These are photos and words that I like. But moreover, they are honest.

Things have changed since we last conversed and what follows will be different as well. Anytime you tell your own story, or stories about people you care about, I think you picture telling a story of triumph. This bit of the story isn’t that. But when the story is finished it certainly may be.

I hope you enjoy this bit of insight into what it’s like to be at Northwoods’ 2022 Winter Camp.

Bentonville: Entry 002

I savor the silent hours and when they break. The quiet winding into the night when Haak and Sarah have retired to their beds and Buddy lays in the corner of the living room—near the door to the water heater—and sees to his paws and all his parts before fading beneath his heavy eyelids. Ben has his headphones in and has stretched out across the whole couch—arms crossed not unlike a pharaoh. He catches up on his favorite news shows and peruses YouTube for something that catches his liking. Sometime soon, as bedtime approaches, we’ll take to stretching and rolling, and then that ritual will begin again: the doors are locked, the light-switches are pulled down, and Buddy is forced into the night to pee.

Often I start my day last, waking up to a house that’s already alive, and I shake hands with the infectiously happy seven month old that I’ve shared a wall with since Dan left. He’s a strapping gentleman already—save for the occasional silent and gentle vomiting. He cares little for how your run went or how heavy the lift felt or how your body feels. He’s happy. And it’s hard to stop the four-toothed smile and his content mumblings from lifting your spirits whether they needed lifting or not.

The other evening, when Ben and I set out over snow and ice for the second time that day, we spent the run considering the metrics of a good training camp: weather, proximity to soft surfaces, the people, track access etc. It hasn’t been an easy camp. It would be great if we could train in a vacuum, if the weather and the things going on in our lives bared little influence on training. But that’s not how it works. That’s why Dan isn’t here. How physically fit you are, is only one of the prerequisites for performance. You have to address the context.

The warm days are windy, often brutally so. And the cold days are, well, freezing. It’s the type of weather that breaks you down overtime—even more when you’re going at it solo. And believe me I would love to line up in front of Ben and drag the plow through the fields, but I’m still sitting at the negotiation table—the same one I’ve sat myself at since we got here—asking my right leg what it might take for it to finally relent to the miles.

But you keep showing up. You go home. You visit Rise Physical Therapy over and over again. You get yourself the help you need. And you keep swinging and swinging and swinging until that tree falls.

Dan finishes up an easy run with some strides and 200s on Old Tiger Track. The public track is lit by streetlights until 11pm.

Dan and Ben pass some familiar faces during their 12 mile run in Centerton.

Somewhere in and beyond the barbed wire and barking dogs that line every dirt road tossed loosely upon the grid, where there is nothing but flat farm fields and leafless trees, cows and horses, and houses left to decay, there is room for yourself. It’s an American minimalism. Where the yards littered in excess are so few and far between and what comes in the middle is so sparse and bland, that there is little to filter out if you are keen on seeing where your mind might take you. And the things that are beautiful, the lone trees, a trim horse, the rare bend in the road, stand so starkly against their backdrop that it is hard not to be struck by them.

It’s a place that I think I would like had I run more than the 280 miles I did and in larger chunks. They celebrate endurance athletes here, cyclists primarily, but it crosses over into running (University of Arkansas’ storied track program helps with that). I saw it first hand with Dan when we spent the weekend watching the Cyclocross World Championships—also known as the weekend when Fayetteville had the highest rate of tight jeans and mustaches per capita in the country.

I even spent a weekend with the University of Washington guys when they flew in with a small squad to race at the indoor track and set the fastest DMR time in the NCAA.

And I spent many a night playing Call of Duty with Ben and Dan, laughing at how ridiculous of a person Ben is. Like when we went slice for slice on pizza, like we often do, and some hours after dinner, when he opened up the door for Buddy to pee one last time, he spit out the open frame and groaned that he was going to throw up. I’m going to miss those first hours of the morning and those last hours of the night the most—the peaceful ones when there was little to be had except our own company.

Obviously I wish things had gone differently for me. And it is silly to let running dictate how I feel, but it’s hard not to when you are at a running camp. I’m putting the rest of my life on hold to be here in a place where I know no one and will probably never visit again. I miss California, my family, my friends. And I haven’t cross trained or run enough to let fatigue cover that up.

Bentonville is a changing place. And if we came back in five years it would be an entirely different experience. It seems like there’s new construction on every block. I hope they refrain from paving the smooth dirt that has made Bentonville a mecca for gravel cycling. But I suppose if they do, you would still be able to coil the mountain biking trails into a pile that would loom hundreds of miles tall.

I’m going to stop writing and go ride Sarah’s bike. I need to do something today and it’s hot and I’ll enjoy it. Hell, I may even bike to Airship Coffee in Coler Park, a cafe accessible only to pedestrians and bikes, and get myself a smoothie that I’ll drink atop the roof in the sun. Yeah, that sounds like an alright plan. I think I’ll do that.

Wishing you all the best from Northwest Arkansas,

Ben post run at Buttram Cemetery during one of our last evenings together.