 
American Flats

© 2020 By Hal Walter

Out There Publishing

www.hardscrabbletimes.com

jackassontherun@gmail.com

Cover design and photo by the author

American flag by vecteezy.com

Contents

Foreword

The Distance

A Perfect Season

Racing the Storm

Lightning in a Bottle

Ain't What it Used to Be

The True Meaning of Competition

A Season through the Spectrum

Onward to State

Becoming Coach Hal

The Lost Frontier

The Final Gift

A 10K Ultramarathon

Like Doing Art

Blue Rodeo

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# Foreword

American Flats is a huge alpine bowl in the shadow of Mosquito Pass. It is the heart of the matter in the 29-mile World Championship Pack-Burro race which I have run close to 40 times and won seven times. It is a rolling field of tundra, studded by boulders, painted by wildflowers and sliced by rollicking streams of snowmelt. Puffy clouds float by like parade balloons below a an azure sky. This expanse is encountered during the race at about 13 miles. The irony, of course, is it really isn't all that flat, and at 12,000-plus feet altitude runners and animals are typically slowed to a slow jog or a quad-burning forced march. The clock feels like it's in fast-forward mode while the body is locked in slow motion, often affording the illusion of one step forward and one step back. Sometimes feet sink into the spongy earth and shoes fill with water. The burros, enticed by the lush grass, forbs and legumes often try to grab bites instead of focusing on forward movement. Despite the beauty of this place, sometimes clouds of biting flies make things miserable and often the ominous threat of deadly thunderstorms loom. At the head of American Flats stands a headwall of talus and the thin steep trail that traverses up to the Mosquito Pass Road. Marmots and picas shriek at passers-by and the friendly ghosts of those who passed this way but are no longer with us whisper on the thin air. For those who make this journey to 13,172 feet, the view from summit that takes in several mountain ranges will take what is left of your breath away.

As I write this the Coronavirus is raging around the globe. People are sick and dying, and the rest of us are being urged to "social distance," "shelter in place" and "self-quarantine." Many are losing their jobs or livelihoods. The economy is in a tailspin. Society is in a panic. These are uncertain times indeed.

As a "writer" or essayist, or whatever it is that I will be called when this journey is over, I've navigated plenty of uncertain times professionally. My book Full Tilt Boogie may have been the peak of my writing career and I'm OK with that. In the years following FTB my efforts seem to have been a bit flat, as I have focused more on raising and coaching my son Harrison, who has autism, than I have on writing. However in these years I've turned out a few essays that I hope continue to share my own humble take on what John Steinbeck called "that glittering instrument, the human soul."

I am now 60. In this past year I lost my mom, and also found out, well after the fact, that my biological father with whom I'd had no contact since age 7 had also died. Things like this tend to bring one's own mortality into focus. Then came the Coronavirus, which if nothing else for me was a reality-check into my own sense of self-importance. Am I doing anything that matters? Am I doing anything that will endure? Before the virus took hold on this world, I had been half-heartedly and slowly compiling some of my more-recent stories with the idea of producing a new collection. Some of these have been previously published in magazines such as Colorado Central. As people are isolating to help slow the spread of COVID-19, I sense the need for real connections, and there is no better lasting connection than the written word. So I've decided to follow the trend of other creative types and rush this thing to publication as a free ebook. These stories are raw, minimally edited and in no particular order. Consider them a mosaic — there is no attempt to weave them as vignettes into one larger story, though the reader is quite welcome to do so. I may revisit or add to this collection at some point. For now this is my gift and with it my hope that soon we will reach the summit and once again take in the beauty and wonder of our surrounding world.

— Hal Walter, March 25, 2020

# The Distance

It was the first meet ever held on the new track in the tiny town of Fairplay. The skinny blonde-haired boy from Custer County School lined up with the rest of the middle school 800-meter runners from all around the central Colorado region. When the starting gun sounded he got a great start, rounding the first corner in full stride with the pack.

On the track's back stretch, he began to lose ground. After rounding the second curve he veered off the track and over to some spectators along the fence. Then he got back on the track and hit the straightaway.

Before the bleachers he stopped and jogged in place, then he ran backward nearly wiping out the two lead runners who were by now finishing their second lap and charging toward the finish line. He started jogging forward again, but his efforts seemed to be absorbed in some other dimension altogether rather than propelling him forward.

I strode over to the inside curb of the track and attempted to encourage the boy to get running. The boy's name is Harrison, and he has autism. I am one of his coaches.

I am also his dad.

As other runners in the race were finishing, Harrison greeted my encouragement by flailing away at me with his arms, striking me right in front of the spectators. I asked him if he wanted to finish the race or to pack it in, and he started to jog forward again. He still had an entire lap to go. When he rounded the first curve the crowd started cheering, and he pulled his uniform shirt up over his head.

I was reaching the bailing point when something extraordinary happened. A team from the neighboring community of Cotopaxi came running up alongside us on the turf inside the track. They encouraged Harrison along. I took a step back and just watched.

What I saw was this group gain energy as kids from other teams joined in, including kids from Harrison's own school. And when they hit the straightaway in front of the bleachers, his shirt was no longer over his head and he took off sprinting the last few yards, and kept on running until he reached the chain-link fence encircling the sports field.

The kids continued after him, mobbing him with their congratulations. I stood back in the amazing glow of this deep sport moment, stunned by the compassion and sense of community that I just experienced. It wasn't the first experience like this I had since Harrison began running on the Custer County Schools cross country and track teams. And it would not be the last.

Harrison has always been a runner. He ran with his mom, Mary, before he was even born. He ran with us in a jogger as a small child. He ran his first 5K in grade school. Later he ran — and swam and biked — in the school triathlon. He is also a musical marvel with perfect pitch, can take apart door locks and clocks and put them back together again and excels in the computer lab. He is a wiz at the video game Minecraft. I prefer the term "neurodiverse" to autistic when describing him, as it sets aside the stereotypes so common in our society and, in turn, opens the possibilities.

On the way out the door on one of the last days of fifth grade, Jack Swartz, then the school's cross-country coach, who was also Harrison's fourth-grade teacher, asked him, to my surprise, if he wanted to be on the middle school cross-country team the next season. Harrison exuberantly replied, "Yes!"

Though I competed at running and in the extreme Colorado sport of pack-burro racing for decades, it was my philosophy to provide Harrison the opportunity and exposure to sports and the outdoors, but not pressure him into any activity. Oddly, before this moment, I had not even considered that he would ever be involved in school sports.

Now the coach put forth this remarkable invitation. I was "all in," as they say. And I was about to embark on a new journey into the world of something I call "deep sport." In my thinking, it is a place where triumph has a meaning separate from winning in the traditional sense. It is a place where richness and diversity com bine with a greater sense of community to celebrate the value of all human beings and their participation and success.

I sometimes joke that we could not have gotten away with such an unlikely narrative anywhere else, but in all seriousness, this experience of inclusion on academic, social and athletic levels is only made possible by the tight-knit philosophy of Westcliffe's small school, where grades K-12 are housed under one roof and where the larger regional community of rural schools welcomes us.

As part of the deal with the coaches and the school administration, I accompany Harrison to practices and also to competitions. As such, I'm sort of an adjunct volunteer parent-coach available to support the rest of the team as well.

That first year in cross-country proved to be a roller coaster of performances and emotions with Harrison's unpredictable behaviors. In his first meet at Avon-Beaver Creek, nobody knew what to expect. Harrison faces extreme behavioral challenges and battles with impulse control. However, in his first meet he ran well enough to help his five-man team place second among several larger schools. It was a lesson in teamwork for both him and his four teammates, who really needed him to finish in order to place as a team.

At the following meet in Pueblo, Harrison ran an even stronger race, and I felt like we really found another niche for him with cross-country. However, in his third meet in Westcliffe, he melted down terribly right in front of the hometown crowd, confused because the boys were running separately from the girls. This was something we tried to prepare him for, but which simply did not compute on race day. After an epic test of will and a lot of coaxing by coaches, race officials and myself, he finished last in front of a crowd that was cheering just as hard for him as they had for the winners.

Thus began a roller coaster of unpredictability. He ran just fine at the next meet in Salida. Then in Monte Vista he ran from the start over to the sidelines to comically high-five spectators before returning to the race and, of course, a lackluster performance.

A couple weeks later he repeated the high-five antics at the state meet in Arvada, losing so much time from the start that he was unable to recover. He wound up finishing last of several hundred entrants. I had a long winter to contemplate his participation in sports.

Suddenly it was spring track season and Harrison said he wanted to run. The coaches suggested the 400-meter dash and the 800-meter run. Since track and field involves a long day of events, the chaos of so many kids and so many activities tends to be a challenge for Harrison, scattering his focus. I worked out a system with the coaching staff so as to avoid having to wait a long time for his events amid the frantic activities of these meets.

We don't have track facilities in Westcliffe, so all spring events are at other area schools, many of them in the San Luis Valley where the culture of running is strong and deep. Harrison ran pretty well at meets in Mosca, Alamosa and Center. At the first meet in Mosca he finished the 400-meter dash, and kids from many of the surrounding schools surrounded and congratulated him. Puzzled by this, he yelled out, "Did I win?"

There was one kid in particular from another school who took notice of Harrison and offered words of encouragement during this meet. This boy quickly pointed to him and shouted back loudly, "Yes, you did!"

The following week at a meet in the town of Center this young man once again went out of his way to encourage Harrison. Just before the 800-meter run he asked me, "What's up with your son?"

I told him Harrison has autism and he nodded, telling me that he was in 8th grade and has a sister at home with Down syndrome. "I love her to pieces," he said.

There are moments in this life that restore my faith in humanity, and this was one of them. His words stuck with me the next couple of meets, including one in Salida that concluded with Harrison flipping out during the 800 and then violently batting a clipboard out of an official's hands at the finish line. This was followed the next week by the aforementioned dramatic scene in Fairplay.

In the following weeks, Harrison bounced back from these disappointments to place third in his class in the school triathlon, and then third place in his age group at the Hardscrabble Mountain Trail Run 5K. Thinking maybe we were past a rough spot, I put together a fun summer cross-training program that included cycling and hiking along with trail runs in preparation for his second cross-country season.

The first meet of the year was once again at Beaver Creek, and I watched as Harrison went from running third on his team to crashing to the ground in the blur of a tantrum just 10 yards from the finish line. After several minutes that included him running away from the chute twice, he finally finished the race rolling on his side across the line, remarkably still ahead of one teammate. His tantrum continued after the race. On the long trip home I quizzed him about what happened, finally getting out of him that it was the crowd's cheering that sent him reeling.

Over the next few weeks, and despite my significant investment in various ear plugs, he continued to violently melt down — now from the starting gun — in meets in Gunnison, Pueblo and Salida. He managed to finish each race, but his placings were poor and far below his ability. He was again pulling his uniform shirt over his head, as if to hide.

I was miffed. The stereotype of autistic kids is that they have major sensory issues and dislike loud noise. But Harrison finished plenty of races in front of loud, cheering crowds. Heck, he went to two Mumford & Sons concerts with tens of thousands of screaming fans, blaring music and a laser light show. It clearly wasn't the racket. It had to be something else.

After some further discussion, it began to make sense that it was not the cheering, per se, but rather his processing of it that was causing him discomfort. It was more about his own awakening self-consciousness — for him, the cheering was drawing a tighter focus on his own growing awareness that he is different from the other kids.

We talked it over and I reassured him people were cheering because they want him to do well, just like they do for all the other kids. Still, the night before the season's final event in Monte Vista I fought off the doubts. We had to get up at 4:30 a.m. and drive through the dark for several hours just to get there. If the last four meets were any indication, it was a likely setup for more disappointment.

