I'm killin' it!

My last few runs have been immensely successful. 

Thursday was a hard kick: 2.9 miles in 20 minutes, 12 seconds (6:58 per mile pace).

Friday started out slow...: 2.4 miles in 19 minutes, 27 seconds (8:06 per mile pace),

...then ended with a kick: 1.2 miles in 8 minutes flat (6:40 per mile pace).

For a Friday total of: 3.6 miles in 27 minutes, 27 seconds (7:37 pace).

Finally, today, Saturday, was my long run day: 5.75 miles in 44 minutes, 7 seconds (7:40 pace).

Last year, I ran my 5k at the Dublin Irish Festival in a disheartening time of over 24:30.

Seven days from now, my first 5k of the season, the Race for the Cure through downtown Columbus.

My goal is to finish in under 22 minutes, which for a 3.1 mile race, is at about a 7:06 pace. I've got about four more days to train before taking Thursday and Friday off. Let's do this.

Reclaiming old form

Just had a fantastic run today. 20 minutes, 12 seconds in just a shade under three miles (about 2.9). The conditions were perfect: a light drizzle with no wind and 63 degrees. I've always run my best times in that kind of weather.

We're nine days away from the Race for the Cure 5k in Columbus. The goal remains to break 22 minutes. Today has me encouraged.

Looking back

The following is an old newspaper column I wrote when I was the sports editor at The Athens Messenger. It was written sometime early in January 2005, and might be one of my favorite pieces of writing I've ever assembled. It's funny reading this over three years later to think about the many things which have changed, yet the many things which have stayed the same. Enjoy.

When the sun calmly and peacefully rises tomorrow morning, set aside a moment to soak in its astonishing beauty.

Maybe you'll catch a peek through the window as you wake up in the comfort of your warm, welcoming bed. Maybe you'll see it on your drive to work with the heat blasting, a cup of coffee in hand, and a radio disc jockey keeping you company. No matter how you choose to look at it, it won't be anything like the way Aaron Dowis sees it. In fact, it's amazing to comprehend that you're even viewing the same star in the sky, considering the drastically different backdrops.

Aaron is a specialist in the 1st battalion of the 21st infantry unit of the U.S. Army in Iraq. He wanted to be an army ranger, but he broke his collarbone in airborne school, so the army stationed him in Hawaii before sending him abroad. Each time Aaron watches the sun rise, he's one day closer to coming home. He and his comrades are heading back to Hawaii in mid-February. Their replacements have just arrived, so the mission for each individual is simple: keep Iraq as stable as possible during the upcoming elections, then get the hell out of there.

He's been in the war-torn country for 15 months. He's 21 years old, he loves baseball, and he has a beautiful girlfriend whom he's seen 14 days in the last two years. He gets out of the army in September, when he'll finally get to go to college.

Aaron is a completely, totally normal American man. Growing up, Aaron was probably just like your typical kid next door. Actually, for me, Aaron was the kid next door.

Living on a farm 45 minutes north of Columbus, Aaron and I formed a friendship around one common bond: an absolutely obsessive passion for sports. There wasn't a whole lot else we had alike. He wanted to move to rural Texas and become a farmer; I wanted to move to New York City and be a big-time sports journalist. He loves his country music; I listen to alternative rock. He drove a shiny, blue pick-up truck; I zipped around in a tiny, rusted sedan. He worked in his family's barns with horses, chicken and swine; I worked at an uppity, high-end ice cream parlor. But the years we spent playing makeshift sports as the only guys within miles of each other created some of the best memories of my life. For Aaron, they are memories of an America that he hasn't seen in over a year.

We played basketball on a hoop nailed to a post on a barn, dribbling on a dirt floor with ruts which gave Aaron a definite home-court advantage. We made first-down chains with wood from a broken fence post and yarn. We lived out our dreams pitching BP to each other using the walls of the horses' home as a backstop.

They were dreams of stepping to the plate in the bottom of the ninth inning during Game Seven. Those dreams faded long ago for me, but they are dreams that keep Aaron going everyday among the gunshots, chaos and detonating bombs.

"I've decided to go and try out for a minor league baseball club," Dowis told me recently in an email from Iraq. Why shouldn't he? If he can survive more than a year of war, then surviving a couple of cuts at spring training certainly isn't unreasonable. "I know it's a long shot," he admitted, "but at least I would never tell myself I didn't try. I don't think I would ever forgive myself if I just didn't do it."

Aaron certainly has a lot working against him. He'll be competing against players who workout 12 months a year, some of whom are undoubtedly using illegal performance-enhancing drugs. While those ballplayers are busy cheating, Aaron's preoccupied with other things, like protecting their freedom.

"I don't have a lot of time to train over here," Dowis added. "But a buddy of mine helps me out as much as he can just to keep the rust off."

So while Roger Clemens is asking for $22 million through arbitration, Aaron Dowis is only asking for a chance. That wasn't meant to take a cheap shot at Clemens. Compared to the work (and pay) of military men and women, every baseball player gets too much money. But hey, that's America. The America Aaron is risking his life to defend.

