A Trip Down Memory Lane
Introduction
In high school, one of my goals was to get a chance to run competitively in college. Although I faced many injury-related challenges, I still made attempts to contact college coaches to search for an opportunity. Of the 15 coaches that I emailed, only 2 coaches responded. One coach told me I was not fast enough to walk on. The other coach was Mark Misch of the University of Colorado Colorado Springs. After conversation with Coach Misch and ongoing expressed interest, I received an email in May of 2013 confirming a spot on UCCS’s team as a walk-on. I arrived in Colorado in August of 2013 and pursued collegiate athletics while pursuing academic goals simultaneously. After graduating from UCCS in May 2017 and going back to California, I continued to make intermittent trips to Colorado to visit former teammates and college friends. The last trip to Colorado for me was in February 2020, just before the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. Below is the timeline of events that led me to the weekend and some thoughts behind the whole experience of going back for the first ever UCCS cross country alumni reunion celebrating the 25th year of the program (which was actually the 27th year as the 25th year was in 2020 and the reunion had to be postponed), as well as reflections on the event.
April 2022
Coach Misch brought 3 athletes out to the Stanford Invitational and this is the first time I have seen Coach Misch since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic (you can read about the full meet recap here). He tells me about the reunion, and I tell him that I will do my very best to make it out to Colorado. We go our separate ways after the meet concludes, the hope established that we will see each other again in September.
September 2, 2022
After landing in Denver and spending the previous night at the outskirts in Brighton, I made the drive down to Colorado Springs. Along the way, I stop at the Spruce Mountain Open Space for a solo hike. I was inspired to go on this hike from a long run I did back in college. This long run was not particularly fast, but it was memorable. I kept a meticulous log of all of my runs in college, and below is part of the entry I pulled from my college journal:
Date: 9/27/2014
Long run today… We met at the parking lot at the Greenland Open Space greeted by a beautiful sunrise. Sunrises never get old out here. Coach talked about the assigned minutes for everyone as well some announcements before we started our run. From there I ran towards the Spruce Mountain Open Space, winding through the trails carved out in the pastures. I ran by the Spruce Mountain Open Space parking lot, and continued along the north side in a single file line. The single track I was running on was actually really cool, and I liked it a lot. I hadn’t run this section before so it was a nice change of scenery.
At around 30 minutes, i came into a valley that was absolutely breathtaking. Man, it was really awesome. Like I felt like someone could have taken a picture of us with the valley in the background, and put the picture on a postcard. There were also some really nice houses that looked like the type of cabin Quenton Cassidy lived in when he moved to Bruce Denton’s cabin to train. (annotation - this is a reference to one of my favorite books Once a Runner by John L. Parker)
Inspired by this particular run 8 years prior, I hiked the same trail that I had run, and reflected on both how long ago that particular run had happened as well as how far I had come with my recovery from surgery on my back just over 6 weeks prior. After the hike, I drove to Colorado Springs, stopping at the University Village Shopping Center for food. Located at the base of the hill that UCCS sits on, this particular shopping center was home to many post-run meals, post-race meals and trips to Costco. It is also the same plaza where I worked my first ever job: a cashier/busboy at SmashBurger, a job I worked while in pursuit of the collegiate athletics dream in the summer of 2014 to help contribute in some way to empowering the team to qualify for the NCAA national cross country championships. I have never stepped foot in that Smashburger again ever since that summer, but can still remember the hours on end running the register, hand-spinning milkshakes, serving food, cleaning the store, and intermittently getting yelled at by ungracious customers. The most important thing I learned at SmashBurger? You never know what a stranger’s backstory is or what their aspirations are. I sat in this plaza writing the beginning of this blog post before catching up with two my close friends from college over dinner, fellow Elmwood members Ryan Doner and Jared Mannar. As expected with all good friendships, our time catching up was filled with stories, laughs and mutual roasting. After a round of ice cream, I split to go to my hotel for the evening.
September 3, 2022
Today was the 15th annual UCCS Rustbuster, as well as the Alumni reunion. The Rustbuster was up first in the morning. I arrived early in the morning just as packet pickup began, and made my way around the park greeting former teammates and friends. I find Coach Misch of course, and he greets me with a hug and a classic shake of my arm (if you know, you know). Misch and I talked, and it was great to be able to see him considering that the last time he saw me, I was still in pain with my back injury. Since I was not running, I spent my time throughout the morning catching up with former UCCS teammates who also were not running and cheering on UCCS runners, UCCS Alumni, and Elmwood Athletics members.