Nevertheless, I'm not one to quit in the face of hardship. I learned in sports and in real life that true triumph springs only from facing challenges again and again. We headed out that next morning with me harboring no expectations, and as we drove away Harrison seemed unfocused. He broke from a Minecraft-trance to announce he just built "a lava pool secret entrance with a fishing rod." I just shook my head and drove on.

It was a beautiful, crisp fall morning in the San Luis Valley, and when the starting gun fired Harrison sprinted right past the cheering crowd. He did not offer high-fives to spectators and he did not melt down in a tantrum. He ran and kept on running right through the finish chute with all its applause and hurrahs, and into my arms, placing third on his team and perhaps overcoming more adversity than many other kids will ever face in sports, or maybe even in life.

As his coach and dad, I could not have been more thrilled or proud.

# A Perfect Season

It was one of those awkward encounters. A casual acquaintance threw out a random statement and it made me think.

In this case it was in a grocery store and the statement was essentially that there's such a gap in this country, everything from homeless people "doing nothing" begging in the streets and living under bridges, all the way up to Bill Gates. This seemed interesting to me because it is believed that a high percentage of homeless people may be autistic, and it's also been speculated that Bill Gates may be on the spectrum.

My answer to this was that yes, we sure do have a gap and I'm not sure people at one end are doing more than people at the other. This brought a look of total surprise, and the response that "I think Bill Gates does a lot" and that he does so much philanthropy.

I said Bill Gates probably does appear to do a lot because he is wealthy enough to have people do a lot of things for him. In fact a close friend received her Masters in Library Science from Denver University through a scholarship from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, though I'm fairly certain the benefactors did not personally sign the check.

But homeless people do a lot, too – they have to scrounge for food, and yes, often alcohol and drugs, find places to sleep, worry about their safety and try to stay warm in the winter.

This exchange stuck with me for some time. Does anyone really do a great deal more or less than anyone else? Or is there a value system we place on certain activities? Especially those things we call "work."

What is work, anyway? We typically equate it to generating income. The implication is that with an income we can contribute to the "economy." We suck on the jugular and the blood keeps flowing. While this is actually the same ideology as a tick or a leech, we somehow buy into the myth that, in my case editing, or for other such things as pushing papers around a desk at an insurance agency or real estate office is somehow more honorable than standing by the roadside with fiction written on a sign and holding out your hand.

Lately I've been feeling like I do a lot. Aside from writing this column, I edit a website and also caretake a small ranch. Compensation for the former is so much less than the latter that it actually costs me to write. I do it anyway because I feel that I have something worthwhile to say. Yet, somehow it does not make me feel exactly like Bill Gates.

Aside from the work for hire, I am the primary caregiver for my autistic son Harrison, another job that comes with certain costs. For when the school calls, or even when I help out with his cross-country team, the time is not billable. It has, however, given me a greater appreciation for the plight of panhandlers and those who live under bridges, as it has completely changed my perspective on everything. A health-care professional I see recently told me, "War changes people. You are in a war." I'd never really thought of it that way until then.

I wonder what wars some of these homeless people have fought, and I wonder what wars Bill Gates has fought too. We're all fighting some war.

For about the past year I've been working toward getting Harrison designated as "disabled" and qualified for Medicaid through a Children's Extensive Support waiver. This would allow us to pursue some much-needed behavioral therapies. Private insurance of course does not pay for such things. And we can't afford it out-of-pocket. Just an assessment, for example, can run upwards of $1,500.

After being denied once based on an IQ test, we recently resubmitted our application and were granted the disability designation. Now we are in the process of applying for the actual Medicaid waiver. It feels a little like they've only opened the door to the maze.

Meanwhile, some work is play. Perhaps the best therapy – both mental and physical – we can afford has been Harrison's participation on the middle school cross-country team. I have often joked that we could not have gotten away with such an likely scenario anywhere but here in Custer County.

This season was his third and final before entering high school next year. Over the past two years I can't describe in this space the roller coaster of outright failure, challenges, disappointments and breakthroughs that we've experienced through his participation in sports. All the while, he's wanted to run. We've not given up even when other people thought we were nuts because I've always believed in his capabilities. I also believe that sports are a metaphor for life, and that "winning" often means something quite different than first place. Perhaps Harrison's experiences on the cross-country team will set the stage for success in other areas of life down the road.

As part of the deal with the school and athletics staff, I attend all practices and meets as a volunteer parent coach. And this has been the real gift for me. For not only have I had the opportunity to be a co-creator and witness to my own son's progress, I've also had the opportunity to work with the other kids and to see Harrison's success through the eyes of his teammates and coaches. He's literally worked his way past the "Will he finish?" question to running third man on his team.

Thus in his final year I watched as he ran well in one meet after another in Avon, Westcliffe, Gunnison . . . and I began to wonder if a perfect season was possible. We went on to Pueblo, Salida and finally the last meet of the year in Monte Vista, tackling what some would have said impossible and what was at the very least improbable, often running with a smile on his face.

As I looked back on this amazing three-year project, I found myself grateful for all those who supported us along the way, and equally as well to those who thought we were crazy. Because what more important lesson is there for all of us than that of overcoming adversity?

The bittersweet finish to his middle-school cross-country career also brought another jolt to my system as suddenly the workouts and meets were over. I decided we should stay as active as possible after school, running, biking, hiking or whatever, until track season starts in spring.

We had already done a lot but we could still do more.

On one such workout, we turned our bikes around in the fading evening light. I asked Harrison to be still and listen. Against the background of quiet there were ravens croaking and nutcrackers calling out as they flew to their roosts. I asked if he heard them and he said he did. I asked if he could hear the creek trickling faintly in the background and he said he could. Then he simply asked, "Why?" I said because it is important to listen to Nature. He said okay. Then we pointed the wheels downhill toward home.

There is no end to the perfect season and the work has only just begun.

# Racing the Storm

After the driest spell in recent memory, the rains came pitter-pattering on the leaves of thirsty plants, splattering upon the dusty ground and at last creating a steady pouring sound as the water streamed from the roof splashing into the flower beds.

I've watched this summer as the unprecedented heat has turned my mountain surroundings into a strange desert. Yucca and cactus which typically cling to the south-facing hillsides to stay warm and dry at this altitude have literally died. Some piñons and ponderosa pines randomly burst into tawny death, while others nearby flourish despite the fact there's been no significant rain in months. Drought-hardy species like showy locoweed desiccated mid-bloom, while the orange paintbrush produced brilliant fluorescent flowers above leaves and stems bleached by the sun. The native grasses, the gramma and fescue, stayed dormant leaving the summer landscape in its usual winter brown.

With the arrival of the rains, outdoor activities suddenly switched from avoiding the searing heat to dodging thunderstorms. They were wreaking havoc all about, washing down a man-made cliff at nearby MacKenzie Junction and closing Highway 96 for two days, flooding down black water and debris off the burn areas of recent wildfires, and threatening small communities like Wetmore and Coaldale.

Mother Nature bats last and is apparently swinging for the bleachers. This micro-drought we are experiencing here is not new and has really been in the works for two decades, punctuated by almost Biblical extremes in weather.

What I have noticed over these past years of climate change is that while it's generally grown warmer and drier, the weather events have shifted in intensity and become unpredictable. We have less snow in the winter and less rain in the summer; ponds and springs that historically held water have gradually gone completely dry. We got no snow the winter of 2002-2003, then it dumped six feet in about two days in March.

Rattlesnakes, previously a relative rarity at this altitude, have become common and I have unfortunately relocated three to their next lives this summer. Violent wind storms in these mountains have tossed about bug-killed spruce and fir like matchsticks, leaving the forest lifeless and virtually impenetrable in a chaos of crisscrossed dead timber. Wildfires, once infrequent, are now common and quickly become behemoths.

The thunderstorms, which traditionally brought the welcome summer moisture, have become in many cases deluges of epic proportions. For example when Highway 96 washed out this month, several neighbors nearby reportedly measured four to five inches of rainfall in less than an hour.

Recently, seeking a diversion from my usual workout around here, I drove across the Wet Mountain Valley to Willow Lane. As I often do, I brought along my burro Boogie and my son Harrison on his bike. I just wanted to run somewhere relatively flat and different. As we headed out from the truck I noted some cumulous clouds but felt confident we had a 45-minute window. I thought back to a similar circumstance a couple years ago when we got caught in a thunderstorm and Harrison melted down violently in an autistic tantrum, making a tense situation even more dangerous as the lightning popped around us and he refused to traverse the last half-mile back to the safety of the truck.

I could see an intense black thunderstorm brewing way to the north near Coaldale, and figured it would track east in the usual prevailing direction. We ran northward about 20 minutes, stopping to take a picture of Harrison at the old Willows Schoolhouse. As I was taking this photo against the backdrop of a black sky, the storm appeared to be headed south toward us. We continued a couple minutes and I realized that the cell was indeed headed toward us fast, though still a far distance away.

I decided to turn back right there. I told Harrison to ride as fast as he could back to the truck, get the key and get inside. He pedaled away but never got very far ahead. Oddly there was a headwind even though the storm cell was approaching from the other direction; plus it was slightly uphill back to the truck. I began eyeing the barns of ranches we passed for possible shelter, as I could feel the storm now over my shoulder.

Boogie was running at a fast trot. I think she knew a monster was chasing us. We caught up to Harrison and I encouraged him to ride faster. He swerved his bike at me, shook his fists and made strange noises in protest. I told him it would be his own fault if he got caught in this and to put his energy into pedaling rather than acting out. We could now hear thunder closing in. He looked back at the black cloud and started pedaling faster.

We arrived back to the truck with just a few minutes to load up before the storm hit. It came in with fury I'd never before experienced in all my years of being outdoors in these mountains. It was like being caught in the undertow of Niagara Falls if half the waterfall was pea-sized hail. Of course there was lightning, too. To have been out in the force of all that falling water and ice would have meant certain serious injury or worse.

The roar on the roof of the truck was so thunderous that I had the strange urge to get out to escape the noise. Harrison put his hands over his ears. I could feel the trailer rocking the truck as Boogie spun around confused inside. I could not see to drive, and decided instead to go for the teachable moment during a lull in the racket, asking Harrison if he understood now when I say to ride fast this is why.

He looked away from the torrent outside and said that he did. We were safe and dry inside the truck, but it felt at once like only the present moment, where all things end and begin, there on the frontier of a world spinning wildly out of control.

# Lightning in a Bottle

The sages tell us that everything is always changing, and in fact the Greek philosopher Heraclitus said that nothing endures but change itself. Thus is the case of Colorado's indigenous sport of pack-burro racing.

It began back in 1949 with a race over Mosquito Pass to Fairplay. Nearly seven decades later I'm beginning to wonder if perhaps organizers should have stuck with this original format, or perhaps should consider going back to it. Then again, I may be jaded because I've been along for the adventure for more than half of those seven decades.

In the years since this first race, the sport has grown to include separate events in both Leadville and Fairplay, as well as shorter races in other towns including Buena Vista, Georgetown, Idaho Springs, Creede and Victor.

The original rules remain largely unchanged. Each burro must carry 33 pounds of gear on a regulation packsaddle (whatever "regulation" means) and the gear must include a pick, pan and shovel. The burro must be led or driven by means of a halter and lead rope no longer than 15 feet. Riding is not allowed.

Over the years some rules have been adjusted slightly to allow donkeys larger than 53 inches at the withers to compete, and also to allow mini-donkeys to be run without the weight requirement.

I was introduced to the sport in 1980 by Curtis Imrie, who crossed over the Great Pass this recent winter. That year I ran my first race in Leadville and finished last, earning the coveted "Last Ass Over the Pass" trophy. Since then I also have four or five winner's buckles from that race and seven first-place cups from Fairplay.

