It Began as an Icon - LVs Ride

It Began as an Icon 

Al Cassidy Reflects on LVs RIDE

Re-posted from LVsRide.com/social

I got the call late one afternoon in September 2010. I had recently completed work on a new Lasallian Volunteers’ website, and was on to other things—primarily any assistance I could offer with the LVs running in Memphis, TN, for their upcoming annual marathon fundraiser.

“Al,” Mari Anzicek began, always mispronouncing my name Ale with her Michigan accent, “Mario and I are planning a cross-country bike ride and need a logo. There will probably be more to follow, but for now, we really need a logo. Are you in? Can you help?”

I’ll admit I was a bit burnt. We put a lot of energy into that new website, and there was a whole host of other things since early 2010 we created new to help promote the future work of this 20+ year program. I needed a break. But, I cannot say “no” to a challenge… albeit slightly unclear.

“Why don’t you and Mario do some additional planning, then check back with me in, say, November?” I suggested as my temporary mental leave.

No good. They already had a rough route planned, were getting in touch with a friend who led bike tours, and picked the brain of Brother Ed Phelan about his 2001 ride across the country (the Spoke ‘N Word Tour). We needed to get going right away simply because this thing was really going to happen.


So, I put my head to it and came up with a few options. After some discussion and tweaking, we had our logo. Let’s move on, we said: we need a website, we need flyers to promote the ride, we need email blasts, sell sheets, business cards . . . whoa whoa whoa! Slow down!

“I’m actually not crazy about this logo,” I told Mari one morning.

“So,” she said, “we’re announcing the ride in the newsletter this month, and it needs to go to print by Friday.” And in typical Mari fashion, she followed with something like, You have until the end of the day to come up with something new or we’re just sticking with this one.

Gotta’ love Mari. To the point. Since we (Mario, Mari and I) had already pored over enough biking logos to give us a lifetime of dreams about cranks, derailleurs, and cogs, I had some additional ideas sitting around. After a few sketches and some tweaking, I switched the logo to black and red, and voila! — it was complete.

“Looks good!” said Mari. “Let’s get this newsletter to print!”

With this new logo icon established, it really set the groundwork for how all the advertising materials were going to look. A website came together quickly and roughly by early November (just after the arrival of my 2nd son). Right after Christmas, we had a well-formed brochure telling about our journey, the cause and the need for funding. Come March, we had enough riders to start the trip. Bike jerseys and t-shirts with the icon emblazoned on them were ready to out the door. We were ready to leave our mark on this country. Things were going fairly well. But what was that about the well laid plans of mice and men?

Mari gets the call from the courthouse. She is summoned for jury duty, a major case. Could be a long one. I take the helm on the communication efforts, among other things. While trying to encourage additional fundraising pre-ride, finalizing the bike jerseys and t-shirts, I helped solidify a van & trailer with graphics, secured a videographer capable of creating a remarkable documentary of the trip, and planned a basic road map for capturing the day-to-day ride through an online journal. It was a lot of work. Then came some relief.

I already had the brain of Brother Ed by my side whenever I ran out of fresh ideas, now I was getting another brain familiar with communications. Elizabeth Jodice, from the D.C. office, was tasked with securing media attention and (as if that wasn’t enough) she even volunteered to update the journal on a regular basis. A break from the daily grind (not a single cyclist left for Oregon at this point mind you) of LVs Ride was in sight!

Once Mari was released from her jury duty and I saw the van wrapped with new graphics —then helped Tom Ludzia off from St. James School in North Philadelphia in a freshly-packed van filled with camping and bike supplies—all I had to do was get behind the wheel of my email and phone for updates along the route. But they never came. Silence.

“What happened?!” I wondered aloud. The ride planning was off to such an amazing and providential start, and then darkness settled above, clouding the promise of progress. The ride seemed to go dormant within the first few days. I was so completely concerned that somehow we had failed to do something right. The icon we created and placed on every last bit of material was lost in the mountains of Oregon, never to see daylight again. Okay, I wasn’t that concerned. But it had dawned on me that when you create a campaign based on a single icon, and you hope it will reach many eyes so that it reaches a purpose, you tend to get a bit frantic when it disappears.

