let's go.

I was a sports crazed kid.

Even without the Internet, SportsCenter, or cable TV, the last 4-5 minutes of local news broadcasts, weekend telecasts, and magazines kept 1970's/early 80's-me up-to-date (ish) on my heroes and their athletic feats in the NFL (my first love), college and professional basketball (my second and truest sport love), and major league baseball.  ABC's Wide World of Sports clued me in on some of the "lesser" sports and every other year one of the seasonal Olympics would bring a parade of competition that seemed to go otherwise unmentioned during the off years and in-betweens.

You'd have been hard pressed, perhaps incapable, of convincing me that these exploits weren't of life and death importance or that the outcome of any given contest simply didn't matter all that much in the grand scheme of things.  My not-the-least-bit-interested in sports parents didn't bother trying.  I would figure it out on my own in time and, for the most part, I've done just that.

Much of the pomp and fanfare of professional sports has diminished my enthusiasm over the years. That and just getting older, I'd guess. As much as I continue to enjoy watching people strive and compete and am enthused by any game played at a high level between people or teams of similar ability and degrees of competitiveness, the peripherals often keep me from tuning in or contribute to me soon tuning out.

Still, I do find myself fascinated by compelling tales of athletes, teams, and obstacles overcome. It's the humanity beneath the surface, the not-so-glossy below the gloss that pulls me in, and that I find to be the most beautiful and worthy of celebrating.

Ultimately, I love a good story and, having grown up on sports, a good athletic story remains as likely as any to grab and hold my attention.

Not surprisingly, ESPN's award-winning 30 for 30 series of sports documentaries were made to my order.  Originally launched as an anniversary celebration of films by 30 different directors profiling some of the top moments or stories in sports history that occurred during the television network's first 30 years, the series was eventually expanded after audiences responded enthusiastically and several episodes garnered commercial and artistic praise.

I watched enthralled as the series ran a wide gamut from explorations of the rise and eventual demise of the USFL, a much-larger-than-life profile of Bo Jackson, a behind-the-scenes look at the 2004 Red Sox and their improbable rally against the Yankees in that year's American League Championship Series on their way to a world championship the franchise seemed doomed to never claim, and an innovative recreation of the drowning out of the full slate of sports that occurred on the day that the pursuit of OJ Simpson and AC Cowlings on the LA freeway took over television sets everywhere.

There were other stories of events and athletes I hadn't known and sports that rarely or barely hit my radar. The 16th Man broached the social and political implications of Nelson Mandela supporting the national rugby team in post-apartheid South Africa and Into the Wind chronicled Terry Fox's attempt in 1980 to run the entire length of Canada to raise awareness and money for cancer research after having had one of his leg's amputated above the knee because of osteogenic sarcoma.

Watching Hawaiian: The Legend of Eddie Aikau, I learned of the humble native surfer who served as the first lifeguard in the famed Waimea Bay, was responsible for saving literally hundreds of lives on his watch, and sacrificed his own life trying to paddle back on his surfboard some 12 miles to the closest island of Lanai for help after the Hōkūleʻa, a traditional boat on which he was a crew member and that was attempting to retrace the ancient route believed to have first brought Tahitians to Hawaii, capsized in a storm and was drifting farther and farther off of its course and growing less likely to be rescued.

Eddie Aikau's body was never recovered.

Photo courtesy of the Office of Hawaiian Affairs

But perhaps I too am getting way off course.

The point I intended to get to is that real life matters a whole lot more than the current collegiate sports rankings, which athlete hoisted what trophy, and the batting average of the latest baseball wunderkind.

Another part of the point I also mean to make is that within organized sports and certainly from individuals engaged in athletic endeavors do dwell valid moments of inspiration and, ultimately, drawing strength and motivation wherever you find it shouldn't be dismissed as being banal or cliche.  Hype aside, applicable metaphor does exist.