I think what drew me in initially and still holds my interest today was the idea of a human forging a bond with an animal and pitting that connection and trust against the unforgiving alpine environment and elements, as well as a handful of other truly badass competitors. There was the lore, and there was the dream of accomplishing the impossible – figuratively "catching lightning in a bottle."

This was the time Curtis would later term the "revisionist era" of pack-burro racing when actual miners with names like Joe Glavinick and Ken Chlouber were still among the finishers along with the likes of super athletes like Lee Courkamp, Clint Roberts and Ardel Boes. Old vs. new. It wasn't exactly the Hatfield and McCoys but there was a level of competitive tribalism rarely seen in sports

Also among this early crowd was a handful of determined women like Kelly Palmer Murphy and Susan Applegate, who in just a couple years opened the sport to an entire new cadré of women athletes, including Mary Gorman, Diana Koss, Mary Walter and Kendra Jeronimus. Today female entrants often outnumber the men, and some like Barbara Dolan, and later Karen Thorpe, have proven women can indeed outperform men at this sport.

Curtis was an enigma in his own right, combining the sensibilities he'd learned from the miners with those of the hardcore, endurance-athlete crowd, plus a dose of his own brand of athleticism adapted from his many years as a wrestler.

It was "burros, beans and brawn" back in those days and forever those years will remain in my mind as the true heyday of this absurd sport that I found as a young man, a 20-year-old journalism student at the University of Colorado. Pack-burro racing was at its core real, wild, kick-ass and gritty. Fewer than 20 entrants might show up at the starting line and every single one of them thought they had a chance to actually win. Because they did. There were only three races, and the shortest one was 22 miles at Leadville.

Central to this sport was the notion that one developed a working relationship with another living, breathing creature in an attempt to accomplish something rare. When Clint Roberts partnered to race a burro for the early burro-racing promoter Oscar Chapa, Clint wanted the burro with him for a season of training. Clint didn't own a truck or trailer, so he hitched a ride to Buena Vista where Oscar lived, and over the course of the next few days ran that burro back to his home in Winter Park, having a world of adventures and authentic experiences along the trail.

Where there's a will, there's a way.

I've been working with a couple of wild burros recently. With the booming interest in pack-burro racing, there's been a corresponding renewed interest in wild burros. These animals have been captured on the desert ranges and are offered for sale or adoption through the Bureau of Land Management's various programs. Some of these animals are completely wild, and some have gone through a basic training program. Two such burros, Wild Blue and Roger, arrived here at my ranch recently..

It struck me that we often use the word "broke" in discussing the training of equines, whether they be horses, mules or burros. It's interesting because being "broke" is viewed as a good thing for an equine, but for humans it means being completely out of money. It can also refer to having your spirit destroyed.

Equines can be "halter-broke," "unbroke," "saddle-broke." They can be "green-broke" or "dead-broke" or even "broke to hell." They can be "broke" to a cart or "broke" to a sleigh. Though I've never liked this word "broke" because it evokes a sense of domination and destroying an animal's spirit, it is ironically entrenched in the Western vernacular.

Though I have trained many wild burros over the years this newest generation is perplexing. They seem to be much wilder than their predecessors. I have my theories, most of them centered on accelerated evolution. Burros, which have existed in the West since the 1500s when the Spanish brought them here, have been rounded up and adopted since the 1970s when the Wild Horse and Burro Protection Act made it illegal to kill them. The BLM began capturing burros, along with wild horses, and adopting them out, a practice that continues to this day. In fact, many burros in pack-burro racing, including some champions over the decades, have been from the wild.

My dealings in recent years have led me to believe these contemporary wild burros have become more vigilant, more explosive in behavior (more horse-like), quicker, and more agile. Curiously, they also seem to be more aware of fence lines — always looking for an opening to make a break for freedom. I believe this is an adaptation from having been herded into traps.

My guess is that as a result of relentless roundup operations over several generations natural selection has made these burros even more corybantic. Think about it. When roundup operations started, the first to get captured were those less wild. As time went on those outlaws with more spirit found ways to elude the authorities, to escape. As a result these animals were the ones left to pass on their genes, and form new social arrangements that favor independence and individuality. Two or three generations later we now are dealing with a new breed of wild burro. Combined with the trauma of actually being captured, transported to holding facilities and, for males, being gelded, this adjustment to captivity is steeped in fear. The term "whirling dervish" comes to mind, though it's important to note the original meaning was used to describe a dance performed to achieve the wisdom and love of God. You can take the burro out of the wild but taking the wild out of the burro is another story altogether.

Pack-burro racing was always a truly wild and authentic experience for me. While I could fill pages with writing about my early adventures learning about the animals and this sport, I don't know that I will ever be able to capture in words the effect this had on my senses, my heart and my soul. Like many, I saw early on both the insanity and the value in building a lifestyle around this crazy activity, just as Curtis had done with his Little Menokin Ranch and burro-training camp at the base of Mount Harvard. Then again, life in the suburbs seemed equally absurd even without burros.

I bought a packsaddle before I even had my own burro, but that soon followed with the purchase of Jumpin' Jack Flash from Curtis. Then a trailer I called the "beer can on wheels" and a truck to pull it. Finding a place to live where I could keep burros and train them literally led me to where I live today. My life certainly would have turned out much more mundane had I not stumbled upon this sport those years ago.

Over these decades I have seen many things and many changes in this sport. But one thing I never banked on was that it would actually become popular. Today the miners are all gone. Instead we now see 60 to 70 entrants and most of them do not have a vast amount of experience with their own burro. Many of them talk in terms of this being on their "bucket list," a term that makes me cringe.

I see their pictures on Facebook with their burro- for-a-day and ear-to-ear smiles, and I think, "What is wrong with that?" Nothing, really. My intent is not to offend or belittle the accomplishments of this new breed of pack-burro racer. My concern is only that this true adventure sport is not some day relegated to the ranks of donkey basketball, outhouse races, pie-eating contests and other silliness.

Participation in the sport is booming with triple the entrants and more media attention than ever. Bestselling author Christopher McDougall has written about the sport in The New York Times several times in recent months, and then based an entire book upon it. I'm now regularly contacted by video producers who are making films of the races.

But what they will be filming is something entirely different than what I discovered so many years ago. At 57, and with my 38th consecutive race in Leadville looming, I now have an appreciation of how those miners felt relinquishing their sport to a new breed of racers.

In the meantime, so long as I am able to continue in this improbable sport, I hope to help those who are looking for the authentic experience to find it. Change of course is as inevitable as it is enduring. And gratitude may be found along the trail.

# Ain't What it Used to Be

At the starting line of the World Championship Pack-Burro Race in Fairplay, an ill-saddled donkey exploded bucking and kicking, causing a minor riot among the other animals and their humans waiting for the gun. On the other side of the street, another burro kicked out repeatedly in angst. My own burro tried to spin around in this chaos and head back through the crowded field, and in the process of getting her back under control she stepped on my foot, not exactly the best way to start a 29-mile race up and down a 13,000-foot mountain pass.

Meanwhile, a tourist with two little girls wandered innocently through this mayhem apparently unaware of the danger, in what must have seemed to them more like a petting zoo than a rodeo or the annual running of the bulls.

For me, looking at my 38th Fairplay race amid this pandemonium, I realized I was more fearful than I had ever been about any start, and more perplexed than ever about the sport. For one thing it was the largest field – 89 teams of runners and burros – to ever start a race. For another, I knew that many of them really had no idea what they were doing or even what would happen when the race started. Finally, I wondered when the organizers of these races and towns will make adjustments to accommodate the changes that have occurred in this sport in just a matter of a few years.

For those unfamiliar with pack-burro racing, the sport is a Central Colorado original, involving a mountain adventure run alongside a donkey packed with 33 pounds. It originated as a 23-mile race from Leadville to Fairplay in 1949, and evolved to include separate races in Fairplay (29 miles), Leadville (19 miles) and Buena Vista (13 miles), as well as shorter races in other Colorado towns, including a new race in Creede.

The late Curtis Imrie, godfather and patron saint of pack-burro racing, was fond of saying in his later years, "It ain't what it used to be, but it'll do." Of course, Curtis had found the sport in its true heyday, winning three world championships while competing against legendary athletes like Joe Glavenick, Ardel Boes, Lee Courkamp John Sinclair and Steve Matthews.

Curtis introduced me to pack-burro racing in 1980 at the tail end of this era. I watched Glavenick give in to age, then hand the reins to Boes who won something like an astounding nine world championships on the Fairplay course. Then as I came into my own in the sport, I competed with Tom Sobal and watched him surpass everything that Boes had done, including an astounding 11 wins at Fairplay and records that remain untouchable on every course he ran with his burro Maynard.

Back in the day, 20 teams was a big field, and while the starts were a little hairy I knew all of my fellow competitors pretty well and never felt like I was defying death. We used to joke about the sport being "discovered," and I remember Curtis musing that some day these races would be covered by cameramen in jet-powered helicopters like the New York City Marathon.

We had no idea then that drones would be a thing. This year CNN used them to video the race at Fairplay, and in my hypoxic state on American Flats, I had the strangely violent fantasy of pulling a shotgun out of a saddle scabbard and blasting them out of the alpine sky.

When I first started racing, my goal was to finish "in the money." Most of the races paid to 8th place and though small the field was, competitive enough that it was often difficult to go home with a check. Over time ,as my skills improved and I was fortunate enough to run with more-competitive burros, I eventually found myself often competing in the top three or four places, and even winning a few races. Over the years, I managed to win the Fairplay race seven times, and the Leadville race at least four times that I can remember.

I never thought I would see real danger in numbers with entries approaching 100... Vendors renting burros to complete novices... "bucket listers"... saddles outfitted with GoPros... entrants traveling from other states including Wisconsin, California, Arizona and New Mexico... "burro selfies." The irony is that I have to accept at least partial responsibility in all this with my writings and books, as well as appearances in films, videos and other media, including social platforms.

A few years ago when the film "Haulin' Ass" was being screened at the Boulder Chautauqua, I hauled three burros for myself and friends to run in a race in Georgetown the following day. We boarded them at Boulder Valley Ranch for the night with the help of Marianne Martin, who, in addition to being the winner of the first women's Tour de France bicycle race in 1984, is a professional photographer. While we were loading up for the race the next morning Marianne randomly took a picture of me with my burro Redbo. I liked the shot and got her permission to use it as my Facebook profile picture.

Unwittingly, I had posted the first "burro selfie," even though the portrait was not actually a selfie. What followed over the next few years was a phenomenon of dozens of other enthusiasts pictured with burros on social media. Some events, even now, have a "burro selfie" stage. Facebook's algorithm now parades an endless stream of burro selfies in its "People You May Know" feature, but the truth is I really don't know most of these people at all.

I lived through that crazy start at Fairplay this summer and managed to place third. Then, the following week I ran to a fourth place at Leadville. On the third weekend at Buena Vista, cruising along in second place about two-thirds through the course, a cantankerous friendly ghost guided my burro off a tiny side trail and down a steep ravine. I had to let loose of the rope and chase her down through a sandy wash and up the other side before gathering her and returning back to the trail where I'd lost her. We gave up five places in the course of this snafu and never really recovered, finishing seventh.

Curtis always said the sport is "complete in its absurdity," and I suppose as it becomes mainstream this is even more so. People often ask if I still race, and sometimes they also ask why. It's because I still can. I've said before that burro racing has meant something different to me at different stages of my life and at 58 this still holds true. Through it all, the life lesson – regardless of how many people it attracts – remains that what matters is not what happens to you but how you deal with what happens. It's called "resilience."

Next summer, all powers being willing, I will attempt my 40th consecutive finish at Leadville. We believe Curtis ran the race 41 or 42 times in a row. Will I try to break his record? It would be the only one I hold after all these years at the sport. We'll just have to see.

