, but I can see how we might try to sell that image to the world, and put on a semi-successful acting performance. The point is, if even we have fights with each other, everyone must have fights with each other! As I mentioned this to several people over the past week many empathized with me because family gatherings and the holidays can be a stress as much as it can be a celebration in many families. 

To add to it, while I did climb a 14er in Colorado solo on January 2nd, which is a big deal, and I mean I didn’t see anyone else for 9.8 miles, I feel very much in an athletic slump. I’ve got to be one of the only people in the world who climbed Everest and is disappointed I used supplemental oxygen, it feels like a failure. Isn’t that bizarre? Of course it was a success! How could I feel it was anything but a success? Running just has not gone my way the last two years. There have been a couple good races, but nothing that really stands out the way previous races did. It’s been over five years since I PR’d in the marathon. I’ve gained weight. Am I done? Will I ever set another PR again?

Financially I had the best year I have ever had. My 401(k) made a lot of money in 2016, I passed new earnings and net worth miles stones, becoming more financially secure than I ever have been. But money feel very empty. It’s just a number, and it is so easy to simply want more. I reach a financial mile stone and I feel the same as I did before reaching it. Sometime in the 2030s I will probably become a millionaire, and nothing will change, partly because of inflation, being a millionaire in the 2030s won’t mean much. I write this because it feels like the feelings about my finances should change as they improve, but they don’t.

Blogging regularly for eight years has been a nice way to express things, to sort them out in my head and then share them with the world, but as I become more established, I wonder, what is the point? People don’t want to read about my privileged life. And they especially don’t want to hear that I feel like a failure far more often than I feel any signs of success. Maybe it's time to call blogging quits?

This is a key part of my personal motivation, the feeling of inadequacy, of never being good enough. Of course, as a Christian sinner, I will never be good enough to deserve Heaven, or even the wealth, in all of it’s many forms, that I enjoy here on Earth. So I feel even worse, which encourages me to be the best I can, but perfection is an unobtainable goal. I don't know. Do you want to hear these things?

Taking the Time to Listen

I know I haven't blogged much lately. Partly, I blame the Google Blogger iPhone app for not working so well. Partly, I haven't felt like I have been having the development in my life that I have had in the past. Of course, feelings are not fact, and in fact I have been developing, but not the standard ways I expect based on past experience, like my running or mountain climbing. While I can't say I am much good at it, I think I have spent more time listening the last couple months than usual. I have a tendency to do my own thing, and actively try not to pay attention to the noise.

In other words, I have spent so much time in my life hearing from haters and doubters who say you can't swim across the Mississippi River, you can't climb Mt. Everest because you will die, you can't move to Kansas because it's the middle of nowhere, or you can't run six marathons in one day... and I've done all of those things!

However, people hate and doubt for a reason, or multiple reasons. Many people, probably most Americans, physically cannot climb Mt. Everest. They could if they wanted to, but in their present condition they can't. So from the perspective of their life it is not possible to climb the mountain without dying. As I get older I guess I am becoming more aware of the realities that other people live in, and the filters we all use to communicate. I have a thought, I express it with some sort of filter, you hear it with some sort of filter, and then you have the resulting thought in your head.

Recently my dad was talking with some people about about trusting God enough to do risky things, and one of them told him something like, "we expect your family to do risky things". Point being, it's been a long long road to get to where I am, and where my family is, and it would be good for me to relate to others (people who haven't climbed Mt. Everest) better, which is only going to happen by listening. I suppose it sounds a little ridiculous, and I have no intentions to change anyone, in fact that scares me a little, but I realize that my reality is not most people's reality.

Life is full of challenges and road blocks, but they are definitely not applied equally to all people. By understanding what those road blocks are, by listening to each other, hopefully we can dismantle them.

The Never Ending Lesson of Patience

I haven't blogged much recently, and that's because there isn't a whole lot to say. There are of course things to say, I had a trip to Canada, I never said much about my trip to Brazil, I'm taking pilot lessons on an airplane, I've run every day for like five weeks, and met my Garmin automatic adjusting step goal for 51 consecutive days, but it's really not about me. Writing about myself seems empty often. Plus, after climbing Mt. Everest, climbing Mt. Huron just doesn't have the luster, despite the fact it threw some curve balls at me that Everest didn't.

Point being, patience is a lesson that takes longer to learn as we get older. When I was younger patience was not running too fast the first half of a two mile race. Now that I'm older, patience is showing up at a 24 hour run in really good shape from four months of solid training. And running is an easy example. When I look at my career or mountaineering the picture is even harder to understand. The next really big mountaineering objective I have in mind might happen in the summer of 2018, and I don't yet have the skills to pull it off as easily as I want.

Especially in today's world, with it's constant barrage of media of all forms it is easy to agonize over the events of today or this week, and forget the long term. It's a challenge for me to stay focused, or worded better, remain aware of something that will happen so far in the future, provided it happens at all. Patience is a never ending lesson.

Metaphor of the Jack Russel Terrier

I'm writing this Saturday afternoon December 5th, 2015 after the most bizarre experience. I was doing my long run on heritage trail and as I passed through Durango, Iowa I almost stepped on a little Jack Russel Terrier guarding the bridge, at least I think that's what it was. I dodged it at the last second and it proceeded to run with me. Not barking at all, no collar, just running beside me. That's not unusual. I've had a golden retriever run seven miles with us once in college and two other dogs go about a mile and a half with me. However this little thing just kept going. At the ten mile turn around I proceeded to do a workout of some 6:05 per mile pace running and gapped the dog, but on the rests it would catch back up. In total it ran 11 miles with me around a 6:40 pace! Unbelievable.