5 minutes before the race, Coach Misch gathered the entire team and all the alumni. He told everyone how great it was to have everyone out here for the race, and reminded the college men to race the first 2/3 with their heads, the last 1/3 with their hearts. We all put our hands into the center, and on the count of three, yelled out “Harambee!” Harambee. The motto of the team. The Swahili word for pulling together for a common purpose. An integral part of how I approached my college running career and a reminder that the sum of the whole is always greater than its parts. It sure felt good to yell that motto out loud and with pride once more.
Shortly after, the racing unfolded, the men’s race first followed by the women’s race. On the men’s side, the reigning NCAA Division II 5k national champion Afewerki Zeru won the race with a blistering sub 24:00 8k time. The first member from Elmwood Athletics was Willie Moore at just over 25:00, and Elmwood Athletics finished 3rd overall as a team against a field of collegiate teams behind only UCCS and CSU Pueblo. On the women’s side, the current outdoor track 5k school record holder Layla Almasri won the race handily with a sub 17:30 5k.
After the conclusion of the races and the awards ceremony, we all made our way to UCCS’s brand new indoor track facility, built in the last couple years and right after I graduated. Lunch was served, a classic catered affair of brisket sandwiches, mac & cheese, potato salad and beans. After lunch, both Coach Misch and Coach Kubatzky said a few words to thank everyone for coming out.
As Misch talked, he took the time to highlight the toughness of running in the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference, how it forges runners who are not just prepared to fight at the national level in cross country, but also prepared for the challenges that life brings. He talked about how everyone who has been through the UCCS program has had to struggle, and that there was no easy way to make it through without resilience.
I sat in my chair intently listening, thinking about how I was no exception and all too familiar with struggling in college. I thought about my initial transition to altitude, how I struggled to breathe on easy runs and could barely keep up with the team. I thought about how I grinded out 100 minutes on Gold Camp Road at over 7,000 ft. elevation at the end of my first week at altitude because I wanted to earn a chance to race at the Rustbuster. I thought about the winters in Colorado, trudging through miles upon miles of snow-covered trails and suffering every time there was a sub-zero degree Fahrenheit temperature day or a workout in the school parking garage. I thought about the trajectory of my final year of running and how it very much did not unfold as I had hoped. I thought about senior year cross country, how after getting into the best fitness of my college career yet in the summer, my races kept collapsing under the pressure of stress from professional and academic obligations. I thought about the low point of that season, a 29+ minute 8k at the Metro State invitational where I sat in the back of the team bus afterwards crying and initially refusing to eat lunch because I believed that my sacrifices for the dream of making a national team were for nothing and that I didn’t deserve to eat for a perceived failing. I thought about my senior year of indoor track, how I struggled to race due to the immense stress from physical therapy school interviews. I thought about my outdoor track season, how a poorly timed illness contracted from exposure to raw sewage that flooded my house basement led to a loss of 75% of my outdoor season and an absolute disaster of a 1500 m. race in St. Louis that ended with me sitting on the infield crying. I thought about the lengths I went to in order to give myself one last chance to run a college personal best in the 1500 m. in San Diego, how I paid out of pocket for everything, slept on my friends couch before the race and slept on the floor in the airport afterwards.
I thought about how many struggles there were along the way. I thought about how I persevered despite those struggles, and how those struggles shaped my overall life trajectory.