# The True Meaning of Competition

I've been asked if running is "competition" for Harrison. This only fueled a deeper personal examination already under way in my own process. If we look at the root meaning of the word "competition," we find its basis in the classical Latin, "competere," which means to "strive in common," or "strive together."

In these past few weeks we've traveled literally more than 1,000 miles to track meets in small towns all over our region, and I've had plenty of time and fuel for thought to ponder this question of what competition really means.

As he crossed the finish line in his first very successful run in the 1600-meters (aka "the mile") at Mosca, Harrison loudly blurted out, "I beat Joey!" I quickly pointed out that this was not a cool or sportsmanlike way to note your own success, especially in relation to your own teammate and friend. But it did speak to a recognition of competition in what has warped into our society's conventional sensibility.

This initial run led the way into a more meaningful season of challenges as Harrison experienced the true spirit of what it means to compete. He also runs the 400-meter and the 800-meter. The fact is I never know what's going to happen coaching him in these things.

As the season went on I've watched him freak out at starting lines. I've seen him run the first lap of the 1600 faster than he's ever run a 400, then fade to last place. I've seen him finish strong and I've seen him completely lose his mind in a race.

I've seen the support of his teammates and fellow competitors, some of whom he's been running against for three years. I've also seen the puzzled looks from people who don't know the real challenges he's facing down when he toes a starting line. The real race for him is not so much physical as it is mental.

In this lifetime I've had the good fortune myself to win some races, and I'm here to tell you that the feeling is great but it vanishes just like the proverbial lightning caught in a bottle. The competitions you really remember are those in which you learned something about yourself. The true athlete is competing with him/herself. And this is really what Harrison is doing.

This week we traveled to a track meet in the tiny town of Elbert in the rolling Ponderosa-topped hills northeast of Colorado Springs. This is a new meet on our school's circuit, with teams from several schools we've never competed with previously. Harrison got a great start in the 1600 but rounding the second curve in the first lap he suddenly snapped under the pressure of hanging with the pack. He faded back, stomped and screamed. He yelled at the spectators who were encouraging him, many of them teammates and others who had no idea of his challenges. During all this I ran back and forth across the field, encouraging him onward.

Despite putting more energy into his tantrum than actual forward movement, he finished the race. Following this he threw an amazing fit, flailing about, yelling he was a terrible runner and saying wanted to go home. But then when I said "let's go" he didn't really want to leave.

After he calmed down a little we watched the girls' 1600. In this race there was a blind athlete. She was running tethered wrist-to-wrist with a guide/coach. She was bringing up the rear but a true competitor through and through. We watched her run past the bleachers and the spectators shouted out encouragement just as they had wth Harrison. I could not help but draw parallels — in some ways Harrison is running "blind" even though he can see just fine.

He rallied to run solidly in the 400 and the 800. Then we watched the blind girl run again in the 800. It was an amazing Deep Sport experience and it gave us both a fresh perspective on what "competition" truly means.

# A Season through the Spectrum

Coaching an athlete on the autism spectrum to run cross-country is not for the faint of heart. You never know what you're going to get from meet to meet. It could be a total meltdown or an epic moment of triumph. The only way to find out is to show up.

Take my son Harrison's first high school season, for example. I call him "The Blur" because of the fuzzy line between his reality and everyone else's, and, oh yeah, because he's pretty fast, too.

To back up, Harrison has run on Custer County's middle school cross country team for the past three years. I help out as a volunteer coach, which allows me to be there for him as well as work with the other young athletes.

What I really had not anticipated coming into this season was the higher level of competition he would face in high school. For starters, many kids from middle school do not continue in the sport. Secondly, as a freshman, he would run against top level juniors and seniors who were stronger and faster just by virtue of size, age and experience. To make things even more challenging, the distance increases from 3K (about 1.86 miles) to 5K (3.1 miles) in high school.

Our small high school team consists of five boys and two girls. Our top boy runner is ranked top five in the state, and our second guy is no slouch either. After that the other three spots on the boys team are up for grabs. I've felt Harrison has the physical capacity to run third on his team, but it remained to be seen if he could mentally and emotionally put together such a race.

Our first stop was the Lake County Invitational in Leadville. The meet is held on the Colorado Mountain College cross-country ski trails at about 10,200 feet altitude. With the help of our athletic director Joy Parrish, we obtained a special accommodation from the state governing body for Harrison to use music headphones in the meets. It seems to make a big difference in his ability to focus. With the music soothing his mind, he ran smooth and steady over the entire challenging course, placing fourth on his team. I was already looking forward to great things this season and beyond.

However, the following week we drove several hours through insane Front Range traffic to his meet in Lyons only to have him develop severe side cramps early in the race. He went from running a fine first mile to a full-on autistic tantrum that I was surprised did not get us ejected from the premises. After trying to calm him and offering him a couple chances to continue the race, I realized he was too far over the edge and that discretion sometimes really is the better part of valor. It was the first DNF of his career in a cross-country race. The drive home was a long one, but we had an interesting discussion about the sense of accomplishment versus that of disappointment.

The following week, at the Mountaineer Cowboy Invitational in Gunnison, we nearly had a repeat of Lyons when he developed another side stitch. Somehow, through great effort and the miracle of patience, I was able to encourage him to finish the race despite his cramping and resulting tantrum. It was another disappointment, though he actually did not finish last, and I felt completing the course was a small victory.

What followed was a complete 180, with Harrison running a personal best by more than four minutes at the Pueblo Central Invitational. Four days later he ran another PR at the Rye Thunderbolt Invitational. Then the same week he ran a fine race at the Salida Cross Country Classic, which features a big hill.

Of course, success is as big an illusion as failure, and the following week at Fountain he had a huge meltdown in the gloomy cold at the starting line, resulting in his second DNF of the season. Later that week, he flipped out during the homecoming pep rally at school and had to be physically restrained and removed from the gym. His teachers, administrators, coaches, fellow students and teammates were left disturbed and drained, and I had to pay an uncomfortable visit to the school.

I really began to question what I was doing, but the very next morning – desperately needing some sort of win – we drove away in the dark for the Eric Wolff Invitational in Monte Vista, with no expectation other than we were not giving up and would accept any outcome. That morning The Blur turned it on for the most solid run of his career over a challenging course at 7,664 feet altitude. It was not a PR, but it was the most determined effort I'd ever seen from him. I could not have been prouder knowing all that he had overcome.

However, this was only a preview. The following week at the Colorado 2A regional meet in Rocky Ford – hoping against all odds to help his team qualify for the state meet – Harrison destroyed his previous 5K PR by almost two minutes, and ran third on his five-man varsity team, scoring for the team and helping them to an eighth place in the meet.

While this was a bold exclamation point on his season, it was overshadowed by his disappointment in not advancing to state. Despite his best effort, and best race ever, his team did not qualify, though some teammates did advance as individuals.

Following the Rocky Ford race, it was brought to my attention that he actually could run at state in the Unified Race for special needs and Paralympic athletes. I was torn over this for a couple of reasons. For starters, everything I've tried to do with Harrison in running has been to dispel stereotyping, and prove that he can compete alongside neurotypical kids. Secondly, despite a couple disappointments, he'd been running on his varsity team all season. Was it even fair for him to run in a special-needs division?

Balancing out this argument was the very real fact that he does have an intellectual disability and has every right to run in this Unified Race. After much internal dialogue and discussion with friends, family, and of course The Blur, I reached the conclusion that he should seize this opportunity to join his teammates at the state meet. Perhaps there's some larger lesson for us all between these blurred lines. He's writing his own rules.

As his coach and father, being a co-creator of this improbable story continues to be an immensely rewarding experience, wherever it may lead.

# Onward to State

I was never much of an athlete in high school. It wasn't for lack of trying. At my mega high school in Northern Virginia, just outside of the Capital Beltway, I went out for football and baseball for the Lake Braddock Bruins, as did dozens of other boys with testosterone-fueled hopes and dreams of glory. I was a gangly and awkward kid who the football coaches moved around, trying to fill backup spots on a team that was grooming first-string players to play at big colleges. I walked the sidelines and subbed for the better players as wide receiver, slotback and, on the other side of the ball, defensive line.

Each spring I would make a gallant but futile attempt to join the baseball squad. To put this into perspective, our pitcher had already been drafted in the minors. I would get to the second cut and then that would be that. The truth was I could smash a 90-mph pitching-machine fastball out of the park, but I could not field a ground ball in right field to save my life.

When my parents packed up the family and moved to Craig, Colorado, between my junior and senior years, I spent the first several weeks fishing in the surrounding mountains with our dog. Then I went out for the Moffat County Bulldogs football team. While my skills were on a more level plane there, in a small town some of these positions had been filled long before there was a "new kid in town." My most memorable play was holding for a field goal when a botched snap came bouncing from center. I yelled, "Fire, fire, fire" and sprinted right, then passed to the "open" receiver only to have a defensive back step right in front of the ball and intercept. Fortunately, I made a great tackle before he ran it back for six.

Through all this I was a runner. Running was always a part of my program to stay in shape for sports I wasn't any good at playing. That and weight-training. These were perhaps part of a larger coping mechanism as well. Later I would become a competitive distance runner and pack-burro racer. My program remains much the same to this day.

This year when my son Harrison began running for the varsity cross-country team here at Custer County School, the irony of a youth misspent on ball sports was not lost on me. It's clear I'm vicariously reliving through him what I really should have been. They say he has autism, but I honestly don't know if that's true since nobody knows what autism really is. It's merely a label to explain his erratic and outrageous behaviors, and differences in processing information.

Regardless, the kid can run.

After regionals he was tremendously disappointed, but another coach suggested we take him to the state meet to run in the Unified Race for special needs athletes. I initially struggled with this notion. Here was a kid who'd been running varsity all season and it was difficult to wrap my mind around him running in a race that included not only intellectually disabled athletes but physically challenged kids as well.

But it was state, after all. How could I deny him this opportunity?

The day before we left, the school sent the athletes off with a "pep-rally" style run through the hallway. The next morning a band of well-wishers gathered in the school parking lot to see our athletes, along with coaches Jesse and Ruth and myself, away. Our team is so small we took a school Suburban rather than a bus. This experience of a lifetime would also include dinner out, a movie at a theater and a night in a hotel before the big event the next day at the Norris Penrose Events Center in Colorado Springs.

With two boys, Micah and Jeremiah, and one girl, Kyleigh, in the varsity 2A races, and Harrison and teammate Caleb, whose non-autistic learning disability also qualified him for the Unified Race, we arrived at the event site the afternoon before the race to preview the courses. We as coaches always walk our athletes over the race routes before each meet, paying attention to places that could pose problems or where runners can use the terrain in their favor.

The Unified Race distance was 3K (1.86 miles). We were told all runners would ford a small creek later in the race. For the course preview, organizers had taped off the water crossing so we could only get a look from the bridge. I explained to Harrison that the next day he would use the bridge on the way out and then go through the water on the way back.

I had no idea what we would encounter in the way of competition in the Unified Race. I could find no results from previous years. I assumed there would be a mixture of athletes with both intellectual and physical challenges. I thought there could also be runners just like Harrison and Caleb – perhaps members of bigger 4A or 5A varsity squads – only older and faster. There might also be Paralympic athletes with serious physical disabilities. I did not know how to prepare Harrison and Caleb for what they might encounter. In addition, it was clear both of these guys were feeling some pressure with all the hype surrounding this big event.

A beautiful warm fall morning greeted us for the race. When at last Harrison and Caleb lined up at the start, I looked around at the small field trying to size up the competition. It was much as I had expected. There were clearly athletes of varying abilities, ranging from some fast-looking older kids, to some who were clearly on the autism spectrum, to one boy with cerebral palsy being pushed in a jogger by his coach. I thought Harrison and Caleb both had a good chance to be top-10, but then as always, I really had no idea what Harrison would even do when the gun went off.

