The Ghan

Have you pledged yet?

I have had the chance to talk to about a half dozen of the students who have been applying for the scholarship because they have personally come in to get the application from me. In each case I explained to them that the amount of the award was not certain and that they needed to find people to make pledges. In each case I never saw concern in their eyes, only steely optimism about the future. This particular experience has been entirely motivating for me because I have been thinking, or perhaps worrying, about whether or not I will be successful on the day of the ultra-marathon.

I think about what would happen if something as simple as a cold hit me the day of the run, or perhaps I might turn my ankle on a root during the first few miles rendering me incapable of finishing. It could very easily ruin the day, but would it ruin the project as a whole? Yes and no. In truth I want to hand a student the largest check I can. I hope that the donations will spill over the $2,500 mark and fill the coffers for next year as well. What if it doesn’t though? What has been gained if this does not happen?

This blog is part of an alternative outcome. I suppose that I could simply write a check to the student from my own savings. However, I want to demonstrate to each of the applicants as well as other students who may stumble across this that I am trying to live the values that I espouse. There is often the impression among students that teachers “talk the talk” but don’t “walk the walk”: the writing teacher who never writes; the health teacher who drinks too much; the administrator who lectures on ethical actions and then deals in amorality. I do not want to be a teacher who instructs on the value of struggling to achieve goals and then cuts genuine effort from my own life. For this reason I am trying, through this blog, to expose the difficulties that I am dealing with as I prepare. I want my students and the applicants to come to realize that success is not certain for me and that the preparation is often grueling and devoid of appreciation.

In that vein, I have always hated the aphorism, “It’s the journey not the destination”, because it is both cliché and devoid of truth. Of course the destination matters. Of course the goal is important. The destination itself is a crucial component of the trip. But what if you never got there or the result was not how you imagined it? My father and I traveled in Australia several years ago. We met in Darwin on the north coast and then traveled by train to Alice Springs in the center of the continent. I suppose I could have flown directly to that small city which anchors the heart of Australia. I remember a fair amount of that city, but most of the images which were powerfully cemented into my memory are all framed by the window of the Ghan railway train. Alice Springs was washed out in drab desert colors while the desert from the Ghan was romantically wild, hostile and beautiful, as well as harsh but hospitable.

The Ghan now runs from Darwin to Aidelaide, three thousand kilometers away on the south coast. This railway, which was started in 1878, was not finished, though, until 2004. It took 126 years to achieve the goal of linking the polar ends of the continent. No one who first conceived of it lived to witness the completion. In fact flash floods frequently washed away portions of the original line. Service was notoriously unreliable. Eventually a large portion of the railway was abandoned. Now the old route is a sandy track through the desert, and innumerable, rusting iron spikes litter the route as a testament to the country’s long term vision and willingness to tear up a recognizable failure and move forward. Darwin, like Alice Springs, is not particularly remarkable. It is the parallel threads of steel which wend their way through the desert that stop a traveler in his tracks and cause him to wonder whether he need to ever get to his destination at all.

Yesterday I spent an hour on the bike to relieve some of the wear and tear accrued in the more slender and sensitive fibers of my legs by the many miles run so far. Even though it was a day for recovery, I pushed my lungs. For an hour I studiously monitored and regulated my heart rate. The target was 145 beats per minute. I know from experience that I can hang there indefinitely, while still exerting genuine effort. It is the target heart rate for the ultra-marathon. The goal for the day was not so much exercise as it was discipline. Resisting the urge to soft pedal or drive hard was the objective. Staying focused on the goal was the goal. At sixty-five minutes I plowed through the invisible tape at the end of the ride. However, there were no handshakes. No one dumped a jug of Gatorade on my head. As I gently pedaled through the cool down, my ten year old Siberian husky wandered lazily into the room, licked the sweat from my calf, and then ambled off. It was one more workout—an iron spike driven home—that anchored down future success. It was one more workout that pushed the tracks deeper into the desert—a place filled with unquantifiable uncertainty.