Sometimes sports really can inform real life and real life most certainly informs sports or at least the persons engaged in them can offer glimpses into how determination and persistence pay off.

When the humanity of sport and life collide or overlap, I'm again the same wide-eyed fan I was at 6 years old.

Midway through the Bear 100 a few weeks ago, after a long night of cold and wet and lightning and hail, after falling repeatedly in the beyond slippery clay-on-a-potters-wheel terrain, the protective cover of a canvas tent, the relative comfort of a folding chair, and the warmth of a campfire made me question getting back on my feet for hours and hours and miles and miles of more punishment.

Pondering that question whisked me away to a more tropical locale.

In April of 2017, Piper, Lily, Lindsay, and I found ourselves boarding a plane for a week of vacation gifted to us by the amazing people at Make-a-Wish.  Lily had undergone brain surgery to combat a cancerous tumor the November prior and the trip had been something she and her family could focus on and look forward to instead of just worrying over how surgery would go and what recovery might entail.  When Lily had been asked to name her wish, she unhesitatingly said she wanted to swim with dolphins and Make-a-Wish set everything in motion.

We were informed that there were two potential places in the US where the wish could come true. We'd already been to Florida, so we chose location number two.

In addition to swimming with dolphins, in Hawaii we'd have the chance to visit Pearl Harbor, snorkel in Hanauma Bay, and take part in several other special activities.  On our first full day on the island, we were able to attend a luau.  It was only upon arrival that we were informed that there were a number of other children there because of Make-a-Wish and at a certain point in the evening all of the kids would be brought on stage and honored.

My Lily is very much a creature of habit and so long as she's given fair warning and has time to process, even if what she's up against is daunting, she's quite adept at steeling her will and seeing things through.  Blindside her or catch her unawares, she struggles. Like many of us.

She'd just turned 10 at the time and was still finding her way in terms of "owning" her cancer and accepting having attention thrust upon her for that reason.  She'd get there in time and has become an active ambassador for childhood cancer awareness, but she was very much in the infancy of that journey then.

Frankly, she didn't want to stand in front of the "room" and be recognized as a sick kid. Had we forewarned her, she would likely have been fine, but the news being broken to her just minutes beforehand and without an opportunity to refuse or consider had her on her heels.

We did what we could to calm her nerves and did our best to enjoy the festivities together as a family. The food was exotic and delicious and the dancing and storytelling were mesmerizing.  Still, I squirmed throughout the meal and performances knowing what was coming and realizing that I didn't even have an idea how the logistics were supposed to work.

Before I understood what was even happening, a large man in a mix of modern and traditional garb appeared at our table and gestured at Lily to come with him to the stage.  She looked uncertain and nervously glanced first her mother's direction and then mine.  As I began to get to my feet to intercede, Lily motioned at the man to lean down and as he did he turned his ear toward her.  She said something to him that caused him to pull back with a surprised but bemused look on his face.  As Lil rose to her feet, the man extended his arm and took her hand.  Together, they made their way toward the stage. Lily didn't even look back our way.

Though her nervousness was quite obvious to her parents, Lily stood bravely alongside the other children, smiled, and politely accepted the kind gifts extended to her by the chief who led the ceremony and bestowed health and safekeeping to all the children on stage.  Minutes later, Lil returned to our table with a shrug of shy relief but without a word.

Soon after, I was approached by the man who'd escorted Lily to the stage. He gave me the shaka sign, grinned broadly, and then shared with me what my daughter had said to him.

"Eddie would go", she'd told him.

You see, after Eddie Aikau made that legendary attempt to swim back to Hawaii for help, his astounding courage wove its way into popular culture on the islands. When the waves and conditions at a surf contest named in his honor were dangerous enough to make organizers question whether or not to hold the event, legendary-in-his-own-right surfer Mark Foo simply stated "Eddie would go" and the phrase became synonymous with mustering courage and doing what needed to be done.

