Coming Back

Andy Collins was a 400-meter runner and hurdler who was a teammate of mine on Princeton University's 1995-96 Track & Field Team. ?We had connected on LinkedIn many years ago but hadn't corresponded or spoken since college 25 years ago. ?Then he read one of my newsletter editions and wrote me an awesome message about his own experience having a family member with Alzheimer's. He also wrote about memories he had of my dad after meeting him briefly many years ago. He also said he'd be there if I needed to talk.

Andy is a great person. ?We connected by phone last year and talked about my dad's condition, life, kids, careers, and the things that we'd each learned about tackling ambitious goals and enduring difficult times. ?It was a great call and I still admire Andy's thoughtfulness, kindness and general good nature. ?All of those things are reasons enough to think the world of this guy, but one other story of his adds a new dimension and is perfect for this newsletter about heroes.

Back in 1995, Andy was the anchor leg of our team's 4x400-meter relay team in the Ivy League Championships (the league also included Army and Navy and the meet was called the Heptagonal Championship, or HEPS for short.) The 4x400-meter relay is the last event in every collegiate track meet and the team's victory often comes down to that race. ? In 1995, Andy got the baton in the lead and had to hold off University of Pennsylvania's Chris Harper to win the race. ?He lost.

Harper ate up ground and overtook Andy to win the event. ?Andy recalls going on a spring break vacation shortly before the meet. ?He didn't stay in New Jersey to train and his focus and conditioning just weren't there. ?After the loss, Coach Mike Brady told him frankly, "you let your team down." ?Coach Brady was an excellent coach who was always ready to give kudos for good performances but did not try to sugar coat bad ones. ?Andy still recalls the feeling to this day. ?He crawled over a little concrete wall in the gymnasium and cried, devastated to have let down his team. ?

College athletes care deeply about their sport. ?They dedicate immense time to it. ?Our daily routine would usually involve classes until around 3pm, then we would head to the gym to stretch, sprint, drill and lift for about 3-3.5 hours. ?The runners did a whole lot more running than the pole vaulters like me did. ?Then we would hurry to dinner before kitchens closed and go to Firestone Library to study until 11pm when it closed. ?We dedicated weekends to travel and track meets. ?We wanted to win. ?So losing in that way at a big meet was heartbreaking for Andy.

Andy knew he would have to face Harper again for HEPS indoors and outdoors the next year, which would be his senior year. ?Harper was fast. ?A 200- and 400-meter guy, Harper shot out of the blocks. ?He was a stud and he looked confident in 1996 when the rematch happened at indoor HEPS.

Compared to Harper, Andy looked far from intimidating. ?His was thin and wiry, and even the sprinter spandex seemed a bit loose. ?He was also quiet and mild mannered. ?At this point in his career, Andy was not an unknown, and would not be taken lightly by Harper or others. ?But in the world of sprinting, he did not appear intimidating. ?

So when he got the baton a good 10 meters behind Harper, many thought, "it's all over." ?But Andy didn't think that. ?He thought of steadily gaining ground. He felt all the training he had put in since the loss to Harper last year. He said he was grateful for Coach Brady's words, which were honest and unambiguous. Those words fixed his determination on not letting the past repeat itself.

But in the past, Andy had the lead and gave it up to a short distance sprinter. This time, Andy was well behind and Harper was out fast. ?But one of the great things about the 400-meter race is that the distance is just beyond anyone's limit to fully sprint. It is too short of a race for a distance runner to be able to catch up to a fast sprinter, but too long of a race to sprint all out and not get caught when your legs start seizing up. ?To win the 400 one needs sprinter speed with miler endurance and an ability to push through lactic acid build up and keep a fluid stride in those critical last meters.

You can train your body to handle more lactic acid. ?But it still hurts. ?Hold something heavy in your hand with an outstretched arm -- then wait. ?Hold that pose without cheating for as long as you can. ?All that burning in the muscles, all that pain, stiffness and weakness is lactic acid. ?400-meter runners have to run about 80-120 meters with their lactic acid levels maxing out. They need to keep it cool and run with power and efficiency, getting the most out of each painful stride. Just hanging on is often all they can do. But when you are coming from behind you can't just hang on, you need to run faster.?

Against the clock and against all odds, Andy walked Harper down over two indoor laps to win in jaw dropping fashion at the tape. Everyone freaked out celebrating! It was an amazing spectacle of sport that ranks among some of my best memories.

Andy and the 4x400 team did it again, including a come from behind victory outdoors that year as well, and Andy went on to the Olympic trials as a hurdler.

The heroic journey for Andy started alone hiding behind a concrete wall crying and feeling devastated. ?He could have quit. He could have chosen not to care, saying he was focused on school and didn't want sports to get in the way or some BS ego-protecting thing like that. But he didn't. ?He let the hurt sink in and drive him to push through all that hurt over the next year, devoting a year to training, weights, speed work, lactic acid and pain. ?

Had someone told him that day, "train all you want, you'll still lose if Harper gets the baton first," it would have sounded true. ?Harper had walked him down from behind. ?To avoid losing a lead in the future, Andy would have to get faster than he was, but to close a yawning 10-meter gap and walk Harper down Andy would have to get faster than Harper was. ?Quite a bit faster. ?It seemed impossible.

