Woe is me... aka "My disability is my greatest opportunity."

Long story short? I have had one of two things happen to me (So says the doctor):

1) A ruptured Quad tendon, going from my hip to my knee.... (probability +- 5%) or...

2)A torn quad muscle.

So - I am laid up for about three weeks... say some thoughts, say some prayers.... hopefully I'll get better soon! That is all for now...


Much love,

Kev

the image below highlights the proposed muscle tear-

Bike Repair, 101

So, my buddy Scooter just gave me a quick lesson on spoke tuning- my back wheel/tire on my mountain bike was knocked totally out of true when I wrecked my mountain bike in an adventure race this past weekend... So, he taught me how to balance my tire/wheel side to side, the wheel isn't perfect, but at least the bike is ridable until I can buy a new rear tire.

New Title, New Image, New Outlook...

So...

I have changed the title of this Blog to be more fitting. "The Adventures of Kev" was kind of cute, and yet, I realize I have grown out of the title as well.

Yes, I still have plenty of adventures... but after a climbing trip to the Tetons, I felt refreshed, renewed, and, looking back to ask the question :where am I at right now?" I think this title is more appropriate... After I have achieved a new perspective, I come to find another, and another..... and another. Maybe there are a few valleys along the way, offering a lull in perspective, a time of living in the present... but for me the summits are all about reflection- looking at where I once was. making sense of the valley of the daily task that I had just climbed out of. Does this make sense? I can go on rants that seem totally clear to me, but not so seen by others... kind of like route finding without a guidebook...

So I say to you my friends... you are missed. From the summits past and present of my crazy, work-filled, currently-nomadic, experiential/crazy life... I chose this path. Sometimes that means I am lonely on these peaks. I can always peer in to the valleys below and know that you all are there.... doing well. I may not be able to shout back to where you are? and you may not be able to see me way far above the treeline... but we're all still here... just spread out a little bit.

I close this entry with a quote from the french poet Rene Daumal:

One cannot stay on the summit forever -
One has to come down again.
So why bother in the first place? Just this.
What is above knows what is below -
But what is below does not know what is above

One climb, one sees-
One descends and sees no longer
But one has seen!

There is an art of conducting one's self in
The lower regions by the memory of
What one saw higher up.

When one can no longer see,
One does at least still know.


So there you have it, I will not always be on the summit. Someday I must come down. This journey is rich with life, and yet vacant all the same. At times I feel enriched by the solitude of adventure, and other times, I lament for the summit is a cold, lonely place.


May I always remember what I saw higher up... As we will always be beckoned to climb the summits beyond.


- Good night




image from: http://www.presscluboftibet.org/UserFiles/Mount_Everest.jpg

"One way to pick a future is to believe it's inevitable. "

It has been a long while since my last entry and I received this quote in my e-mail inbox from the "Outward Bound Daily Quote" e-mail that I receive. This quote seemed quite appropriate for me to share considering what I have been through in the past month...


I started off with a climbing trip beginning in the Grand Tetons. Alpine climbing at its finest- late August storms brought a wintery mix, including upwards of three feet of snow above 10,000 feet. So, my climbing party decided that we should head out of dodge... We then went to Devil's Tower and on to the Needles of South Dakota's Black Hills. I will post some pictures at some point- it was challenging great fun, and I truly learned a lot.

But, what really sparked my influence from this quote is the 12-hour adventure race I did this past weekend. Sponsored by the TralBlazers Adventure Racing club, this race took place in the hills of northern Georgia, near the Tallulah Gorge... I was able to race with my friends Zach and Donna- two of my greatest friends from college... point being, without bogging you down with too many details just yet, we raced for a personal team total of 15 hours and 19 minutes (not including a two hour deduction searching for a missing checkpoint marker- equaling an actual 13 hours and 15 minutes of racing).

During the race, I flipped over the handle bars of my bike, significantly injuring my left thigh- a pretty deep muscle bruise on the mid quadracep (right where the two top thigh muscles meet)... However, we knew we were finishing. It was ou first adventure race, so we went conservative on obtaining optionl checkpoints- choosin to stick with just required check-ins. At any rate. For me to finish the race I had to tell myself that my leg didn't hurt, and that it was necessary to run like I was,or to jog like I was, or to shrug off the newly acquired incapacity of upper left leg.

So, I did determine my future...that completing this race was just like facing bad weather in the Tetons; "It's gonna be okay," "You are going to finish safely..."

From the sharp end of the rope to the adventure racing circuit... the power of the human mind, body, and spirit never ceases to amaze me.

More to come later, glad to be back on the scene...

Much love,


Kevin


p.s. Racing with two of my great friends only helped me realize how much missing of my friends I actually do. Yeah - crazy... I think I have a litle bit of "uh oh are we all going to grow apart" anxiety..... any suggestions?