Photo courtesy of Wikimedia

Weeks or perhaps even months before, I'd told Eddie's story to Lily and Piper without ever expecting it to stick.

It stuck.

And the legacy of that waterman's selfless effort in the face of adversity and truly against all realistic odds inspired strength in a little girl more than 40 years later.

"Eddie would go."

Lily went.

And, buttressed with the perspective that in relative terms that dark and stormy night in the Bear River Range of Utah wasn't really all that dark and stormy, her father did too.

thanksliving, part ii.

"I am thankful, immensely, for my wife and hopeful that she and I will both still be drawing breath together decades from now and hopeful too that every now and again her hand will reach out to me or squeeze back when I reach out to take her hand in mine.

I am thankful, boundlessly, for my daughters and hopeful that they will never let what they know (or think they know) or all that they've experienced get in the way of striving for what they don't know and have yet to experience.  I am hopeful that they are never unaware of the love and faith in their abilities that their parents have for them.

I am thankful for my immediate, extended, and adopted families for shaping me, accepting me, and reshaping me anew when necessary (often) into a “me” that I too am able to accept.  I am hopeful that together we grow, flourish and continue to celebrate the myriad of ways in which we are different and the same.

I am joyfully thankful for this planet for both possessing natural, untrammeled wonders and for hosting the triumphs of civilization.  I remain cautiously hopeful that distinction and balance can be made between the two and that the failures of civilization aren't mistaken for triumphs and allowed to render nature extinct, not in my lifetime nor the lifetime of any creature that comes after.

I am thankful for hope.  Real hope.  Not sloganeering, not wouldn't-that-be-nice daydreaming, not wishful thinking without effort made toward realization.  Real hope with real effort.

I am thankful for dreams and hopeful for dreams, realized or simply sought after.

Dream on."

------------------------------

Apparently, I wrote those words three years ago (thanksliving.), so this is more a recitation than a creative post.

They've never wrung truer than now.

We received confirmation today that Lily's surgery will take place on November 28, so you'd better believe that hope and gratitude are very much on my mind.

The anticipation of that procedure is going to put a whole new spin on Thanksgiving this year.  All of the nearly unthinkable unknowns drive home the need to be grateful for time shared with the people we care for most deeply.  The potential to drive out the demon that is cancer and free Lil from its possession is wonderful basis for hope.

It's all almost too much.

Almost.

It's a lot, but it's not too much.

Hope sustains and we thank you for the hope you have for Lily.

------------------------------

Pull your loved ones close and make sure they know they're loved.

No assumptions.

Assumptions of that sort are recipe for regret should time slip away.

Don't wait on Hallmark for your cues.  Hallmark doesn't care if you miss any given occasion because they've got a "so sorry" card at the ready for that situation too.

Don't wait.

Give thanks today.  Give thanks every single day. 

Love.

Hope.

Dream.

love thy neighbor.

"As the years go by and I watch my children already being better versions of me, as I continue to add names to the list of people I wish lived closer, led lives that managed to overlap now and again with my own or, worse yet, were simply still living, I get better and better at being mindful of all there is to appreciate. Focus drifts for periods of time, moods darken and the weight of day-to-day existence shrouds the holding up of all the good things now and again, but few days pass without my remembering my blessings."

I wrote those words more than five years ago, as Lil and then Pipe emerged from infancy and began to show the innate kindness and sensitivity inherited from their mother as well as unveiling their own unique traits. Each new day I see more to celebrate in their emotional and intellectual growth.

I wrote those words in reflection of lost loved ones and dispersed friends. Migration from this world and across the planet has continued.

Blessings still abound and my appreciation of them has only deepened.

I cannot effectively express, at least not fully, how loved and worried-over we've felt the last few days and how much it has meant. If circumstance is equitable enough to find us in the same place again, I hope to have the chance to pull many of you close in shared embrace, look you in the eye, and tell you directly of what your gestures have meant. Depth of emotion even then will probably make me bumble and fall short on the words, but I'll get the hug right.