But after learning how blessed (perhaps cursed) some of us are to live in these highly connected cities where internet and cell phone signal peak at a constant, I learned that the upper midwest is quite dark and free of such modern-day triumphs. I look back and realize how the riders truly struggled from more than just aches, pains, sleepiness, thirst, hunger, lack of motivation and more. I also realized how unimportant that icon really was in the grand scheme of things, but somehow it found a new role. The icon wasn’t just to simply identify the ride, it helped many remember they were pedaling for this common cause.

Cycling the final two days of the ride—no, I wasn’t biding my time to await the final glory, mind you, it was just convenient for me living in the Philly area—it made me realize how incredible it is that we received any update at all from the road. Riding your bike can be a lot of fun on any given Sunday—the wind gently blowing through your hair, the sun beaming in the midday sky, swans swimming in the pond as you pass by. But try cycling for upwards of 12 hours a day, and add continual requests for stories and videos on how you are feeling about it all, you would probably be about ready to toss your cell phone into a ravine or push the camerman down a dirt hill.

From the time I began working on LVs Ride until the day I joined them in dipping our tires in the Atlantic Ocean, my 2nd son is almost a year old. In the time they set out to ride, so much more happened than just a stop in some new, unkown city greeted by complete strangers every day: my fist son recently turned 3, I spent my 4th of July with family in Virginia, I visited a camp for Philadelphia children a few days per week, I got to see “The Bean” in Chicago and watch a tv show filming, I celebrated with my father his 81st birthday, my sister her expected daughter, and I spent time with my own family nearly every single day of the week. That’s not a terrible summer when you consider that the team of riders dedicated 60+ days of their life to pedal nearly every single day of the week until they felt they could do no more. And each day when they were done, they slept. And when they were done sleeping, they either got up and did it all over again, or they went to a most needed part of the city where they helped aid people who in need of assistance. I only did the riding part for two days, and I was still recovering days after. If you were include even one of those service days in between my two days of riding, I’d be out for a week I think.

My two days riding next to the national team made me realize a lot of things, but mostly that I’ve missed a ton of opportunities to be selfless in some important ways. I learned that life will work out the way it is supposed to (thanks Brother Rich) so long as you are willing to put in the effort each and every day (thanks Tom Ludzia). I learned that when things get really difficult, you need to: get a song in your head (thanks Kenny Latta), shush your restless soul and consider how others are feeling (thanks Beth Ford), have a laugh and smile (thanks Alyse Gay, Zac Ufnar, Melissa Spahr, and Glenna Krzyzanowski), take a quiet moment aside (thank you Karen Giroux), think and reflect and respond delicately (thanks Tom Cook), stick together through the thick and the thin (thanks Mike & Stacy Leard), keep it loose (thanks Kelly Towns and Casey Wilson), worry less about the end and be in the present moment (thanks Mario Ragghianti), be positive, hilarious, and insightful (thank you Ed), take the lead even if everyone can’t stand what you are about to say though you know it may be best for the group (thank you Mari). I also re-learned that no matter what icon or imagery I come up with to help reach an audience, what lies beneath a sunburst of gears, spokes and a red star is the heart and soul of every person who gave whatever they could to make this thing real.

I have also continued to reaffirm my forever belief in “providence.” I’ve called it many things in the past: coincidence, karma, fate. But it all means the same to me. All roads lead to the same place, and so long as you are willing to allow the road to take you there—you will be cared for. Though the cue sheet may lead us astray from time to time, the destination is always the same, and we must have faith we will eventually find our way.

As we’ve heard it all before, it is the journey—the people met, the places seen, the food eaten, the games played, the needed helped, the curious entertained—that matters. But it doesn’t hurt to have an icon at your side.

Struggle

Is it weird to struggle with not struggling?  It sounds weird, for sure.  I just have this feeling like everybody around me is working so hard, and I'm not.  It's like they're all running into the wind, trying to get to someplace in particular, and I'm running with the wind at my back, but nowhere to go.  Or something like that.  People all have these goals that they work toward, and they work so hard, and they seem fulfilled by the working, and I think that's great.  But I don't feel like I have goals, and I don't feel like I work that hard, and I'm not sure if I feel fulfilled very often, or ever at all.