We usually think of the ends of heroic journeys, where triumph and glory abound. ?We rarely hear about the pathetic beginnings. ?The desperate, sobbing, hopeless place where the hero decides "this won't break me." ?But to capture that moment in words is almost impossible without talking about the triumph in the end. ?In the early moments, however, the end is uncertain. In fact, it can often look like certain doom. But something turns the hero's mind away from dwelling on the foregone conclusion of doom. ?He or she becomes determined. ?Without foresight or prescience the hero decides that he or she will face the future a certain way. ?That way does not always lead to triumphant success, but it is always the better way. ?

As humans we fail a lot. ?Our brains help us recognize patterns to avoid wasting energy. ?The brain won't let us keep wasting effort on failed attempts. ?When we feel maxed out and full of lactic acid we only want to quit because our brain is hardwired to keep us from exhausting ourselves completely. ?Similarly, when we feel shame or embarrassment, we want to stop that feeling quickly. ?We want to drop the weight from our outstretched hand.

But, if we brush off embarrassment or shame and we keep trying to get better, we give ourselves the best shot at success and the best mindset for coping with setbacks and failures. ?Staying in that mindset is the heroic choice. Difficult, uncertain, and harsh as it may be, it is only the path through which you find your heroic self.

Andy and I met up in Princeton, NJ last year to celebrate the retirement of our track coach Fred Samara, whose illustrious career of winning is unparalleled in Ivy League athletics and beyond.? We talked about old times but also talked about our lives since college.? In roughly a half a century, people experience their fair share of setbacks and triumphs.? ?I told him about the ride, how it began as a thought and turned into a reality.? I told him how I had started thinking differently a year before the ride: thinking about how I wanted to live and about the negative or challenging things in my life to which I would say "no more" and "this won't break me."?

The ride arose out of a switch in mindset that had me seeking out challenges and becoming familiar with discomfort.? I told him about how I trained, got caught in snow on top of Loveland Pass during a training ride, and learned a ton about bikes in a very short time.? And I told him I wanted to do it again this year with others.? When most people hear that I want to try riding over 200 miles across the Continental Divide, they want no part of that craziness.? But Andy was all in.? He didn't have a bike and had never really ridden more than 15-20 miles before.? But he had been exploring the same sort of mindset philosophies as I had, and he had the drive to be a part of this vision quest.

He and I have been trading texts about our training rides and other preparations, and also about life. He helped out hugely in helping me cope with watching my father's decline and with handling some major professional transitions in the last year. The ride has been a motivator to stay on that right course - that better way of being - as we work through other challenges.

To prepare for the ride, I've been trying to ride parts of the route when I can.? I've also been trying to focus on the things that scare me most about the ride: elevation, exposure, wind, long downhills on the passes, and not having the legs to press on back uphill to Vail that day after many hours of riding.? This past weekend, I climbed 3500ft from Echo Lake to the top of Mt. Blue Sky on the highest paved road in North America, reaching the top at over 14,000ft.? It was a 14-mile climb, most of which was at higher elevation than the highest point we will reach on our ride.? The weather was great, although it did get quite windy in places above 13,000ft.? I managed to stay warm, hydrated and fueled up despite no aid stations or stores, and I even went back up for another 1500ft of climbing after my descent so I could get in a 5000ft climbing day.?

While it may not make a huge difference physically, that extra 1500ft was a mental win.? I was tired and a little beat up from descent down a very bumpy and damaged road.? The high elevation and sun can wipe a person out.? I know I will feel this way on at least part of our ride, and I wanted to show myself that I could press through and keep going. I wanted the depleted feeling to feel familiar and not trigger an impulse to quit, but rather a memory of perseverance.? Andy has been devising his own punishing rides and workouts to get ready, including an awesome 24 lap hill ride to get over 4000ft of climbing in one morning.? No matter what, the process has already been good for us, but we both know this is just the lead up and we look forward to the challenge when it comes that day.

So, after quite a bit of planning, learning, and gearing up, Andy and I have set our sights on a new route that is just as much of a beast as the last one.? The route will be a loop, starting in Vail, going east over Vail Pass (106,656ft) to Copper Mountain Ski Area, then south up Fremont Pass (11,319ft) to the town of Leadville and then continuing south to the CO-82 junction near Twin Lakes where we will turn west and head up Independence Pass (12,091ft).? At the top of Independence Pass we will have traveled 85 miles and climbed nearly 9,000 ft, and we will have another 123 miles to go.?

From the top of Independence Pass we will go 61 miles mostly downhill, following the winding path down into Aspen, then traverse a gravel section to get to the Rio Grande Trail that will take us all the way to Glenwood.? From Glenwood, we turn east and head back uphill towards Vail, 62 miles away.? We will start by going through the beautiful Glenwood Canyon (assuming the canyon is completely open by then) and then stitching together trails and frontage roads as we move up the Colorado and Eagle River drainages, eventually arriving in Vail.?

The exposure and elevation, along with the sheer number of miles we need to cover makes this an intimidating quest.? In all, the map builder I used says it will be 208 miles and over 12,000ft of climbing.? This ride will also be entirely self-supported, so we are taking precautions.?

In sum, on July 23, 2024, a couple of guys on either side of 50 are going to attempt something aimed at breaking us so we can honor and practice the art of enduring.? The challenge is not really the ride itself; it is that point in the ride when it appears we cannot go on for even another 400 meters.? Everything up to that point is just the walk up to the doorway of the challenge.? Whether we meet that challenge early due to cold, high wind, rain, snow, smoke or mechanical issues, or we meet it late when we are pushing ourselves back up the valley to Vail with road weary legs, eyes and lungs, what matter will be how we've trained our minds to respond.? Whenever that moment comes, we look forward to riding through the doorway and becoming something more than we are now.