Thank you.

Know that your kindness is noticed and cherished. Know that we anxiously await the opportunity to pay it back and pay it forward.

Know that the love we feel is love we hope that each of you feel from us in return and from others around you.

The news in all its forms points to our differences of politics, of religion, of heritage, of social or economic status, of interests, of lifestyle, of opinion and would have us "know" that all is lost. I look to my broad circle of friends, diverse in politics, religion, heritage, social and economic status, interests, lifestyle, and opinion and choose to see not "sides" but individuals trying their best to make sense of their short existence. I KNOW all is not lost.

Doubt, anger, and frustration are human inevitabilities but they need not steer entirely our perspectives.

"Love thy neighbor as thyself." It is a biblical imperative, but, you need not espouse Christianity or any other religion to understand that in the broadest sense, this is basically a natural inclination.

A child is faced with a life-altering (at least) medical diagnosis, a family sags beneath the burden, and instinctually you want to know how you can help. You don't run through some checklist to make certain that the girl and her family are on your side. You act. In those moments, we know there are no sides. Too often we feel otherwise.

From one neighbor to another, thank you. I love you and I thank you for loving me, loving Lily, loving all of us.

We've received an abundance of support of every kind, but, if we can, we ask one more favor. We ask that you remember the rest of your literal and figurative neighbors over the likely contentious weeks ahead.

Disagree.

Debate.

But please don't let differences of opinion stand in the way of the need to care for one another. Don't let fictitious divisions become absolutes.

It's hard, but it's not as hard as we make it if we put love and human decency first.

Do glad.

let it be true.

(Note: If you’ve come here looking for my usual reflection on running, you need not read past the end of the next two sentences. So long as running brings you joy, I urge you to keep at it. Life being precious and short, if running is a chore or little more than a way to measure yourself against others, I plead with you to seek out new avenues for spending the days you’re given.)

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Eight years ago, my firstborn daughter, Lily, slipped from my grasp and fell flat on her back in the grass at my feet. Instinct kicked in the moment she hit the ground and I swooped her up, rushed her inside, and then shuttled her off to the hospital before whatever emotions I might have felt had time to record as memory.

I cannot recall now how I felt then though the memories of the fear and trepidation of the hours and days that followed are vivid.

I cannot recall now how I felt then, but I will never forget how I felt last evening, eight years after, when Lily, having listened to a retelling of that story at her bedtime, assured me that I hadn’t dropped her, but had “saved her life.”

----------

Preliminary results of a CT Scan at the time of Lil’s fall suggested a brain bleed, but careful scrutiny in the days immediately after and follow-up testing weeks later confirmed that the smudge in the films wasn’t bruising, but my initial relief at not being to blame quickly gave way to the understanding that the abnormality was far more disconcerting than a temporary wound.

That abnormality, situated in Lil’s left temporal lobe, an area of the brain employed in the comprehension of language and vision, has been the subject of monitoring ever since.

That abnormality has never stopped being disconcerting.

Mostly, though, it just was. It didn’t grow. It didn’t diminish. It didn’t cause any ill effects. It just was and its menace consisted solely of being there.

In time, twice annual scans were relaxed to annual scans and, as the results of those sessions remained consistently unchanged, time between scans was eventually stretched to two years.  And, with assurance from the surgeons that more time could pass between scans, that abnormality quietly, almost imperceptibly relinquished its menace. We never fully forgot it was there, but it ceased to be the sole cloud carrying potential for rain in an otherwise blue sky.

Those sunny skies encouraged us to close our eyes and bask in the warmth and we did, but when we opened our eyes the forecast had changed.

This past winter, in the midst of her 3^rd grade school year, Lily began to complain about her eyesight and, just like that, we had a symptom for which we’d been cautioned to remain vigilant. Lindsay and I immediately realized that another two years had passed and Lil was again due for an MRI.