For example, I am currently a Lasallian Volunteer.  It's this awesome volunteer program associated with the De La Salle Christian Brothers that places recent college graduates in ministries around the country for 1, 2, or sometimes 3 years.  The volunteers are mostly teachers, teacher's aids, tutors, or something like that, though my job is a little different.  I'm a recreation coordinator for court-adjudicated boys in a residential placement facility (less politically correct, you could read that as delinquent teenagers in a no-bars form of juvenile detention).  My job is great.  I'm responsible for organizing after school and weekend activities for the 70-80 boys living on campus. These activities range from football, softball, and basketball, to rock climbing, caving, and camping; plus whatever else I can think of and convince kids to try.  The job is perfect for me in a lot of ways.  I love to play these games, I like kids (I think), I got to move to someplace I had never been, and the financial end does not place me in quite such dire straits as the word "volunteer" often makes people suspect. 

So what's wrong?  Nothing.  Nothing, that is, until I start to look at the experiences many of my fellow volunteers are having / have had.  The pain of leaving home, of moving into community life, of teaching, of trying to build relationships with coworkers and students, of trying to meet almost impossible expectations, of despairing at the truly dismal prospects for some of these kids.  I don't seem to have those pains, and I kind of have to wonder what that means.  I wish it meant I'm just well-adjusted and a good fit for the job, but that seems pretty unlikely.  Good though I may be at carrying out the technical end of the work, my relationship building skills leave a lot to be desired, and that's the heart of what we do.  I think my mile-wide independent streak might have a little to do with it, but I'm pretty sure it's not the whole answer.  I think the truth might be that I have somehow settled into a sort of complacency (also called comfort), and that this is turning into a form of indifference.  It isn't that I don't care about whether or not these kids lives are changed for the better, it's just that I'm no longer sure this place has the tools to be the catalyst for that change.  As a result, I think I'm gradually seeing myself less as an agent of change, and more as a member of the status quo.  Recidivism rates for youth in residential placements average 70%.  That's HUGE!  That means 7 OUT OF 10 of the boys I work with will end up back in the justice system, probably incarcerated as adults at some point.  My school keeps being recognized by the State of New York as one of the best at this work, and yet I look at the numbers and can't help but feel like we are just another oppressor, restarting the cycle over and over again. The tragic truth is that the wind is coming out of my sails and I'm not sure it's coming back.  My peers are full of enthusiasm, and that enthusiasm is the source of their pain (after all, the struggle can't hurt you if you don't care about how it ends).  My enthusiasm has so waned that I no longer share their pain, and that realization is the source of my pain right now. 

What's more, this suspicion of indifference I have isn't limited to the Lasallian Volunteers.  I feel a little indifferent about the future of my life, too.  I have a loose plan for where I'm headed in the next couple years, but I don't feel like that plan is in the true form of goals, and I don't feel like I'm working toward it that hard.  I feel like everything is just kind of slipping by me, like I'm failing to notice life as it happens, and I don't think there could be much worse a way to be.  If you aren't noticing life, you aren't living, and if you aren't living, you're dead.  I'm becoming the walking dead, a 21st century zombie. 

So, for all those peers of mine currently struggling through the pains of trying to be good teachers, maybe of failing at that, of being unemployed, of being dissatisfied with their statuses, know that at least that pain is a form of life.  It may not be the best form, but it's better than indifference.  Good luck finding your way to happiness.  Please wish me the same.

It is what it is

I wonder often if other people think the way I do.  I feel like so much of what goes on in my head is unique to me.  But it isn't.  That's an easy thing to forget.

Once in a while, I get to have a truly personal conversation with somebody, or read something they've written in stream-of-consciousness style (not my favorite form of writing, but informative sometimes), and I realize how I'm really not that different from other people. 