After the coaches gave their remarks, they opened the floor for alumni to speak. It was very cool to see multiple generations of athletes go to the front to share their experiences and a little surreal to think that we had people from as far back as the inception of the program 27 years prior. After a few alumni had made their statements, closing remarks were given, pictures were taken, and then the remainder of time was leftover for people to socialize. The rest of the day was spent in various intervals catching up with friends and former teammates. As I used the time during the reunion and at an evening local bar gathering to continue to catch up with former teammates, it was a reminder that despite all of the struggles, sacrifices, failures, and tears, that these things alone didn’t define my college career or my legacy. I thought about one of my favorite memories from freshman year of college, a very long road trip to Silver City, New Mexico with former teammate Forrest Hough and current Elmwooders Jarrett Eller and Ryan Doner to race the open 8k at the RMAC cross country championships. I laughed about my trip to Kenya the summer before my senior year of cross country and just a fraction of the chaotic adventures that unfolded with UCCS alumni David Kimaiyo and Christo Clements as well as Elmwooder Brian Marshall. I reminisced about running middle distance interval workouts my senior year with UCCS alumni David Higgins, Gary Kurtz, Charlie Kieffer and Christo Clements, how we worked well together and used our different strengths to push each other. I recalled watching the 2019 NCAA cross country national championships in Sacramento and hugging Gary Kurtz at the finish area, both of us in tears. Mine were for the joy of celebrating the triumph of an 800 m. specialist who walked-on, faced countless injuries, and overcame adversity to toe the line of a national championship 10k cross country race. His were for gratitude, gratitude for a former teammate who never stopped believing in underdogs, comebacks, and the courage to not give up in the face of seemingly stacked odds. While this last memory was not one that happened when I was still at UCCS, the foundation of belief and empowerment to help make this possible was built during my college days and for that I am grateful.
September 4, 2022
This day was my last day in Colorado Springs before going up to Boulder in the evening. Elmwooders Willie Moore, Zev Caiyem and Jeff Wilson headed up to the Rocky Mountain Mennonite Camp in the afternoon. It reminded me of my trips to team camp. One of the highlights of team camps was the talent show where different athletes would showcase talents, skits, music and more. My freshman year in 2013 was the inaugural year with a hodgepodge of performances, most contestants coming up with last minute performances of mildly questionable yet highly entertaining quality. The quality and entertainment value has of course improved from what I have heard, and it is fun to hear that after 9 years the talent show is still going strong. Whether the annual ping pong tournament is also still ongoing is unknown to me, but could most likely be answered simply by asking someone on the current team.
September 5, 2022
I spent the full day in Boulder hanging out with my good friend David Marino. We ended up going to a barbecue hosted by Marino’s friends. One of Marino’s friends asked us, “How did you guys meet?” Our initial meeting happened through my freshman year college roommate and former teammate who introduced me to Marino when we went over to Marino’s house for a post-run ice bath. Never did I predict that Marino would end up becoming one of the most influential people in my college running career. From living, training and dreaming together during the summer of 2014 to the winter of early morning pre-class runs in 2015, from teaching me how to cook a mean breakfast skillet to believing in me in times when I didn’t believe in myself, David Marino was arguably one of the most important people to shape my college athlete development. I can say with 100% confidence I would not be the person and runner that I am today without some degree of positive influence from Marino, and it is why after 9 years and counting, he is still an important person in my life.
September 6, 2022
After saying my goodbyes to Marino, I traveled to the airport to fly back to California. I sat on the plane writing up another portion of this blog post, thinking about how short my trip had seemed. I had just enough time to catch up with most everyone, but would never say no to more time. I thought about how long it had been since I had visited, and wondered about how long it would be before I visit again.
Conclusion
From a purely competitive standpoint that does not take academics into account, my collegiate career was nothing to write home about. The most important things that I got out of running competitively at UCCS for 4 years was not the PRs nor the accolades though. The most important things that I got out of my time at UCCS was the friendships made and the personal growth. When you push yourself towards the upper limits of what you are capable of in a particular realm (whether it is athletics, career development or another aspect of life), you have the opportunity to learn some very interesting and pivotal things about yourself. To have the opportunity to do this while surrounded by a group of people also trying to do the same thing and supporting each other in a common goal is an incredibly rare experience. As I go through different stages of life, I believe that good people are hard to find, but I am confident currently that I have found at least a few people through my collegiate running career that are important enough to me to keep in touch for a lifetime. As for the impact that one has on a collegiate team, sometimes it is not the impact that one hoped to have, but the impact ends up being the one that was supposed to happen. I cannot stress enough how special it is to see the UCCS program in an entirely different stratosphere of competitiveness on the national level. When I went through the program, UCCS was still in the space of fighting just to qualify for the national championships with only one trip for a full men’s team in 2014, and to see the men’s team in 2021 finish 5th in the nation spearheaded by an outdoor track national champion is really quite amazing. Looking back on the achievements of the UCCS program and its potential for the future, I am proud to say that I am an alumni of UCCS. Go Mountain Lions!
Thanks to Coach Misch for taking a chance on a walk-on from California.