He didn't get to see any of the historic 2004 World Series. He said it's the first time he can ever remember missing the Fall Classic of the national pastime.

Think about that. While Republicans and Democrats were endlessly bickering last October, the Boston Red Sox actually won the World Series, and Aaron Dowis missed it. It was the on-field sports story of the millennium, and it was hardly even on this baseball lover's mind. While we were so worried about who would lead the nation, we forgot that what's really important is the people who make up the nation. Aaron has sacrificed because he wants the world to be a better place, and America is a better country because he's a part of it.

Aaron and millions of others have kept us safe so we can try to achieve the American Dream. Soon, it will be time for Aaron to chase his dream of playing baseball. Remember, his goal was to be an army ranger, and he always wanted to live in Texas, so maybe he can get the best of both worlds by playing for the franchise George W. Bush used to own: The Texas Rangers.

As far as I'm concerned, whether he makes a team or not is irrelevant. What's important is that Aaron Dowis embodies the purest love of a game that is most identifiable with his country. Aaron is someone we need to root for, whether it's praying for his safe return or applauding his trip to the plate. And if he gets there, we can finally return to the days of Bob Feller and Ted Williams, the days when we cheer on true sports heroes.

Coming full circle

After yesterday's blog entry, I was pretty surprised by what I found early this morning looking back on some of the old blogs I've written.

The first blog post of my entire life came the day before my 24th birthday: June 21, 2006. I was at the low-point of my depression over a failed relationship and a lack of confidence. My outlook on life was nothing like it is now, nothing like what was portrayed in yesterday's entry. Yet somewhere deep inside of me, the same idea was trying to work its way out of me: dare to be great.

We all have choices as to how we spend our free time. I suggest this: spend your free time doing something you'll remember in five years. That might not sound significant, but stop and think about it. What was your life like five years ago? Where did you work? Who did you talk to everyday? Five years is just a sliver of our lives, but in that short amount of time, we forget a lot. And the day-to-day that seems so important at the time gets swept under the rug as life flies by.

If you can look back at something five years ago and you remember it, it was significant. It left an impact. Memories stay with people for the funniest reasons. I remember five years ago, I went for a 14-mile run every Sunday night for like five straight weeks. I haven't figured out yet how that affected my life, but there's a reason it stands out to me now, when I can't tell you a damn thing I did the other 6 days and 22.5 hours of those weeks. But I remember that I went for those runs, and it gives me a sense of accomplishment.

Do something you'll remember in five years. It's an insurance policy. Make sure you have something to smile about in five years.

Funny how while some things in life change, some often stay the same.

My greatest commitment

No, I'm not getting hitched. I'm not even beginning a relationship. I'm not changing careers or starting my own business. My commitment isn't attached to a sports team or a dog or a new idea for a book or a CD of original music or any person in my life.

My new commitment, and hopefully my greatest and most successful commitment I'll ever have to anything of this world, is to myself.

Today, I signed up for the Chicago Distance Classic, a half-marathon racing right through the heart of the Windy City on Sunday, August 10, 2008. My goal is actually a pretty lofty one, considering I've never run an official half-marathon before. I want to finish in 1 hour, 45 minutes, which is a pace of almost exactly 8 minutes per mile. It's a humbling goal for a kid who ran high school cross country and kicked through 5k courses at a sub-6-minute-mile average, but years of alcohol, smokes, potato chips and athletic indifference can obviously change things drastically.

This is not going to be easy. Not only will it take the discipline to get out and bust my ass everyday, but it will also take a lifestyle change toward which I've slowly been transforming in the past six weeks.

A lot of people wonder why I'm doing this, the same way people have wondered why I've recently shaved my head or why I have given up the internet at home or why I've signed up to volunteer for Big Brothers Big Sisters. I've even had one friend ask if it was a cry for attention. Ironically, it's the exact opposite. I've never needed others' attention less in my life.

I have the answer, and I can try to explain, but not everyone will understand because not everyone has the same view on life I do. It's like standing on the edge of the Grand Canyon with your heels on rock and your toes on thousands of feet of open air. You're so humbled, so awestruck, so breathless, so inspired to share the moment with someone that you pull out your cell phone and call them immediately. But you quickly realize that your most eloquent Shakespearean effort to describe what lies before you doesn't change the fact that the person on the other end of the conversation has their nose 16 inches away from a computer screen. They just can't understand what you're feeling, experiencing, living. But you want to share, so you try. Thus, I'll try with you.

I've wondered a lot recently where exactly confidence comes from. I'm talking about it's true all-time origin in each individual. Some people are complete shitheads, yet have tons of it. Others possess marvelous quality, but they don't radiate that quality because their confidence has been buried by an avalanche of negative life experiences. I've pondered the mystery that is human confidence, when it develops, how it grows or retreats and whether it's something that is coachable and attainable on one's own, or something that's sort of like a talent, an unacquirable gift from God.

I've never ever been a person with great confidence, yet I've almost always liked who I am. I think it can be best described as having a great sense of self-worth, but having very little faith that others are capable of seeing that value, probably based on a track record of previous occasions.