So many of us suffer inside from feelings of loneliness, inadequacy, or failure.  So many of us live with regular feelings of fear, confusion, and unrest.  So many of us find that in our most triumphant moments, there's no way that's quite right to share it with anybody else.

TOO many of us go through life pretending.  We pretend to be happy.  We pretend to want to do this or that.  We pretend we like people we don't.  Sometimes we pretend to not like people we do.  We pretend so much that we run the risk of becoming the person we pretend to be.

I only know a couple really interesting people.  They're so interesting because they pretend less than any of the other people I know.  They stopped pretending long enough for me to get to know the real them.  The them that is silly and afraid, but not afraid to be silly.  The real them that has doubts and flaws, but also joys and ambitions.  These people have the best friends, and the most, because the people who stay with them are the ones who love them for their realness.

Somebody I work with is constantly introducing his statements with "I'm gonna be real with you."  I wish he wouldn't.  I would rather think that he was always being real with me, and that the idea of not being real didn't even cross his mind.  But instead, his every assurance of reality makes me doubt its existence even more.

I'm not sure that this post had an overall point.  I'm not even sure if it had that many little points within it.  I started writing it with no topic in mind, but only some vague feelings about a few things I just read online, from both friends and strangers.  Perhaps I'll revisit this later and try to make sense of it.  For now, it is what it is.

Nostalgia

Nostalgia is a funny thing.  It takes me over at some of the oddest moments.  And the things I become nostalgic about are so varied.  Former girlfriends.  Classes.  Activities from my youth.  Smells.  Turns of phrase.  Sometimes I'm not even sure what I'm nostalgic about.  I just get a feeling like things used to be wonderful, more wonderful than now, and that their wonderfulness is woefully lost.  None of it makes sense to me, and I kick myself for being silly, but nonetheless, the feeling is there.

I think the worst nostalgia is the kind that causes self-doubt.  As I read the marriage notice of a friend of mine, I thought about my own (current lack of a) romantic life, and I found myself remembering back to a relationship I had in college.  I ended that relationship because it got more serious than I was ready for it to be, but I have to wonder, what if I had done things differently?  Would my old friends be reading my marriage notice?  Would I be somehow happier than I am now?  What drastically different course might my life have taken?  Although I think the decision I made at the time was the right one, and what would have inevitably happened one way or another, I know I didn't go about expressing it the right way.  My social sensitivities have never been acclaimed as exquisite, and honestly, my (generally inadvertent) bluntness probably has amounted to meanness on several occasions.  So here I sit, in the grip of a nostalgia I find it difficult to control.  Illogically and without any decisive reason, I want a chance to make a different decision than the one I made, even though I don't think I could change the outcome for any better than it was.  At least maybe in the future I can recognize my own insensitivity and avoid a similar incident.  Maybe.

Hey Mr. Branch ... F*** you!

Well, I've been here a little more than 6 months, and finally I think I can say that I am truly settling in.  When I first came, it was obvious to me that I really had no idea what was going on.  I was swimming through my job pleased to be doing it, but knowing I was not as effective as I could be.  Time went on, and I slowly grew more comfortable with my responsibilities as a recreation coordinator, but still, there was a level of familiarity I knew I hadn't reached.  When I see staff who have been here longer, I see in their movements a kind of familiarity with their position and with the kids that makes things look easy.  They know what's up, and the kids know it, too.  What I've been missing, what I knew I was missing but couldn't name, was confidence.  I'm good at positive self-talk.  I encourage myself, I act confident, I walk tall, and when I decide to do something, I do it.  Inside, though, I always have the nagging doubt about whether or not I'm doing things right, or doing the right thing.  Just in the last week or two, though, that doubt has been fading away.  I've noticed the change in myself, and I've noticed the change in the boys.  The boys are very good at picking up on when they can or can't manipulate a staff.  For a while, they picked up on their ability to manipulate me.  If I wasn't sure exactly what I was doing, they knew, and they knew they could affect the outcome.  They express that knowledge through obstinacy and defiance.  They tell you how things should be (to them) and kick, scream, and yell to get what they want; because they know they can get it.  Just in the last couple weeks, though, there's been a change.  My confidence has flowered, and all the sudden, I'm either getting a lot less crap from the boys, or I'm just noticing it a lot less.  I have a theory...

