by Ryan Craven

I arrived at the Barton Springs lakeshore path a few minutes before 7:15am to meet Fenton and friends for a brief morning run.  I meandered around, alternately stretching and yawning while I wondered where the hell these guys were already?  I spotted a few familiar faces down the path, a couple college kids we had waved to the other morning.  They were waiting for the same group I was…so, we alternately stretched and yawned together before deciding to just go already.

We went through the standard series of questions one becomes familiar with upon entering college athletics.  Where you from?  Where you from originally?  What’s your 5k pr?  What’s your 3k pr?  What’d you run in high school?  I wonder aloud now which I’ll forget first, the runner’s name or his track times. 

And then of course there were the standard questions on their end when I told them I went Wisconsin.  What was it like training under Schumacher?  What is Evan Jager really like?  How’s Reed Connor doing?  The two runners, Johnny and Brock, were from the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, so I proposed a similar collection of inquiries; their thoughts on Dorian Ulrey and Arkansas at the SEC meet, their own program and position on the team and etc, etc, etc.  At seven minute pace, we were of no shortness of breath.  I found it funny that I could so easily converse about my favorite sport with these two strangers while any discussion of running in the real world starts and ends with “so have you run the marathon?”

Having exhausted all topics of conversation, I asked Johnny, a fifth year, what he planned to do after graduation.

“Well, I’m thinking that if I can get my times under 14:20 and 29:40, then I’m just going to take two years and move to Kenya.”

“Kenya?”

“Kenya.”

He said it matter of fact-ly and without hesitation, as if he’d been asked and answered hundreds of times before.

“My old teammate’s brother is a record holder in the steeple and he said I could come out there and just train with them.”

The cynic inside of me cringed a bit.  This kid was talking about running times that wouldn’t even score in most conference meets, and here this brave cub wants to go prance about in the lion’s den of all lion’s dens.  I kept silent though and smiled as I told him I thought it was cool, the newfound adult in me wondering what is to become of this young man’s education?

It’s not that I completely condemned the dream right there…I wasn’t lying through my teeth, the guy seemed sincere and who the hell am I to say it’s a good or bad idea?

We finished the run and said our goodbyes as they continued to round out their mileage for the day, the whole time his words echoing through my head. 

Kenya.

I put my shirt back on and headed on my way back up north.  As I drove, I realized that what struck me as so odd about Johnny’s whole master plan was the tone with which he presented it.  The way he described how his life would be…he’d eat, he’d sleep, he’d run.  He’d do as the Kenyans do, as the champions do in fact, and if he’s lucky maybe see the good side of some lofty goals.  But the real thing of it was that I had heard that same tone a few times before in my life. 

I’ve had a good amount of very talented and very dedicated friends receive college scholarships and in some cases even professional contracts.  And yes, they’re excited about the compensation and the travel and the unfathomable amount of free gear, but mostly there is an underlying delighted bewilderment greater than all of that…”You mean someone’s going to pay me just to run?”  Whether Olympians or amateurs or middle of the pack-ers looking to break through, they are all beside themselves that someone sees it fit to sponsor them so they can eat, sleep, and run—as the Kenyans do, and indeed as the champions do.  Life as it were, becomes nothing more than the time spent between ice baths and intervals.

“So what of it,” I thought as I cruised home.  If this wiry kid from Little Rock wants to go to Kenya, he’d be fortunate enough to be living quite a similar lifestyle to some of the luckiest people I know.  His only concern for his days would be to answer the call: The same one that beckons a hundred or so washed up joggers like myself out of bed at 6:30 in the morning to log a few miles before the day begins. 

And besides, what’s waiting for him here upon graduation anyway?  A shaky economy and job market?  Suits, ties, and mortgages-our first world luxuries and novelties?  Girls and late nights and bars to drain your bank account as Lady Gaga wails on in the background about god only knows what?  Life in Arkansas?

I awake from my post run euphoria to find a large, black SUV blindly cutting over from the turn lane into…well…me.  I lean right and get my two-wheeler into the right lane and out of harm’s way.  This motion has become as natural to me as avoiding a stray fitness enthusiast on the path.  As I pass back over into the left lane I thoughtlessly toss a middle finger back at the SUV and whatever careless driver sat behind its wheel. 

Stopped at the light now waiting to turn left, said careless driver honks his horn at me.  I turn back to watch him exit his vehicle and start approaching my scooter.  Shit.

The man was dark, maybe in his late 20s with a confused look cemented upon his brow.  He looked tall, but I suppose anyone looks tall when you’re sitting on a scooter waiting to get your ass kicked.  “You cut me off man-what do you want?  I mean, you cut me off…” I tried to say this calmly and without any hint of invitation.  He attempted to argue back, but retreated to his vehicle as the light changed to green; a proud display for his wife and a story for all his buddies.  “Man, if that guy woulda just gotten off his scooter it woulda been ON!” A cute Latina girl giggled on at the scene from her Volkswagen, her smile disappearing from my periphery as I pulled away.

Kenya, I decided, sounds pretty nice.