Lily had been seen at Johns Hopkins since she was two, but circumstance merited a move to Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) and she immediately felt more comfortable in this youth-centric facility.

By the time we visited for Lil’s initial MRI, she had already seen an optometrist and had been prescribed corrective lenses.  Her need for glasses wasn’t proof alone that there was great reason for concern, but we looked forward to verification that the old familiar abnormality still simply was.

It wasn’t.

There were signs indicating both structural changes and growth. A visit with an ophthalmologist corroborated the likelihood that the tumor was cause of the rapid deterioration of Lil's vision. Allowing for the fact that orientation from machine to machine can differ and it had been some time since the last scan, a follow-up MRI was slated for 30 days later. If it showed additional growth, we would need to consider what immediate action could and should be taken.  If it showed additional growth.

It didn’t.

We returned to watch-and-wait mode, heartened for the moment, but the wake-up call of that first sign of growth coupled with additional input from Lily suggesting that she was also having some cognitive issues, failing from time to time to be able to formulate the words that she had at the ready in her mind, kept us on edge. She told us she knew that it was growing, knew that something needed to be done. She asked, earnestly, if she would die. As parents, we’d been asked that question before and it’s a painful question to answer even when it’s brought on by the death of a pet, the passing of an elderly relative, or simply the developing youthful mind. It’s exponentially more difficult a question to answer when it stems from your child facing that very real possibility.

Lindsay and I were forced to discuss surgery and its implications, something we really hadn’t had to do since the first discovery of the tumor all those years prior.

This time there was a third voice in that discussion and, as it belonged to the person carrying the reason for the conversation, the voice was the most important of the three. Lily didn’t want to wait, she wanted to take action. She wanted to take IT out. She desperately wanted the surgery and didn’t understand why we didn’t just do it.

The surgeon we had first seen all the way back in 2008 recommended at that time that we move forward with surgery, remove as much of the tumor as possible, and biopsy it. Second and third opinions advised caution and ultimately convinced us to wait, primarily because of a lack of symptoms on Lily’s part and the imminent threat, based on the location and structure of the tumor, that healthy brain tissue could be compromised and survival was not guaranteed.

That threat remained imminent and was the very reason why we didn’t just schedule surgery.

September arrived and with it yet another appointment with CHOP’s Radiology department.

This time the results were unambiguous, the need to take action inarguable, and, in a cruel twist, at least for her parents, Lily would have her wish.

----------

Our oncologist and surgeon have made it clear that while we should take steps to address the situation with surgery, the immediate risk is not so great that we can’t schedule the procedure at a time over the next 6-9 months that would be least disruptive for Lily and for our family, including her doting, adoring little sister, Piper Bea.

My daughter loves to dance. She loves to swim. Both of these activities are her most direct connection to life as it is and how she wants it to continue to be.  She does not want this…this thing in her body or its ominous shadow hanging over her any longer than it must. She wants it out and the sooner the better. The sooner it is out, the sooner she can dance, the sooner she can swim.

Yes, there are risks and, yes, there is potential that the procedure will not be effective, will not fully alleviate the issue, or could even cause other issues.  There is that potential.  That potential is not nearly so great as the absolute guarantee that doing nothing will ensure issues that neither Lily or her parents care to sit idly by and watch manifest.

Better to think of dancing, to dream of swimming. Best to dance and swim now, in the meantime, and as soon as possible after.

Endless have been the conversations that Lindsay and I have had over the years about that foreign castaway inside of our daughter. We’ve cursed its constant, silent presence and the way in which it so often made us second guess every odd gesture or peculiar mannerism that Lily had at any given moment, little happenings that other parents would have paid little mind, likely no mind whatsoever. Knowing that it was there was a strange chronic punishment but for what we weren’t sure.

It was a constant guilt I was resigned to shouldering for the remainder of my lifetime.

A nine year old knew better.