So, last Tuesday (February 8) we started a skiing program at La Salle.  For two weeks in February (last and this) and two weeks in March, we'll be taking 8 kids skiing on Tuesday and 8 kids on Thursday.  The boys we take are chosen based on their behavior grades in school the week previous.  If the behavior grades are really good, the kid makes the list, if they aren't, he doesn't.  I led both trips last week, and I'm leading one of the trips this week.  I think this is where the change has really been dramatic.  I've been handed a carrot, a sweet, juicy carrot, to hold out for the kids, and it's a carrot I know everything about.  There is no way these kids can argue with me about any of it, because we both know that my experience in this is greater than theirs.  Basketball was questionable, football the kids are clearly more experienced than I am, but skiing?  All mine.  When I go around campus now, boys are always asking me about when will they get to go skiing, and I have an answer ready.  When kids make the list, I'm the one who tells them.  When we go to the mountain, I'm the one who takes them.  When they fall on the hill, I'm the one who helps them up.  Having this ski program has really been for me like holding a carrot out to a wild rabbit.  The rabbit would normally not let you go anywhere near it, but since you have a carrot, it lets you get a little closer, it opens an opportunity.  Skiing is opening an opportunity for me with these boys.

There's something else, besides the ski program, that is changing how I interact with the boys.  When I came here, I could never figure out what to talk to boys about.  Do I ask them about school?  How about home?  About what they like to do?  Every conversation was just a bit awkward, because I could never figure out how to break the ice.  Now, though, the ice is finally broken.  There are still some boys I don't know how to talk to, and those boys will continue to challenge me for a while, I'm sure, but with a lot of the boys I am finally at a point of familiarity where I can talk to them with depth.  I know enough about their lives to ask real questions, to have actual conversations.  The crux of this work is building relationships, and it is something I have been struggling with a lot since I came to Albany, but I really feel like I'm making progress.  I'm optimistic.

To finish this entry, I want to tell a story that has been entertaining me for days.  Last Monday I was putting together the list for Tuesday's ski trip, and part of the work there includes talking to kids to make sure they want to go on the trip.  Well, I went up to Cusack, one of the divisions the boys live in, to talk to (student A) about going.  While I was there, (student B) approached me about whether he was on the list.  He asked because about 2 weeks before he had been on a sledding trip and asked me then about whether or not he would get to go skiing.  I explained to him at the time that it would depend on his behavior in school, but that if he was doing well (which he typically does) then his chances would be very good.  All he heard, of course, was "yes."  Well, I answered his question by saying that his behavior grades the previous week weren't good enough to get him on the trip.  He was upset, and left the conversation upset, but I didn't think too much of it. 

The next morning I went into the cafeteria at breakfast to pull out the boys I needed for the day's trip.  I went over to Cusack to get student A when student B, from about 25 feet away, called out "Hey Mr. Branch."  I looked over and responded "what's up, (student B)?  Good morning."  His reply?  "F*** you."  I simply smiled, said thank you, and bid him good morning again. I found the whole situation funny because I could tell from the way he said hello first, and from the tone in his voice, that he didn't mean it in a hateful way.  Student B was just upset about not getting to go on the trip, and the best way he could come up with to express that disappointment and frustration was to do what he did.  It wasn't malicious, it was factual.  When I first came to La Salle, I don't know that I would have understood that.  Now, I have the pleasure of finding humor and camaraderie in such an exchange.  He and I, in those few words, had a very human exchange.  He conveyed everything he was feeling in the best way he could, and I responded in the way I though was most likely to let him know that I heard him without encouraging an escalation in his feelings.  It was good.  I am also pleased to report that student B had a good week in school and now gets to go skiing tomorrow.

Well, that's it for now.  It's been a while since my last post, but maybe this makes up for it?  I hope everyone had a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year, and that you are all enjoying the wintry weather even as you anticipate the coming of spring.  As always, if you have any questions or comments, you are free to leave them on the page or to email me.