Standing there I thought about the level of courage it took for each of these athletes to run in this race – something far beyond those who were running the regular varsity races. Regardless of what happened, I was super proud of Harrison and Caleb.

The race started and Harrison paced himself with Caleb for almost the first mile before picking up speed. At the bridge he was in fifth place. He then disappeared among the trees. I waited at the water crossing. That's about when I realized that in the Unified Race the athletes were given the choice of the bridge or the water on the return loop. I had a panicked thought this might confuse Harrison and cause a problem.

I stood there waiting until Harrison came running back into view – now in fourth place. The third-place guy just ahead opted for the bridge. I watched Harrison's eyes shift as he ran, back and forth from the bridge to the creek crossing, back to the bridge and back to the creek.

Suddenly his eyes fixed on the water. He rambled down the bank and jumped to a sandbar, splashing one foot in the creek and then bounded up the other side. He was now only a few steps behind third place with the steep hill looming up to the stadium entrance.

Coaches are not allowed on the course or to run along with athletes during the races. I frantically sprinted another route up the hill, ran across the field where the race had started, dodged through spectators, and raced up a ramp into the grandstand.

I arrived only in time to see Harrison cross the finish line. I began making my way down to try to get to him. Coach Jesse came running toward me yelling excitedly, "Harrison placed third!" A podium finish. I was stunned.

Caleb's dad appeared with a video of the finish. Harrison had entered the stadium just off the third-place guy's shoulder, then with the crowd cheering, passed and left him behind in a sprint to the finish. I've since watched this video over and over, and all questions about whether Harrison should have been in this race have been put to rest.

It was a moment of triumph for Harrison, for me, and for his teammates and coaches, many of whom had experienced first-hand all the ups and downs of his entire running career. (Caleb finished 8th in the Unified, while Kyleigh was 47th for the 2A girls, and Micah was 2nd and Jeremiah 69th for the 2A boys.)

I don't know that Harrison will ever qualify to compete in the varsity level at state. I don't know that he'll ever run the Unified Race again either. None of that matters. All I know is that for one fall day, we lived a dream that will stick with us forever.

# Becoming Coach Hal

It started when Harrison was in sixth grade and the coach suggested he go out for the middle school cross-country team. I'd never considered that Harrison would be on a school sports team, but when he said he wanted to do this, I was all in.

I'd also never considered this would lead me to a new avocation.

As those first after-school practices wore on, it became clear that I would need to be around in case Harrison had an autistic meltdown. Before the season was out, Coach Jack Swartz was referring to me as "Coach Hal," and I was starting to guide the other kids as well as Harrison during practices and meets, and even substituted as assistant coach for one meet.

When track season rolled around the following spring, practice was part of the middle school PE program, but it was clear I would need to accompany Harrison to competitions. I still remember that first track meet in Mosca when I drove nearly three hours not knowing if he would have the focus to stay in his lane and run around the track even once in the 400-meter dash.

The years went by like a blur. Harrison's nickname became "The Blur." Coach Swartz left for a job in the Denver Metro area. Coach Jesse Taylor took his place as the school's distance coach. The "Coach Hal" nickname stuck, and I started to really like it.

Both coaches Swartz and Taylor were amazing talents and teachers. Coach Swartz ran four years of track and cross country at Plattsburg State in upstate New York, specializing in steeplechase. Coach Taylor had been an All-American also in steeplechase at running powerhouse Adams State University in Alamosa.

As a volunteer coach, I had a lot to learn from these guys. Although I'd found my own way through 38 years of self-coached running, I had no formal background in cross-country or track. My "specialty" was pack-burro racing – even more obscure than steeplechase – though I'd won local running races at distances including 1 mile, 5K, 10K and the marathon.

It was inevitable that Coach Taylor would leave. He had been studying at the Sangre de Cristo Seminary with the intention of becoming a minister. With no opportunity locally to support his family, he took a job with a church in South Dakota. Suddenly there was an opening for a coach, and I was a likely candidate. I began having conversations with Joy Parrish, the school's athletic direction and head track coach. The next thing I knew I was taking online classes in preparation for being the high-school distance coach for the upcoming spring track season. Through my work with Dr. Phil Maffetone, I'd also become an MAF founding coach.

Coach Taylor's departure also meant his son Jeremiah, a standout distance runner, moved, too. Subsequently our top boy runner, a state contender, also moved, and we lost other track athletes to the upstart baseball program.

When the first day of practice rolled around in February, Harrison was the only distance runner to turn out for the small team that also included sprinters, jumpers and throwers. I'd also be coaching his classmate Kyleigh, a 400-meter runner, but she had declared herself a dual-sport athlete in baseball and would only be working out with us once or twice per week. A sprinter, Alyssa, also would be running with us occasionally to build endurance for the 200-meter dash.

Our dirt track was virtually unrunnable, a quarter-mile oval of wind-swept ice, drifted snow and mud. I improvised with workouts on the pavement in Westcliffe, running straight-aways, and using street blocks as a makeshift track. With two weeks of practice behind us, the Pueblo Early Bird meet loomed and none of the kids had even set foot on a proper track. I signed Harrison up for four distance events – the 1600, 400, 800 and 3200 – figuring he had no chance of placing but could gain from the experience.

This first meet arrived with a fierce gale. Early on, the wind blew another team's metal-framed canopy tent tumbling right over our team seated on the bleachers. Miraculously, nobody was injured. We bundled up and waited for the distance events all set for later.

At last it was time for Harrison's first run of his varsity track career – the 1600 or "mile." He was hanging with the mid-pack when the stomach bug hit. He dropped back and finished strong but was soon on the turf wrapped in a blanket and writhing with stomach cramps as Kyleigh was warming up for her 400. She is a natural at this distance and placed 3rd.

Harrison was still in pain but wanting to run the 400. He got a good start, then faded. Since Mary had come to watch, he was able to go home with his mom, who later called to report he had a 101-degree fever and was concerned he had let his teammates down. She assured him he had not, and I would later reinforce this.

Each day at practice, our athletes do something they call a "prompt." Essentially, it's a commentary on everyone on the team and also the coaches. For example one day it was, what would your new hairstyle be? And mine was a "bright orange Mohawk with traffic cone spikes." Another day it was what would you do if you won the lottery? And they went down the list of everything everyone on the team would do with their riches and lastly when they got to me they said: "Coach Hal would give it all to charities." I was stunned by the most heart-warming compliment I've ever been given.

Next up was the Harrison Invitational in Colorado Springs. The Blur was excited to run at a school with his name, and I once again entered him in all four distance events.

Early in the meet, Alyssa fell in the 100-meter dash and broke her arm badly. I was not right there when it happened and heard about it from one of the other kids who found me and said Coach Parrish was with Alyssa. When I located them, Joy was literally frozen in place holding Alyssa's arm together with both hands and elevating it along with an ice pack.

I fished Joy's phone out of her jacket and started the process of contacting Alyssa's parents. The meet's athletic trainer showed up with an arm splint. Soon Alyssa and Joy were in another parent's vehicle and on the way to a nearby emergency clinic. Joy called later to tell me they were transferring to Memorial Hospital for surgery. I scrambled to keep track of the sprinters and jumpers in Joy's absence, and also get Harrison ready for his events.

With all this chaos going on, Harrison ran all four of his races – a total of 3.75 miles of track racing – flawlessly, finding his stride as a freshman competing with a lot of bigger kids from much bigger 4A and 5A schools. Though he finished last in each event I was proud of how he hung in there and did his best, running strong in each event.

The meet complete, we loaded up the team bus and swung by the hospital to retrieve Joy on our way to a restaurant and then on home. My fitness tracker indicated I'd covered 7.7 miles there in the stadium that day. My sense of accomplishment told me I'd traveled much farther.

# The Lost Frontier

"The following may or may not be true. And if it ain't then it ought to be."

That is an opening quote from one of Curtis Imrie's films, The Lost Frontier.

Curtis collapsed and died while preparing to show one of his donkeys at the National Western Stock Show. He was 70 years old and doing what he loved. To borrow from Thoreau, one of Curtis' favorite authors, here was a man who figuratively "sucked the marrow out of life."

Curtis had been a fixture in Central Colorado for decades. He made his home in the family cabin at 4 Elk near Buena Vista. His parents originally bought the property in the 1960s and built the cabin as a vacation home when the subdivision was established as a Christian Science enclave; however, when his younger brother John drowned in the Arkansas River they gradually lost interest in the get-away and eventually transferred ownership to him.

It's almost easier to list the things Curtis wasn't than all the things he was. However, it's clear he was a three-time world champion at the sport of pack-burro racing. He was a filmmaker and an actor. He was a radio-show host. He was a behind-the-scenes creative force for a number of artistic endeavors, including Colorado Central Magazine. He was a progressive political candidate, and his seemingly quixotic runs for office were actually a forerunner for the political movement personified by Bernie Sanders.

I think at heart Curtis was always an athlete, the proverbial prize fighter who would not throw in the towel. He wrestled for Big Ten powerhouse Northwestern, and then later in the Greco-Roman clubs in San Francisco. He was a runner, with finishes at races such as the Boston and New York marathons under his belt, as well as other epic events like the Leadville Trail 100, Mosquito Pass Marathon, Bataan Memorial Death March and many, many others. He also ran well over 200 pack-burro races over the course of his athletic career.

For Curtis, life here in Central Colorado was all about "The Lost Frontier" and a tradition of prospecting for adventure that could be panned down to three golden Ds – donkeys, drama and democracy. His interest and passion for the West, both new and old, was a running theme throughout his life, as were the notions of wilderness and wildness.

First and foremost, Curtis was about donkeys. In addition to the three world titles, he also won pack-burro races in Dillon, Colorado City and Leadville. Separate from the races, he loved competing in shows and won numerous ribbons with his animals at the Colorado State Fair, Colorado Classic Mule and Donkey Show, Bishop Mule Days and the National Western Stock Show, where he was celebrating his 20th consecutive year when he suffered the fatal heart attack.

His interest in – and love – of donkeys evolved into a ranching operation that he called Little Menokin Ranch, based out of the family homestead in 4 Elk. From there Curtis experimented with crossing blood lines from wild donkeys adopted through the U.S. Bureau of Land Management with large-standard and mammoth stock from registered breeders throughout the country and in Canada. His goal was producing the ultimate all-purpose donkey for pack-burro racing, packing and riding, and at this he was very successful.

In fact, many of the top-performing burros on the Western Pack-Burro Racing circuit are out of Curtis' program, with a half-dozen World Champion pack-burros being from his outfit. His expertise in donkeys was also reportedly sought out by the U.S. military for operations in Afghanistan, and animals from his operation were purchased by the Mexican government in their efforts to re-establish burro herds in that country.

As an actor and model, Curtis landed the USS Enterprise in Star Trek, juggled cans of soda from a barn loft window in a Coca-Cola commercial and fished a rushing river in a Pontiac advertisement, the only time I ever knew him to cast a fly. He modeled clothes on the cover of The North Face catalog.

In perhaps his most celebrated screen performance, Curtis played the lead role of mountain biking legend Mike Rust in the recent documentary film, "The Rider & The Wolf." Over the years, he also performed in the theater in Los Angeles, San Francisco and New York, and with Norma Conroe helped produce a stage version of the musical "The Fantasticks" for Salida audiences, as well performing on many other local stages.

Over the years, Curtis' political beliefs led him to make several largely symbolic runs for public office on the state and federal level, using mostly his stock trailers as advertising throughout the districts. In these cavalier campaigns for office he ran as a write-in, Independent and on the Democratic Party ticket, charging his donkey like Don Quixote against a number of the GOP's regional windmills such as Carl Miller, Scott McGinnis, Doug Lamborn, Jim Wilson and Ken Chlouber.