Because I'm an intensely loud, friendly and social person, I have an burning desire to be liked. This desire to be accepted is so extreme that I have a hard time settling for my large, high-quality set of friends. I can't accept someone's anti-social actions toward me as ignorant or shrug off a negative person's opinion of me as irrelevant. My need to win over people consumes me emotionally. Their rejection gives me great paranoia. It's strong enough to make me question my worth to society or question whether my friends' interest in me is genuine. I'm obsessed with showing people the sides of me which I love about me, and if those sides don't pique the interest of others, it hurts. Bad.

It comes from a collection of circumstances. I've suffered through some tough breakups. I've always wished I was more popular growing up. I've never been a guy who women flock toward. In addition, I'm highly competitive and I always want to win, whether it's at a game of trivia or at a game of let's-see-who-can-make-the-most-money-this-calendar-year.

But with an intense desire to compete and an intense desire to be loved, there can sometimes be great disappointments in life. When a woman breaks my heart, it makes me try harder to attract girls, but it seems the harder I try, the harder I fall. When I see others have the success I want in life, I become jealous and I try harder, but when my efforts fail, I become more frustrated than motivated by my lack of progress. In each one of these situations, I'm letting others control my happiness, because I am dependent upon their approval of me or their status relative to mine in order for me to find my own satisfaction.

But recently, I've realized that the more I yearn for others' approval, the more I will continue to fail, because other people are far too easily capable of letting you down, whether they're doing it innocently or maliciously. I can't control what other people think about anything, so I certainly have very little control over what they think of me. I can hope kindness wins them over, but if I don't interest or excite them, ultimately I lose. I have no control over that. In fact, there are only two entities in existence that anyone is capable of controlling when it comes to opinions: themselves and God.

God will love me unconditionally so long as I choose to be true to Him. And so long as I am true to myself, I cannot let myself down either. So my attention has shifted lately. I have literally given up trying to impress other people, because due to everyone's differences in opinions and preferences, there's really nothing I can do to convince anyone of anything. All I'm worried about is impressing God and impressing myself.

The best way to impress God is to loyally do what He asks. It's not always easy, but it's definitely not complicated. It's much more complicated trying to impress yourself, so long as you have an honest, objective conscience, which I think I've been blessed with. I've concluded the only way to do this is by challenging yourself with something daunting yet attainable and worthwhile, and then rising to that challenge.

I used to spend minutes a day just staring into the mirror, wishing I was more physically attractive to women. I'd spend tons of time on my hair, rigging my appearance to the point where I felt it was passable with a D-minus. When I wanted to change my attitude to give myself more confidence and stop looking at myself in such a superficial way, I shaved my head. It's amazing, but when I look in the mirror, I hardly even recognize my old self. I feel like a new person is looking back at me. Some people may consider it an uglier person, but that's not the point. Several people have had the gall (but the respectable honesty) to tell me they don't like my shaved head. But I'm continuing to do it anyway. To me, it's not about being attractive according to anyone else's standards anymore. It's about being attractive to my own, which includes a sporting a low-maintenance look that can allow me to focus on other parts of my personality.

I used to waste hours a day idly chatting on the internet. It was a borderline addiction and nothing useful was coming from it. So I decided to do something which was probably drastic and completely unnecessary: I challenged myself to completely give it up, so I can do something better with that time. I've started running almost daily, reading, writing, playing more music and freeing up time to better myself as a person and as a professional.

I challenged myself to make a difference in someone else's life. Since joining Big Brothers Big Sisters, I've seen my new friend Stevie's grade card improve from a 1.7 GPA to a 3.5. I promised him he is one more 3.5 away from a new guitar. It's a hit in the wallet I'll happily take, and I'm sure he'll happily take me up on.

Which brings me to my most recent challenge. The Chicago Distance Classic. My first ever half-marathon. I know I've got a long road ahead of me, literally. My 3-5 mile runs are currently pretty painful, but I know I'll get better with time. I think we ignore that corny old phrase "you can do anything if you put your mind to it" because we forget that it's actually possible. Think of the power we have as humans! The world is ours for the taking, as long as we attack it with the passion and determination to prove to ourselves what great things we know we can do, instead of worrying about what other's think we can't.

I haven't come anywhere close to figuring out life, and I certainly know I'm a long way from fixing my confidence. I still feel like I don't stand out to women when I first meet them. I still struggle with trying to be accepted. But I can also honestly say that thanks to the many good people I have around me in life, I am the happiest I've ever been in my life. I haven't yet defined confidence because I'm not sure exactly what it is, but I am pretty sure that in its truest form, it's largely unshakable and it stems from a great comfort and knowledge of one self's truest colors. The more I challenge myself and the more I live life to the fullest with the people I love, the closer I'll come to understanding confidence, and hopefully one day gaining it. And once I have it, it won't be artificially manufactured by what pop culture deems trendy. It will be genuine, and it will have made the struggle to find it worth the journey.

It will be something that can't let me down. It'll be something no one can take away from me.