Alex

26.2 Miles

First I admitted my ambition. Then I talked about donations. Now, the marathon is almost 3 weeks behind me and I suppose it's time I spoke about how it went. So here's the skinny.

First, and most important, I raised just over $800 for the Lasallian Volunteers! My goal was $1000, and I'm still hoping to reach it. If you are willing to help me, please check out the instructions in this older blog post. If you already donated, THANK YOU!, and be expecting a little something from me in the mail soon. Now, for the run itself.

Friday, December 3, Mike, Denny, and I landed in Memphis, TN where we met the other 47 or so participating volunteers, plus probably another 30 LV alumni, not to mention a whole community of Christian Brothers. PAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRTTTTTYYYYYY!!!! Ok, maybe we didn't party that much, but don't blame us for that, we had to run a marathon the next day. We spent Friday afternoon wandering Memphis a little bit, hydrating, and enjoying a pasta dinner/carbo-loading session courtesy of the Bro's at Christian Brother's University. It was an early night for most, with an air of nervous excitement permeating our dreams as we psyched ourselves up for our respective races.

Saturday, December 4, the 5k runners got up a little earlier than everybody else because they had to be on the start line for a 7:15AM gun. The big business (aka the half-marathon and the full-marathon) started at 8:00. I was especially nervous as I headed out to the start for several reasons. First, I HAD NEVER EVER EVER RUN A MARATHON BEFORE! Even though I trained for months before the race, even though I'd done the long runs, even though my training had culminated in a 20 miler, I still wasn't sure I could do it. This fear was made much worse by reason number two: the week before the marathon I found that a muscle on the outside of my right thigh had gone past the point of mere soreness that had been irritating me for several weeks and instead progressed to actual pain. What was wrong with it? Would I be able to finish? The third reason I was so nervous as I approached the starting line: time corrals. There are runners at the start who have shirts and signs that say what time they will be running the marathon in. If you want to run a 5 hour race, stand by the guy with the 5 hour sign on his back. Well, I wasn't sure what my time should be. In my training I had planned for 10 minute miles, a 04h22m marathon. But then I found out how much faster some people go, some not terribly fit, not particularly well-trained people, and I thought to myself, "well, shouldn't I be able to go that fast, at least?" So, I decided to have my trepidations meet my expectations in the middle, at the 04h05m mark. A pre-race run to the porta-john and I was ready to go. I guess.

As the race began, I was pacing with 2 other LVs, Christine and Gosia. Things were going well for me until about mile 3. Then that silly muscle started to hurt, right at the point where it inserts on the outside of the knee (by the way, I have since found out what that is, it's called the ilio-tibial band, and the issue is apparently that it rubs on the femur slightly and can become tendinous if overused). Well, I kept running, just kind of powering through the mild pain, for another 5 miles or so. But then it really started to hurt, so I stopped to stretch it. That was a MISTAKE. It still hurt when I stopped and the stretching did nothing, the first couple steps back on the course were 100x worse than before I had stopped. Nonetheless, I decided to catch up to Gosia (Christine had dropped behind) so I picked up the pace a bit to close the distance. The weird thing: as soon as I accelerated the pain went away completely. I didn't feel it at all. But when I caught up to Gosia and slowed down again, the pain was back. Obvious solution? Go fast for the whole race. So I did. Kind of.

I picked up my pace around mile 8.5 and kept it up for about 10 miles. I passed hundreds of people, including the half-marathoners (who run on the same course), and felt great. But eventually my stamina ran out. Around mile 18 or 19 I just couldn't keep that speed. I had to slow down. And as soon as I did the pain was back. But now I only had a few miles left, I couldn't quit. So I just kept running. It was, in a word, terrible. My muscles all over hurt, that stupid IT Band was excruciating, I was out of energy, and only mental determination kept me going. From mile 19ish to mile 23ish was miserable. People on the sidelines would say as I ran by that I "make it look easy" or that I am "doing great." Bullsh*t. Complete and utter lies. The look of pain on my face, the uncoordinated stumbling I was doing as I went, surely gave away the struggle I was going through inside. But I kept running.