His weekly "Poetry and Stories" radio show broadcast from KHEN in Salida sandwiched discussion of contemporary national and local issues between readings from the numerous literary icons whose works lined his bookshelves.

I doubt anyone would contest that Curtis was also a renowned "horse-trader" in the lovable and borderline larcenous tradition of author and veterinarian Ben Green, and he made part of his income buying, selling and trading donkeys, trucks, trailers, tack, carts, wagons and other equipment.

Curtis left behind life partner Lindsey Lighthizer, dear longtime friend Sue Conroe, his brother Gordon and a multitude of other friends, fans and followers. In death we tend to dwell on the better qualities of a person rather than their failings, but just to keep things honest he also perhaps left behind a few disgruntled individuals from his horse trading and political endeavors. They will get over it, just as the rest of us will get over his untimely passing.

He was fond of the phrase "When in doubt, print the legend." I hope this epitaph matches his expectations though I don't believe there is anything written here that is untrue.

For those who knew and loved Curtis Imrie, the way we see the world, especially here in Central Colorado, has forever changed, for now we see a world where one of our true regional treasures – an almost mythical character – has ridden a donkey right off the set of this Lost Frontier we have so fortuitously shared with him. Ride on in peace, my friend.

# The Final Gift

It's never easy to say goodbye to a close friend but when Curtis Imrie headed over the pass last month, I found myself scrambling for words and trying to regain my own sense of balance and direction.

My first reaction was, Curtis can't die. For here was a man who lived life by his own rules. Then again, how better to exit this life than to go while doing something you love, in this case showing donkeys at the National Western Stock Show.

My friend Miles F. Porter IV introduced me to Curtis in 1980 when I ran my first marathon in Denver. Later that summer we visited Curtis' cabin at 4 Elk near Buena Vista and Curtis convinced me to give pack-burro racing a try. We became fast buddies. Curtis was initially the crazy brother-from-another-mother that every young man should have. Later in life he would evolve into a mentor of sorts. After his passing I realized he was a once-in-a-lifetime friend.

In the early days hanging out in Curtis' "Lost Frontier" we pushed the envelope training burros. I recall entire days running on the trails in the mountains surrounding Buena Vista, returning to the ranch after sunset exhausted, riding the burros bareback homeward in the dark the last few miles. When we were not training we talked about writing, and he introduced me to great authors like Jim Harrison, Edward Abbey and Thomas McGuane.

The yearning for adventure ran deeply through Curtis' soul. In those early days we spent a considerable amount time and effort on a futile treasure hunt. A pilot had walked away from a winter plane crash near Kroenke Lake in the Collegiate Range and his body had not been recovered. Rumor was the family was offering a sizable reward for finding his remains. We never did find the body but I still have some great memories of exploring the high tundra and boulder fields in the shadow of Mount Yale with Curtis and the burros.

This was just the beginning of a long chain of stories that could fill a book, and that nobody would even believe unless the central character just happened to be Curtis.

To be clear, Curtis was no deity, small or large. He had faults and his own dark side just like the rest of us. He broke lovers' hearts. He pissed people off over minor infractions. He made people cry for reasons that seem silly now. Yet this does not mean he did not possess a heart of solid gold.

Many people know the outward Curtis who was a champion pack-burro racer, independent filmmaker and actor, rancher, political candidate and radio show host. Many do not know the side that seemed to take underdogs he encountered in life under his wing, perhaps because he was one himself. He may have done this with me – in fact every burro I ever won a race with came out of Curtis' program, and one of my books, Full Tilt Boogie, was inspired by his urging me to write about the cards I'd been dealt as the father of an autistic son.

In fact, Curtis was the quiet champion of many people who are different and those who face mental-emotional, physical, intellectual and other challenges. This list would be too lengthy and personal to publish. But one of these underdogs was my son, Harrison.

Since Harrison was very young, Curtis had always been part of the fabric of life around here. "Uncle Curtis" was part of the family and an early influence on Harrison. Harrison knew him from the burro races early on, and Curtis often visited during his ramblings about the countryside on political crusades or moving burros back and forth between his ranch and mine. Their play "wrestling" would spark shouts of "Let's take it outside!" whenever Harrison saw him. Curtis had established a campsite at my house and would often pull in with his truck and camper on short notice to spend the night before moving on the next day after coffee.

When you have a child on the autism spectrum you tend to examine your own quirks and also those of your close friends. At some point in time I began to wonder if Curtis might be on the spectrum himself. Regardless, he certainly had a way connecting with Harrison on his own level, and the support he provided me through all of the challenges we've faced with Harrison is irreplaceable. In recent years much of my conversation with Curtis had focused on these challenges, and when Harrison melted down terribly at a track meet in Salida last spring, Curtis was one of the friends who helped me escort him out of the tense situation.

One of the more heart-wrenching components of Curtis' passing has been Harrison's reaction to his death. His initial impulse was loud and violent. He ran at me swinging his arms and screaming, "No! No! Curtis has not died!'" During this moment I was still processing Curtis' death myself and Harrison's outburst was almost more than I could bear. The only thing I could think to do was to hug him tightly.

The emotional pain of this experience was so intense that I actually blacked out. I found myself in a dark space I have never experienced before. It seemed like a room with a tunnel on the other side. It was inky black like water on a moonless night, and infinite. I felt I was being given the choice to travel forward into this infinite darkness, or I could just stay there for a while. So long as I stayed in this room I could go back but it was not so clear if that was the case if I proceeded any farther. I chose to hang out a few moments and then return to the light.

Remarkably, I didn't turn loose of Harrison or fall down during this spell, but it was truly eerie, and I have never experienced that depth of darkness before. A couple of healthcare professionals I later discussed this with have told me it was a classic symptom of shock.

When I finally released Harrison he ran back into the house screaming frantically, "You bring Curtis back! Bring him back now!" I told him I couldn't do that.

He grabbed the telephone, yelling that he was calling Curtis. He demanded the phone number. I could only tell him through tears that you can't call people on the phone after they have died. "He's gone, son."

Harrison's rage over Curtis' death did not subside that day or even over the following weeks, during which he was suspended from school three times. The staff at school began to work on the subject of death with him. They had me send photos of Curtis and Harrison to create a social story, resulting in a short booklet called "My Friend Curtis." A month later, the subjects of death and Curtis remain a tense focus with Harrison.

My last conversation with Curtis was over the phone just a couple weeks before he died. We were discussing Harrison and I remember him saying, "Harrison is writing his own rules." I have thought about this many times since Curtis' passing, and I am sure I will reflect upon it many more times in the future.

I didn't know it then but it was one final gift of wisdom that I will carry onward with me on the rest of this journey until at last I cross that great pass myself.

It was 1980 and I was 20 years old when Curtis Imrie called me from a pay phone and suggested I go for a training run with him and his burros. I was a student at CU in Boulder and initially declined the invite. Curtis ran his business out of phone booths. He said he would be hanging around there for a while and to think about it. It was only a few minutes later that I called him back. The next day I went on my first run with burros over American Flats on the Fairplay side of Mosquito Pass, and a couple weeks later I was at the starting line at Leadville Boom Days for my first race with a burro named Moose. The Leadville race is almost 20 miles with nearly 4,000 feet of vertical gain, up and back down Mosquito Pass, 13187 feet. These runs up and down this fabled high pass have served as a yearly barometer, and a scenic backdrop for the mosaic of my entire adult life. I never intended to run 40 consecutive races but this past Sunday I did that, and was first to the pass summit. In the last three miles on the way down California Gulch in second place I hit a stride I had not felt in some years. There was a light rain moistening my face and then Boogie's ears went forward. We found yet another gear, balancing that place between the hope of possibly catching the leader and the fear of being overtaken by the chase pack, that spot between all I have been and am, and all I will and never will be. I felt the presence of a friendly ghost with me and I was racing his burro. Truth is I began weeping uncontrollably, the salty tears mixing with the sweet rain, and of all the heartaches and joys and victories I've experienced in this race over 40 years. None could compare to this moment, that space between the past and the future.

Epilogue

It was 1980 and I was 20 years old when Curtis called me from a pay phone and suggested I go for a training run with him and his burros. I was a student at CU in Boulder and initially declined the invite. Curtis ran his business out of phone booths back then. He said he would be hanging around there for a while and to think about it. It was only a few minutes later that I called him back. The next day I went on my first run with burros over American Flats on the Fairplay side of Mosquito Pass, and a couple weeks later I was at the starting line at Leadville Boom Days for my first race with a burro named Moose. The Leadville race is almost 20 miles with nearly 4,000 feet of vertical gain, up and back down Mosquito Pass, 13187 feet. These runs up and down this fabled high pass have served as a yearly barometer, and a scenic backdrop for the mosaic of my entire adult life. I never intended to run 40 consecutive races but this past Sunday I did that, and was first to the pass summit. In the last three miles on the way down California Gulch in second place I hit a stride I had not felt in some years. There was a light rain moistening my face and then Boogie's ears went forward. We found yet another gear, balancing that place between the hope of possibly catching the leader and the fear of being overtaken by the chase pack, that spot between all I have been and am, and all I will and never will be. I felt the presence of a friendly ghost with me and I was racing his burro. Truth is I began weeping uncontrollably, the salty tears mixing with the sweet rain, and of all the heartaches and joys and victories I've experienced in this race over 40 years. None could compare to this moment, that space between the past and the future.

• • •

"You have to find a way to make them think it's their idea." It's something Curtis often said about training donkeys. I was thinking about this as I trailered a wild burro named Blue Rodeo eight miles down the road to run him home in one direction. Burros always want to run toward home. I can get a cross-training workout by riding my bike back to get the rig.

On the way back I stopped to put him through a cattle-guard gate. An SUV pulled up and stopped right on the cattle guard. The couple inside were apparently just out for a drive.

As I was wrestling with the gate and wondering if Blue would explode over the stoppers-by, the woman in the passenger seat rolled down the window and asked if I was a burro racer. I said, "Yes."

Then she asked, "Are you Curtis?"

A flood of emotions and memories quickly swept over me. I sort of half-chuckled and looked up from what I was doing with the gate. "No, Curtis passed a couple of years ago," I said. "He had a heart attack at the National Western Stock Show."

There was a brief silence as if they did not know what to say. Another car had pulled up behind them and was waiting.

Then the guy said that they had bought a couple of burros from Curtis several years ago. I gestured at the car waiting behind them, thinking maybe they might want to pull over and let the guy pass. But instead of moving the vehicle, he asked if I was going to run Leadville this year. I said that I've run it for 40 years and haven't missed one race; I don't know why I wouldn't.

They both shook their heads in approval and started to roll away. As they drove off the woman turned to wave and exclaimed out the open window: "We love you!"

# A 10K Ultramarathon

Sometimes you 'win.' Sometimes you learn. You can't do either if you stay home.

For those who may think I've found some sort of magical panacea for autism through running, here's your reality check. Because for every breakthrough on this journey there've been countless setbacks. Giving up has never been a recourse but it's also not been easy.

During this off-season between cross-country and track seasons, The Blur and I had decided to run some citizens trail races. He did real well running on his own in the Canya Canyon 5K, and the Raptor Resolution Run 5 miler. He ran independently in these and I was able to have couple of good races myself.

We decided to finish this off-season with a 10K run at the Winter Series in Colorado Springs. As an aside, some of the route included part of the race course he'd run at the Cross Country State Championships there last fall, splashing through a water-crossing near the end before passing another competitor for a podium finish.