As I was thinking about it I can't help but draw parallels to life. I was not expecting or even looking for company on my 20 mile run today, yet I certainly welcomed it. As I think about how some of my closest relationships have started over the years, it was certainly with little warning, no expectations, and with satisfaction to be companions on the journey of life.

Getting to November 2016, as I finish writing this, it's been an eventful year for me. What does it all mean? For a long time I have viewed life through the lens of accomplishments, getting a degree, climbing a mountain, running a race, etc. The thing is, after you do all of those "things" you are still sitting there on the other side of accomplishment, just another human. That's really the point, life is about relationships, our relationships to other people, to God, to the planet. Not all relationships are equal, but they do all have value, even if it is only for 11 miles on a rail trail one day.

The End of the Truth

The Pope did not endorse Donald Trump for US President. On the contrary, after a trip to Mexico he questioned the Christianity of a person who would prefer to build walls rather than bridges. 

http://www.npr.org/sections/alltechconsidered/2016/11/17/495827410/from-hate-speech-to-fake-news-the-content-crisis-facing-mark-zuckerberg

A part of me wants to check out. After Everest I looked at my pictures and videos and GPS tracking points, evidence I was there, and realized a skilled high school kid could fake it all. It's depressing. I know quite a few people who doubt that humans contribute anything to climate change, yet they understand you can die from carbon monoxide poisoning in your garage. They are pretty similar concepts, but a report in the journal Science as a link has essentially the same weight as a bogus article by a group of programmers in Yugoslavia. In the past getting published was a privilege, something that gave credibility to the ideas. And to be fair most books, scientific magazines and  newspapers still have very high editorial and fact checking standards. But on the internet that doesn't matter. After all, I could write pretty much anything and someone might take it as fact. 

Working in engineering we spend a lot of time getting to facts, and not making decisions based on opinions. Readers don't take the same credibility standards to journalism that they do vehicle warranties. We live in echo chambers that reiterate what we "like" while keeping us from those ideas we disagree with. 

I want to write a book about Everest, but I wonder, what is the point? The idea is to say, 'this is how I did it, this is how I would recommend you doing it.' But I am struggling to see the value because while I hope everything I write is the truth, I know it is only my perspective. Based on the perspectives of people I know, which seem detached from reality I have to wonder, 'how detached from reality am I?'

As long as I keep asking myself these questions, I'm fairly sure I'm living in reality. It's when you are sure you understand everything and don't question your view that you probably are not living in reality. Still... I feel like none of it matters. I dread retirement. What happens when you quit? When you toss in the towel, how do you define your life's work?

It's nearly impossible to have a conversation with people who don't acknowledge the facts. Yet we are all obstinate in our own way, so it's a two way street.

Should I write a book? Would anyone buy it?

r > g

Two years ago I was getting so much out of reading the 577 dense pages of Capital in the Twenty-First Century that part way though I started publsihing review summaries of each chapter. If you are into economics it’s an essential read. As I reel from the election and try to make sense of the world around me I had a breakthrough. An ardent Republican and Trump supporter, explained his idea for a grocery store that instead of prioritizing profits tried to do well by customers by charging low prices, and by it’s employees by paying a high wage, making just enough money in profits, “Say $1000 a year” he said, to stay in business. And in that moment I realized the issue from a perspective I had forgot. When r > g after g > r for any length of time, it feels very unfair. 

The rate of return on capital, r, is basically how much money you can make on investments. The growth rate of the economy, g, is how fast the economy grows, roughly equivalent to income. When economic growth is high, the benefits go to workers. When economic growth is slow, the financial benefits go to people that already have money, from loans, rents, profits, etc. When the ratio of capital to income gets over about 5, it starts to feel unfair. Of course, this statistic isn’t published anywhere because defining capital and income are very difficult and vary by country. 

For most of history, r was greater than g. Then 1914-1945, a huge portion of the wealth of the world was destroyed. Then from 1945 to about the 1990s the world population exploded. The world order was reversed. There was growth, there was opportunity, and no one really had much money to sit back and live on their savings the way there was a wealthy class in the 1800s and before.

This is the whole point of the rural populist movement in 2016. People realize that r > g, in different words of course, and it’s upsetting. Anyone providing any solution is going to be very popular. Bernie Sanders and Trump spoke to the same disenfranchised people who are not used to being disenfranchised in their lifetimes. America wasn’t ready for a socialist in 2016 to fix the issue, but they could rally behind a person that simply offered to make the country great again.

I realize this is total babble to most people, but it’s crystal clear to me and I agree. I didn’t think about r > g this whole election year and a half, at all. It’s like I read Capital in the Twenty-First Century and forgot it. But as my friend reminded me, unintentionally on his part, when inequality gets too high people get really mad [at the establishment]. 

I’ve had too much coffee as I write this, but wow! I am excited! Frankly I didn’t realize we were as close to my own “radical” economic views being mainstream. People aren’t articulating our economic woes the same way I do, and certainly not seeing the same solutions as I do (like a global annual tax of 1% on wealth above $10 million per person, or a universal minimum income of like $700 per adult per month), but their economic frustrations are in the same place. I’m starting to sleep better. 

Final thought, was Jesus an economic capitalist or communist (or something else)? Why or why not? Include Luke 6:34-35, Luke 19:11-27 and Leviticus 25 in your answer. It's a question just for you to think about, I'm not planning to debate it.