By mile 23, every mile felt like 4. I remember passing the mile 23 mark and thinking it should have been 24. Had I somehow gotten lost and gone in a loop? I was sure I had passed 23 already. But apparently not. What felt like half an hour later I passed 24. Shouldn't that have been 25? I tricked myself into continuing by believing in between mile markers that I had gone farther than I had. Finishing the race seemed so much more realistic when I thought it was not as far as it really was. It's like being on a long hike and always believing the end is just at the top of the hill. There's always another hill, but somehow you can keep going when you think there's only one. And so I kept running because I kept lying to myself.

When I got to mile 25, even lying to myself was almost not enough. I became so exhausted at one point in mile 25 that I stopped. Just for a second, but it was enough. My next step was excruciating. My IT Band was screaming at me to just sit down and do nothing. let them carry me off the course, it wouldn't matter. but I couldn't. I had trained so hard, had worked myself up so much for this race, that I couldn't stop. When would I ever run another? What would I tell the people who had donated to this effort? It just didn't seem like an option. So I kept going.

Mile 26 came with a blessing. A couple came up on me and offered a couple words of encouragement. They were local, so they pointed out where we were going. The stadium was in sight. I didn't want to lose them, so I picked up my pace enough to stay with them. We chatted and we ran. It was not a distraction from the pain, but it was a reason to ignore it. They were funny, too. As we were running, a man walking the other way on the course said (I don't know why people insist on saying this) "Yeah! You guys make it look easy." Well, I was fed up with it. "You're a damn liar!" I called back to him. The woman said to me, "don't worry, we know him. I'll hit him for that later."

The couple stayed with me to just a couple hundred yards short of the finish, then there was the single hardest moment on the entire course. You are going up a small hill (but even small hills seem huge after 26.1 miles) and there is a U-turn. Literally, you have to do a complete 180 degrees, running uphill, on a pivot. You have to break stride and turn. It was perhaps the most exhausting moment I can remember. There was a group of LV's just above that point who had done the half-marathon and the 5k. They were cheering for me as I came by. But it was just after that turn, and I simply couldn't muster a response. I wanted to. I really wanted to give them high-5s, or to call back, or to do something to acknowledge them, but i couldn't. That turn, less than 200 yards before the end, was as much as I could take. All I could focus on after that was moving forward. it took all my mental strength to continue. The hill finishes and there is a left turn into the stadium, then a left turn down the 1st base line (you come in through the outfield) and most people seemed to speed up just then. They wanted to finish strong. I wanted to finish strong, too, but just finishing was all I had the might for.

About 3 steps after the finish I bent down and put my hands on my knees to rest. i let my head just hang. A woman came up and put a finisher's medal around my neck, handed me a space blanket, and said "Do you need medical help?" That's how terrible I looked, I guess. When someone is asking if you need a doctor, you can't be looking too good. I think I managed to muster a "no," grabbed a couple bottles of water, then walked out onto the grass and stopped moving. I laid down and stayed down for 10, 15, 20, 30 minutes, I don't even know. I started to get chilly after a while so I moved into the sun, then I continued my motionless state in the Memphis sunshine for another hour, at least. Other LV marathoners finished and joined me. I think I looked the worst of anybody. Ricky still had the energy to jog other people in as they finished. I couldn't even muster the will to stand. But I finished.

Eventually the lure of free post-race food and drink motivated me to stand. I took the stairs up the stadium one at a time. I moved slowly to the bag check and got my stuff, put my pants on over my shorts, and shuffled my way to the food tent. I ate the best pizza of my life (I think it was Dominoes, and it was cold, but I loved it), then headed down Beale Street to find the other LVs. We spent a little time there then headed back to CBU for a delicious BBQ dinner.

Let me tell you a bit about this dinner. One of the sororities at CBU found out we were there and cooked us some authentic southern BBQ. They started roasting the pork early that morning and roasted it all day. It was served with baked beans, amazing cole slaw, and mashed potatoes. I'm not a huge fan of BBQ, but if it tasted like that all the time, I definitely would be. Additionally, one of the LV alums local to Memphis managed to acquire a keg of Ghost River Brewing Company (Memphis local) beer to go with the dinner. The evening tasted delectable.