Without knowledge of its being there, that foreign body would have grown unwatched and by the time it made its presence fully known, we would likely be looking not at a tricky surgical procedure but faced with an inoperable tumor with a grip on Lily’s central nervous system that could not be loosened, a grip that would have put her very existence in jeopardy.

Eight years ago, I dropped my daughter and couldn’t possibly have imagined that, in doing so, I might have saved her life.

Please, please let it be true.

----------

If everything falls into place, Lily will undergo laser interstitial thermal therapy in mid-to-late November. This neurosurgical technique will create a dime-sized hole in the top of her skull and allow a laser probe, steered by real-time computer guidance and informed by MRI-monitoring, to reach the tumor and then destroy the foreign cells by super-heating them. By employing this technique, we hope to minimize the damage to healthy tissue and lessen the potential for infection that comes with a traditional and more invasive craniotomy. It will not immediately remove the tumor or what portions of it would have been possible to cut away without too great a risk to healthy portions of the brain, but it is expected that the destroyed tissue will diminish with time and perhaps be eliminated entirely, something that subsequent MRI scans will need to confirm.

The greatest risks are the likelihood of visual deficits (think blindspots, not blindness) and potential for language deficits.  The fact that the tumor is surrounded by healthy tissue and in relatively close proximity to the brain stem brings graver concerns, but we have every confidence in CHOP and the precision of our surgical team.

----------

We know our friends and family will have numerous questions and, as much as we’d love to answer all of them, Lindsay and I ask for your patience and understanding as we need to focus our energies on supporting Lily, reassuring Piper, leaning on each other, and attending to all of the logistics necessary to balance life alongside the preparations ahead of surgery and whatever our situation proves to be afterwards.

You can help us best by simply loving Lily as we know many of you do and sending her positivity by whatever means you believe most effective. The means of transmission isn’t important. She’s a sensitive child, always has been, and she’ll feel it, I can assure you.

If you feel compelled to pass word directly to Lily or should happen to run into her in the days ahead, all I ask is that you respect the gravity of what she’s facing and the immensity of processing that at any age much less at nine. She has been privy to every conversation with the oncologist and the surgeon and has been given the opportunity to raise concerns directly. No punches have been pulled by anyone in speaking to those concerns. Tears and heartfelt apologies, genuine as they surely would be, are not helpful and Lily will not respond well to them.

Trust me.

My daughter does not aspire to be extraordinary, even if her mother and father already believe her to be. Lily loves being "just a regular kid" and cherishes the moments that make her feel like she is just that. In that, she mirrors her father. She is sufficiently frightened about what lies ahead, healthily so, and doesn’t need the well-wishing but too-evident worries of others to make her that much more scared. She remains just a kid and when this is in the rearview, she still will be. Treat her that way and I promise that you’ll have helped. Remember that our Piper Bea could use a little love and attention too and I promise that you'll have helped.

Thanks, in advance, to all of you from all of us. Thank you for caring about us and for sending us positive energy.

It means much to us, as do all of you.

my goodness.

With so many snippets of news and not-news whizzing by at breakneck speed and in all directions, I have no idea why we click on the links that we do.

Or don't.

Or whatever.

Sometimes the impetus is obvious, the mention of a person or feat of particular interest, a stunning image from an uber-exotic locale or a headline posing as fact simply too funny/stupid/unbelievable/sad to possibly be true.  It could be the potential of a rare performance of a favorite song by a beloved or forgotten band or the revisiting of a memorable movie scene that left you breathless on first watch and promises a repeat performance.

For me, it is often the voyeuristic lure of seeing better-runners-than-I racing through lush forests, over mountain passes or along desolate desert trails.

Other clips invite viewing for reasons less explicable, and while some turn out so disappointing as to beg an answer why they were clicked in the first place, there are others that prove more than just reward for the visit.

Like this one:

A friend shared this clip on Facebook this past Saturday and while I scrolled right past numerous other posts, there was something about this one that made me stop, press the play button and watch...raptly.