We woke up to several inches of fresh snow at our home near Westcliffe and got to the Norris Penrose Center a little later than planned. There was a bit of a scramble to get our race numbers, prepare to run, use the restroom and get to the starting area. Just before the start I recognized all the signs of a meltdown starting, partly because Harrison was having trouble with his music playlist, so I decided to just run with him.

From the start he would not go. He ran off screaming behind a nearby building. A race official asked if I knew who this kid was. I said, "He's my son."

The entire field of 364 had left the starting area. I finally went behind the building and somehow got him back on the trail and moving along. It was a problem now getting around the walkers on the narrow snow-packed path. Plus he was throwing a fit.

He wanted to quit. I said this was fine, but we would have to go straight home — we were not going to celebrate by going out to lunch. You see, I'm funny like that. I think people should do their best to finish what they start and he clearly was not even trying.

What I got then was a kid who would not run but would not quit either. But what he would do was grab me by the arm, strike out, push, scream and yell. He tried to bite me. He even shoved me off the downhill side of the trail sending me scrambling to catch my balance in the snow. This went on for more than a mile, when after several serious discussions he finally started to run. And this went pretty well for about another mile. Even when he wiped out and fell in the snow he just got back up and kept running, passing quite a few people. Then he stepped into a slushy puddle and soaked his feet and it all started up again.

This simple 10K had transformed into a mental-emotional ultramarathon for me.

I think the screaming was worse than the physical stuff because it affected the experience of other participants, many of whom seemed puzzled by what was going on. There was a shrill shriek alternated with a loud high-pitched "Daa-AAADDDDD!" This was punctuated by the occasional "I HATE YOU!" I wondered if someone would file a complaint, or even call the cops.

Above all, I did not want anyone to think I am one of those parents who makes his kid run, though I have encouraged and supported him relentlessly because I think it could be a ticket to success for him in many areas of life. These outbursts can come for reasons that remain a mystery anytime and anywhere, from the race course to the school lunch line to the Georgia O'Keefe Museum.

About a mile from the finish we encountered two women looking for something lost in the snow. I stopped to ask if we could help and one of the women pointed to a missing front tooth. Thinking it might change his focus, I asked Harrison to help look for the lost crown, a white piece of porcelain in a sea of white. I got down on my hands and knees and sifted lightly through the top layer of loose snow. The tooth was hopelessly lost. We eventually moved on, with the inappropriate behaviors and noises cranking back up again.

In short, and in long, I felt like I'd been physically and mentally mugged for 6.45 miles and about 1 hour and forty-two minutes. Near the end I spied the water crossing that Harrison had so gallantly crossed during his state cross-country meet and I splashed through the ice-and-snow-swollen creek just to put an exclamation mark on my own hard-headedness. Meanwhile he padded over the bridge and headed toward the finish line.

It was only a few meters past the creek crossing and at last we were done. But the tantrum continued once he saw the clock and his disappointing time. I hugged him tightly while he screamed and thrashed over this digital picture of what Einstein told us in no uncertain terms is relative.

It was easy after all this to tell myself I should have stayed home, slept in. But in this adventure, like any that is worthwhile, one can never know what to expect. The lesson was to remember this, and to dig deep into my own well of resilience. I needed the reminder of just how hard this is and how much farther we have to go. It's a long race, and there will be other challenges and setbacks. We will fall down and we will get our feet cold and wet, sometimes on purpose. But we will go on. Track practice begins next week. We are only getting started.

# Like Doing Art

We were a motley crew — two kids from Ethiopia, an autistic boy, two freshmen boys, a volleyball refugee, a third-generation cowgirl, and an English teacher from Ohio. Perhaps the biggest misfit was me, the first-year head cross-country coach trying to find his own stride with this band of free spirits.

I had no idea they would teach me more about running than I'd learned over 40 years in the sport.

I'd inherited the team at Custer County High School in Westcliffe, Colorado, from coach Jesse Taylor, who moved to take a minister's job in South Dakota, and also took our No. 2 runner, his son Jeremiah, with him. Our top runner Micah had moved to Wyoming to live with his sister. At base level it appeared I would be coaching three boys, one being my son Harrison, AKA "The Blur," and the other two being Jonah and Joey who were moving up as freshmen from the middle school team, and maybe one girl, Kyleigh, known to ride bucking bovines in the local rodeo.

Harrison himself, now a sophomore, presented the biggest wildcard. As his father I had been there as a volunteer coach for four years as he found his stride in competition. He was one of the few autistic varsity runners in the entire state and had become fairly well known regionally. He had recently appeared in Apple's Face-to-Face presentation for using the watch and music headphones to stay on task during competition. Over Harrison's running career there had been countless meltdowns, victories and defeats. Now as the head coach of the entire team I was taking a leap of faith that he would mature into needing less help from me. I needed to be present for the other athletes as equally as possible. What I found was that the other kids were actually there for me, stepping up to help out with Harrison, something that spoke volumes about the role sports can play in developing a sense of humanity.

I was contacted early on by Micah's older brother, Elias, who wanted to be involved with the team. Elias had been home-schooled and graduated a year early. He had been a standout on the cross-country team before opting to play football in what proved to be his senior year. Now he wanted to get back involved with running. He was preparing to enter the Army and then study at University of Colorado–Colorado Springs with the goal of becoming a physical therapist. He also was interested in coaching running at some point in his future.

A little research revealed that Elias could not run on the team since had accepted a high-school diploma. He also could not sign on as my assistant coach because he was only 17. So Elias opted to volunteer as an assistant coach.

Elias and Micah are Ethiopian. They were adopted from an orphanage and brought to Custer County by their adoptive parents, Andrew and BethAnn Zeller. Starved and weak the two boys arrived in their new home in Colorado; Elias weighed 17 pounds at three years old. Micah weighed only 14 pounds at two years old. Micah had been given the generic name "Abush" reserved for children not expected to survive.

We started in August with voluntary "open runs" which typically were attended by myself, Harrison and Elias. Along the way Jonah joined us. Then Joey.

Official practices began with just two weeks before the first meet on Aug. 24. There was a lot of confusion because the school opening had been delayed due to remodeling. Some families had scheduled vacations late because of this and some kids had jobs. When practice officially started I had the three boys, and one girl, Grace, a senior who had moved over from the volleyball team. Kyleigh, who had been a friend of Harrison's since they were three, was planning to run but needed a doctor's clearance because of a foot injury caused by a steer stepping on her. Kyleigh was a known quantity and a state-qualifier the previous year, but injuries made her a question mark. Besides, it was August, and Kyleigh, ever the cowgirl, was real busy helping her grandpa get his hay put up.

I was able to get the school's language arts teacher, Whitney Day, to be our assistant coach. Besides being very well-read, Whitney also had an athletic background in baseball, softball and soccer. In hindsight I could not have asked for a better supporting coach. Her good energy and popularity with the kids proved to play a major role in the team's cohesiveness throughout the season.

Grace brought over a contagious good energy and enthusiasm. And between her and Coach Day, they formed the glue for the little team of kids who manufactured a sense of something larger. That something grew considerably the second week of practices, when Elias nonchalantly told me that Micah would be moving back from Wyoming and at practice next week.

Micah was indeed there the next Monday. Our first meet was that Friday and there was no possibility for him to get in the required five practices before he was eligible to compete. He said he'd not been running much since the previous track season in Wyoming but did not appear to have lost much fitness. I was concerned about him starting out with too rigorous a training program.

We headed to Colorado Springs for that first meet with more coaches than runners. Only Jonah and Harrison were eligible to run, but Micah and Joey were there to cheer them on. Jonah finished about a minute ahead of Harrison, who overcame a serious case of stage fright. And with "all both" of my runners doing well, I now had my first meet as head coach under my belt.

The next week's meet was in Leadville on Colorado Mountain College's cross-country ski trails. It would be the most difficult course of the nine-race season at over 10,000 feet elevation and on rugged terrain. I'm certain it is the highest high school cross-country meet in the nation. That week in practice Micah mentioned a pain in his calf. Grace was back from vacation and ready for her first meet, and Joey was now eligible. Micah ended up sitting it out, with Jonah, Harrison and Joey finishing in that order, and Grace finishing her first cross-country meet on this challenging course.

That following Monday Kyleigh showed up in her cowboy boots with a doctor's note cleared to run. But clearly she was not intending to practice. We had a talk. It was Monday and the next meet was that Saturday. If she wanted to run that weekend, she needed five practices. We found some gear in the uniform room and I had her run laps on the track in order to have five practices for that following Saturday

That week we were at Alamosa for the Joe Vigil Open. This would be the biggest and most competitive meet of the regular season in terms of numbers of competitors, with teams from throughout Colorado and New Mexico. Micah finally seemed on track and we had all six members of the team. Also, I had volunteered to drive the small activities bus, and this was my first long over-the-road trip with the "mini."

We maybe should have left a little earlier. We got there and found a chaotic scene and long lines for the not-nearly-enough porta-potties. In the confusion I left the race numbers at our tent, and a last-minute sprint by Elias saved the day. We pinned the numbers on the four boys and they rushed to the start. They'd barely lined up when the gun went off and 376 runners vanished in a cloud of dust. In this deep field, Micah finished 10th overall, placing just a few seconds ahead of his 2A rival, Noel Lopez of Rocky Ford. With Jonah, Harrison, Joey, Kyleigh and Grace also running strong races I felt like we now had a real team. Moreover, the boys had shown a lot of poise in the face of adversity in dealing with the bib-number snafu right before the start.

The next week's meet was at Gunnison, the Cowboy-Mountaineer Invite hosted by Western State University. In addition to middle- and high-school events there's also a college race at this meet. I've been known to explore the rules, and wondered if it might be possible for Elias to run in the college event. After all, he had graduated from high school and was accepted to UCCS. There was only the small matter of Basic Training and Medic School between him and actual enrollment. I called the race organizer and explained the situation. She agreed that Elias could enter as an "unattached" runner in the college race.

So with Elias entered in this thing, the biggest question was, "What to wear?" It needed to look official but obviously not a high-school inform. At last I came up with the idea of cutting off the sleeves from a previous year's T-shirt that said "Bobcat XC" on the front. It looked great and I told Elias if anyone asked to just say he was from Bobcat University.

By the time we arrived in Gunnison, we were a tiny squad. Jonah had a commitment with band, and Kyleigh had a date with an owl at the U.S. Olympic Training Center as part of her volunteer work at the area raptor center. Micah's calf issue had flared up again. He warmed up then decided to bail. We left there that day with Harrison as our top-finishing runner and Joey finishing behind him. Grace was our only finishing girl. Elias had competed in his first college meet, meaning I had just coached my first and likely only-ever collegiate athlete.

We were now nearing the halfway point in the season and the next two meets would be closer to home, in Pueblo and Salida. Pueblo was somewhat of a low-point. Micah took a lead early, then placed third with his rival Noel coming on strong at the end and winning. Harrison had a horrible side cramp and though he managed to finish it was his worst race of the season. Kyleigh seemed to be running in pain. Grace developed a knee problem in the race and finished disappointed. Though Jonah and Joey both ran PRs, it seemed we'd just been handed a small dose of reality.

The next week in Salida, however, we had a rebound. Micah ran an incredible race, placing third behind two strong runners from bigger 3A and 4A schools — and outrunning Noel. Kyleigh ran a determined race. While Jonah sat it out with an ankle issue, Harrison was our No. 2 finisher and Joey No. 3.

The idyllic Westcliffe fall unfolded like a dream, with long evening practices around town, and trips to the nearby Rainbow Trail for training runs. We had team dinners during the week. I began teaching a short yoga progression as a cool-down and the kids responded enthusiastically. The days of meets were an endurance test for me as well. I am not a morning person. Many of our competitions were two to three hours away, which meant early starts. Somehow I got Harrison ready and loaded up, made the 15-mile drive to town to fire up the "mini," loaded up the runners and their gear, and then drove away to the meet often before sunrise. After driving there, getting the coach's packet and getting everyone lined out in their events, we would typically preview the course by walking it.