On the morning of Sunday, December 5th, there were a couple sore heads and some late sleepers, but most everybody was in good condition to travel, and many planes home were caught. Denny, Mike, and I had stressful connecting flights both going and coming, but luckily (I guess) Delta never departs on time, so we managed to make them. I was exhausted, and still having some very real trouble with stairs, but Monday was back to work, so back to work it was.

My recovery has been going pretty well, though as you might suspect about a person such as myself, I have definitely pushed my IT band too far, too fast. My job pretty much requires basketball in the day to day, and I also took kids on a 7 mile hike this week, so I've put myself back a bit, but I feel better daily nonetheless, so I hope to be fully fit again soon. I have some other things I would like to write about from work lately, but this post is certainly long enough already, so I am going to let them wait for my next update. Until then, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. As always, please feel free to post comments or send me an email.

Alex

PS> The stats on my finish - Overall place, 367/2427. Place in age group, 15/76. 6.2 mile mark-57m51s; 9m20s pace. 13.1 mile mark-01h56m04s; 8m52s pace. 20 mile mark-02h52m07s; 8m37s pace. finish line-03h49m34s; 8m46s pace.

Dealing with a Minor Crisis

I've had a bit of a realization as I have tried to write these blogs: I am not a particularly good writer. There are so many things I really ought to write about, but when I start trying to put them on paper, they sound trivial or boring. The good news, though, is that I looked at the "stats" on this blog, and found that not many people are reading it ... so at least I'm not worried about lots of people thinking I'm boring, just some. But whatever.

Shortly after I came to Albany, I had 5 days of Therapeutic Crisis Intervention (TCI) training. I felt like I had a pretty good grasp of what was going on throughout the training, and when I started working with the kids, I felt like I was pretty effectively utilizing it. It's interesting how perspective changes over time, though. There was a minor incident with a frequently problematic student tonight. I was running a Spades tournament for the evening activity and he was losing at his table. He was dealt a very poor hand and, in an attempt to force a re-deal, dropped a card under the table and tried to claim he hadn't been dealt the proper number. Well, a staff member saw the whole thing and called him out on it, which set him off. "He's cheating! He misdealt and now he's trying to blame it on me! I picked that card up off the floor! I'm not cheating! It should be a re-deal!" etc. I was working on de-escalating the situation (an effort the other staff sadly made no effort to aid) even as the other kids in the room were working as hard as they could to escalate it. The student who was caught cheating frequently gets in fights, and they seemed to think it would be sporting to edge him into violence tonight. Well, with great difficulty I got him to go outside with me to remove him from the situation, and he calmed down a little bit. But then he decided he should go back inside. And then he quit the game. But then he wanted back in the game. And then he was back to arguing about whether or not he had cheated. In the end, I managed to bring him down far enough toward his baseline behavior that I was able to get him to leave and go back to his division (where the students live).

Ideally, I would have been able to get him and his peers to a place where he could stay and finish the game, but I'm just not there yet. I think I handled the situation alright, but I also realize how overconfident I was 2 months ago, and how overconfident I probably still am. There are a lot of times when I find that I can't de-escalate a situation, or worse, that I am sometimes the cause of the situation, and I'm still growing in my ability to deal with these kids very fragile emotional states. It is so easy to bounce some of these boys from baseline to near-crisis, but so impossible to bring them back down. There are nights, especially when we play 5 on 5 basketball, that I have to step away from the situation for a couple minutes to calm myself down before I can even dream of being effective at helping them. The TCI process always starts with "What am I feeling right now?" because if we as child care workers enter into a situation with anything other than the welfare of the student in the forefront of our mind, we are almost guaranteed to fail. The most common mistake I've seen anybody make (and I don't excuse myself from the list of culprits) is failing to ask this question before engaging with a student, and the outcome can be grim if the staff fails to deal with him/her-self before dealing with a boy whose emotional coping capabilities are nearly nonexistent.