The ten minutes of wonder seem almost too perfect and may well have been scripted and directed.  I choose to think not and will make no effort to learn otherwise.  Even if someone was to spoil the fantasy by confirming that these two ladies were just actors in a modern ode to joy, my reaction shall remain the same.

What does it have do with running?  Not a damn thing and who cares?

I could contrive a connection, pointing out how the tale overlaps with the venturing into the unknown of trail running, the bonds formed by two strangers sharing a common challenging experience, and the tearful release of completing a race you weren't sure you were capable of finishing.

I could, but I won't.

Fiction or non, the story of An and Ria moved me by reminding me again how much we take life for granted, how blindly and brazenly we muscle past the subtle wonders of the world to get to the next bullet point on our hourly/daily/weekly agenda.

We're all so bored, depressed, stressed, angry, disappointed, empty, bored (did I already say that?), over it, anxious, longing, demanding...entitled to whatever it is we don't yet and may never have.

We've been there.  We know.  We've already seen that, heard that, tasted that.

What else you got?

We.  Want.  More.

Dammit.

But we HAVE so much and have for as long as we can possibly remember (if we even bother trying) and we've never really bothered to be happy or thankful for that.  We say we are...like clockwork...near the end of each November, just before we lay on the f#@#ing horn because some jackass had the nerve to "steal" the parking spot two whole spots closer than the one we had to settle for in the parking lot outside of CollossalRetaileroftheMoment a few minutes before the stroke of get-it-before-they-do midnight.

And I'm no different.

I want too.

I want to laugh like Ria on that roller coaster.

Deeply and genuinely.

I want to fly again for the first time and feel the excitement, the worry, the anticipation.  I want to look out the window and whisper "my goodness."  I want to gaze down through the clouds, wordlessly, and think "how can this possibly be?"

I want to topple over in the surf and get a wet bum.

And I want to acknowledge every second of the adventure as gift given and appreciatively received.

Wanting the same for my daughters, I sat them down beside me and we tagged along as An and Ria took off, laughed, became fast friends, and together explored the new world of Barcelona.

Lily and Piper Bea watched hushed, bright-eyed and fascinated while I thought of my good fortune to one day see them take their own first flights.

"My, oh my, oh my!"

Indeed.

not small at all.

Being in the woods makes me happy.  Sometimes simply not being indoors is enough.

Add a predawn start with a bunch of good companions (including my favorite four-legged pal) on a favorite local ridge finally beginning to rally to life after a punishing winter and, well, things couldn't get much better.

Except sometimes the body doesn't cooperate.  It's tired, disinterested, unresponsive. And sometimes, no matter how non-competitive or goal-oriented a runner you might be, you bog down on not performing the way you hope to and allow frustration with momentary physical weakness to be a bigger, a MUCH bigger, deal than it should be.

By "you" I mean me and "sometimes" was Saturday.

Yes, I muddled through another 2700+ feet of climbing in a challenging season in which miles have been hard and hard to come by.  Yes, I am on track for what spring and summer have in store (on track, not nearly all the way ready).  I know that, but I stopped knowing it for a time on Saturday morning because instead of heeding the signs that my body needed a day off, instead of listening, I shouted over those indications with the noise of more of the very thing that had me worn down in the first place.

That's what ultrarunners are supposed to do, right?  Gut it out, suck it up.  Push harder, work harder, BE harder.  Keep moving.  Get back up.

Over and over and over again.

I get it.  I like all that and wouldn't be out doing the things I do if that weren't the case, but...

...boy, do we ever miss out on all the lovely small things when we get so hyper-focused on the big thing that (shhh, don't tell anyone) isn't really a big thing at all.  We should know better than most that from time to time energy lapses and the indestructible body proves destructible, the unwavering mind wavers and, surprise!, life goes on anyway.

I smiled for my friends and genuinely enjoyed their company but, make no mistake, my attention was inexcusably distracted by not being able to enjoy the movement because it wasn't the quality of movement I expected of myself.