Then during the races I would bolt back and forth to certain points, shouting encouragement or tactics, and taking pictures. Usually, I would rack up more than twice the distance of my runners, some of it walking and some of it sprinting. And when it was over, we would load up and make the trip home, often with a long debate on where to stop to eat. Harrison figured a way to jury-rig the bus' sound system to phones so we shared music along the way. We had become a family of sorts.

Something about the Salida meet seemed to get everyone back on track. Grace transitioned from athlete to team manager, continuing to practice but opting to not compete. She was a tremendous help with the race numbers, uniforms and helping to keep track of various outerwear jettisoned at the starting line. Suddenly everyone seemed healthy again. But there were now three meets scheduled in eight days.

Micah won them all handily.

Following his first win at an afternoon meet in Rye where he destroyed the entire field by 26 seconds, a man, an older white guy from another school, asked in front of the entire team, "Where did you get that one?"

There was a brief silence as if everyone was shocked at the apparently racist comment.

It was Elias who came up with the best answer. He looked at the man and deadpanned: "Africa."

Unfortunately, I was not present for this exchange but heard about it from Whitney later over dinner. I could not have been more proud. Elias' answer was true. It was smart, poised and mannerly. It put the guy in his place and left no room for a response. And it was just one word. I wish I'd experienced this in person, but then I may have well spoiled it with a much longer and less eloquent response.

Also following his finishing the race at Rye, Harrison had a terrible meltdown over not running as well as he had wished due to side-stitch cramps. He ran through the finish line and then continued on to a nearby field where he ran screaming around and around in circles for a long time, silhouetted in the evening sunset. This continued on through the awards ceremony and even after we loaded up and drove away. His teammates handled the tantrum all in stride.

After this there seemed a renewed energy with everyone having more fun while getting stronger and faster, and Kyleigh beginning to set her sights on qualifying for state. During our course preview at the Fountain meet I had a serious coaching moment with Kyleigh, and something seemed to sink in about strategy. I simply wanted her to start off slower, then position herself to be in the top 15 by the finish. This was the tactic I would need her to adopt. At the regional meet coming up in two weeks, the top 15 runners go to state. She responded by running to 12th pace in tough field, while Micah ran away with the boys race.

Then it was on to Monte Vista where Micah made it three in a row with a gutsy run in a chilly breeze to be crowned the Southern Peaks League Champion. I realized on the way home that I was reliving my own high school sports experience vicariously through these young runners. I had been a mediocre football player at a good football school, and never really had the experience these athletes were having. Moreover, the opportunity to work with neurotypical youth alongside Harrison was even more rewarding than all the little victories I'd experienced with him in five years of volunteer coaching.

After the Monte Vista meet I took the team to the Hooper Pool in the San Luis Valley as a team-bonding activity and to celebrate. Only Harrison had ever been there, and the others seemed taken by the hot water that gushes up from two miles below the earth, and the setting with the Great Sand Dunes and un-ending views of the same mountain range they are so familiar with from the other side. Suddenly my athletes were just kids again, bobbing around in the warm water, laughing, playing and having fun. I sat back in the sunshine and felt like I had helped create something that went beyond mere running or competition.

The regional meet in Rocky Ford was the next week and I had high hopes that Micah might win it, and then be in the position to win state 2A as well. But the universe had other plans. When Micah showed up for practice the following Monday he had the cold that was making its rounds at the school. This in turn caused him some complications with asthma that he'd had since he was a child. I had him sit out workouts or walk.

He made a valiant effort in a crazy wind at the regional meet only to finish second on Noel's home course. Kyleigh, meanwhile ran her best race of the season, positioning herself perfectly early on, then picking off other girls to finish 11th and qualify for state. Jonah and Joey both ran personal records. Jonah, in fact, had run a PR every meet he ran. Harrison ran his season's best time and also was the only team member to run all nine regular-season meets. Because of his autism, he qualified for the state Unified Race, which is a division for those with disabilities. So as a first-year head coach I would be taking three runners in three races to the state championships. Considering that I had only six runners total on the team I thought this to be a pretty good percentage.

After the regional meet Noel's coach and I compared notes. I related to him how I've been continuously adapting our training programs as the season progressed, trying to adjust to fitness levels, injuries and illness, and the sensibilities of each individual runner. He said: "It's like doing art." And then it sunk in: "Yes, it's a lot like art!"

And so it was. Our season had been a rollercoaster and now I was heading to state with a microcosm of what our team really was: an elite runner from Africa, a native cowgirl from Westcliffe and my own autistic son who often fires from another realm altogether. The entire team turned out in support to practice that week before state though three of them were not competing.

The Colorado State Championships is a huge event, with a lot of frenetic activity. It was a big deal for these athletes to travel to the event and walk the course a day ahead, spend a night in a hotel, go to a movie, then run the next day. Micah was still not 100 percent healthy, and I had by now let go of any expectations, other than that we had come a long way and were just there to have fun and do our best. I know from my own athletic background that your best is always going to change moment to moment, and under different circumstances. And I really needed to focus on doing my own best as I had one athlete in each of three races — something probably no other coach in the meet had. Also, Harrison ran last and was now on his 10th race of the season — something none of his teammates had done. I figured if I got through that without an issue or some sort of meltdown I would declare the entire season a victory.

And when it was all said and done they all ran great — their places and times were fine, but really not important in the big scheme of things. What would endure is that they all ran their best that day. It was all I could ever ask of them. They each made me really proud.

Two days later, Elias would ship out for basic training. The rest of the runners would get back to their normal lives, their other activities, their academic work, their friends and families. Micah would be named to the 2A Boys All State Cross-Country First Team. We would turn in the uniforms and have a end-of-the-year awards dinner. And begin to look forward to the next season.

It had been like doing art, and I would be forever grateful to have been a co-creator of this once-in-a-lifetime experience.

# Blue Rodeo

The big aspen tree had stood there probably 70-80 years. It could have fallen two minutes earlier. Or it could have fallen two minutes later. Instead, it crashed to earth exactly at the moment I hiked past with a wild burro named Blue Rodeo.

The wild burro, named for the obvious reasons, bolted to my left and ripped the long training lead from my hands. Then raced ahead uphill, uncatchable. He caught the old Highline Trail Road heading north toward Locke Mountain at a gallop, then disappeared from sight. At some point I realized pursuit on foot was useless. I headed back to my truck trying to form a plan. I had a wild burro lose, trailing a lead rope, on thousands of acres of national forest and no idea how I was going to get him back.

This much we know about Blue Rodeo. He was trapped on Sept. 17, 2015 by the Bureau of Land Management's Wild Horse and Burro Program as a 1-year-old at Black Mountain, Arizona. He arrived at my ranch by way of the BLM holding pens in Elm Creek, Nebraska, where he was picked up by my friend Eric Lynn. The circumstances surrounding Blue's capture and subsequent castration by the BLM are unknown, but the word "traumatic" probably would suffice. When he arrived at my place Eric had named him "Snort" because that was his reaction to any human encounter. Eric said if anyone could train him, it probably would be me.

I went home and returned with my fat bike, pedaling up the forest road to where I had lost track of Blue Rodeo. As I rode along I scanned for tracks. Sometimes it was the snakelike trail of the rope in the dirt. Sometimes the indistinct print of a hoof in the dry roadbed. I rode on following these signs, sometimes losing them, only to pick them back up again a ways down the road. I wondered how far he would go. Then suddenly the tracks seemed to end.

I got off the bike and looked around. After some searching I spotted a short rope track leading off into the woods. There I found an old deserted logging road and faint tracks that grew more indistinct until they were no longer evident. I left the bike in this old roadbed, and skirted around in the woods, finally finding a thin directionless trace of a rope drag. I walked south for some time, eyes to the ground. I found nothing. I circled back and found some indistinct tracks in the pine duff and followed them for a while. I did not know if they were the tracks of my burro or an elk but I stayed on the trail, track-to-track, at last coming to a large outcrop of rocks.

I climbed up onto the rocks and took a look around. The land dropped off precipitously from this vantage point, miles and miles of steep, rocky country. The view spread out before me, painted with turning aspens from the southern Sangres to the north where smoke from the Decker Fire near Salida was visible, and beyond this, the Sawatch Range fading into the distance. I studied the surrounding hillsides for the outline of a burro but could see nothing alive. The country was so big, so rugged, so steep. I knew my burro was out there hidden by scrub oak and pines, but so was a needle in a haystack. I considered the very real thought I would probably never see Blue again, and resigned that I likely would have to give up the futile search and accept this as his karma meeting my own. Before turning away, out of diligence or intuition, I took one step closer to the edge and peered over the cliff.

There he was. Standing directly below on the slope of boulders and brush, apparently caught up by his rope. It was not clear how to get to him. I surveyed the situation, then skirted around the cliff and scrambled down the steep slope through the brush and rocks toward the burro. He snorted as I approached. I spoke to him so that he might recognize my voice and I moved slowly. As I drew near he startled me by charging in a rage of fear and adrenaline. I scrambled uphill to get out of the reach of his rope, falling down a couple times in the process. I waited to see if he would calm down. I could see the rope was tightly wedged between two boulders. When I approached the second time he chased me back uphill again. In getting away I slipped and tumbled a couple more times before escaping upslope by climbing a boulder. I sat perched on the rock trying to figure out what to do.

When I at last moved again, Blue bolted downhill away from me, got tangled in the rope and went down in a heap. The rope had looped around his nose and his feet. He was hopelessly tangled and completely wadded up. I could hear him struggling for air.

The rope was now drawn extremely taut and wrapped around a huge mountain mahogany shrub. I reached for my knife but realized I'd forgotten it in my rush. With no other choice I began breaking branches off the mahogany bush one by one with my bare hands. I could not hear any breathing now and assumed at this point Blue was dead. I kept breaking branches anyway until at last I could get some slack in the rope and lift it with much effort over the rest of the bush.

As I did so I saw some faint life still in the burro. I freed the rope from the boulders and then hazed Blue by waving my arms and yelling until he moved. When at last he clambered to his feet he tumbled sideways over and over down the slope, coming to rest on his side but with his head up.

Cut and bleeding myself now, I moved slowly down the slope talking to the burro the entire time. He stood up as I approached but he did not charge me and he did not run away. The rope was looped loosely around him. I walked up to him and grabbed the lead near his head and unwound it from around his barked-up body. I let him rest a few moments then began leading him back up the mountainside.

It was extremely steep going, picking our way around boulders and downed trees, brush and cactus. Blue was now a completely different animal, giving his trust to me like I was some minor deity who had come to his rescue. We picked our way up the slope, at last coming to the place where I had left my bike on the old deserted logging road. Not wanting to take any chances I tied Blue to a tree while I ditched the bike. Then we set off on foot in the dwindling light, jogging back toward the truck, about 6 miles away.

It was a glorious fall evening running out of there. We ran back past the place where the aspen had fallen and I thought about the timing of everything, and the bizarre timing of events that we call life. I felt more alive than I had in quite some time. I'm sure Blue Rodeo did as well.

Other books by Hal Walter are available in paperback or ebook.

Just click on the title to order.

Wild Burro Tales

Full Tilt Boogie

Endurance
  1. Foreword
  2. The Distance
  3. A Perfect Season
  4. Racing the Storm
  5. Lightning in a Bottle
  6. Ain't What it Used to Be
  7. The True Meaning of Competition
  8. A Season through the Spectrum
  9. Onward to State
  10. Becoming Coach Hal
  11. The Lost Frontier
  12. The Final Gift
  13. A 10K Ultramarathon
  14. Like Doing Art
  15. Blue Rodeo