Which is ridiculous.

 Thankfully, even my numb skull can warm with enough exposure to the glow of life's little wonders.

The coffee waiting at home tasted just as good as it always does.

A book pulled off the shelf for ten minutes of reading before Lindsay and the girls were ready to accompany me to the diner for breakfast did what books so often do, floored me with the power of words orchestrated by a conductor finely attuned to not just language but also to the essence of human interaction.  The words wouldn't have been any more or less stirring had I charged through my earlier workout instead of bumbling and muddling along.

The thaw continued at breakfast with relaxed laughter, a recap of the girls' individual adventures at school that week, and the sweet, reassuring touch of a daughter's hand in a shared restaurant booth.

Off to the rock climbing gym from there.  I resigned my tired body to belay duty while Lily and Piper were their normal roller coaster rides of grit teeth determination alternating with who-could-care silliness.

They were having fun, purely reveling in play and exploration, too busy to bother measuring the fun they were having by increments of accomplishment.  Hard to think of that concept as a "small thing" when you're forced to examine it, but too often our stressed-out by everything adult minds fail to grasp that simple wisdom.

Seen off by a round of hugs, Lindsay left the gym for a shift at the hospital and we three who remained headed back to the house to pick up Sugar Pie and then together we returned to the forest to retrieve the dog leash that I'd forgotten at the top of Molehill that morning.

Sugar Pie whimpered her want to move fast, fast, faster, but I and my battered legs were far more content to slowly amble along the Horseshoe Trail while the girls flitted about in search of scavenger hunt targets.

Hours before I had surveyed the ground beneath my feet through the narrow lens of a runner's eye, seeking traction and confident footfalls in a threatening landscape of ice, snow, mud and rock.  Now, with my daughters by my side, the terrain was full of hope and promise.  Receding snow revealed little pockets of life below and Spring suddenly seemed not so far away.

It wasn't that Lily and Piper were more attuned to the small things so much as they seemed enamored of everything.  Of ALL things.  I marveled at just how many different things caught their attention, at Lily's endless stream of questions, and Piper's tenacious tracing of every one of her big sister's strides.

We scavenged, successfully, finding most everything on our list, including Suge's leash.

My legs ached, they must have, but that isn't part of my recollection of our time together.  

The thaw was complete and I was lost again to living in the moment.  Lily was actually the one to remind me that I was tuckered out by suggesting that when we got home I sit and relax while she and Piper rode their bikes and played on the playground of the old decommissioned elementary school behind our home.

I could not and did not argue with her.  It sounded like a great idea.

That's when another not so small thing happened.

Lily decided that she didn't need her training wheels anymore which was news to me.  But, take them off we did, and except for a few fairly harmless slow-motion tumbles, she figured it out despite being perched atop a bike that seemed two sizes too small for her growing-too-fast-for-mom-and-dad legs.  It seemed like I should make a really big deal out of the accomplishment, but she seemed satisfied by my wide grin and more interested in riding than hearing me heap parental praise upon her.

She and Piper Bea whooshed around and around and around the small playground until hungry bellies won over their will to keep pedaling. I was hungry too but could have gone on watching them at play forever.

Lily dashed towards the house as I shuffled behind with two little bikes in tow.  Piper had been right by my side so I was taken aback when my asking her if she'd had fun went unanswered.  Looking back over my shoulder, I found her summiting a lingering pile of plowed snow at the edge of the schoolyard.

"What are you doing, Pipe?," I asked.  "Why'd you climb up there?"

"Why not?," came my answer as she thrust out her arms to beckon for rescue.

"Why would you climb up there if you can't get down?"

"I figure it out once I get up."

Yes.

My child, a small thing herself (for now), had blessed me yet again with another not small at all example of why life isn't so much about how well or how poorly you climb the hill so long as you appreciate the gift of a hill to climb in the first place.