Happy Birthday, Mom

Mom,

I shall spare your age but would like to wish you a happy birthday. This marks the first year I am truly on my own with a full time job. While I still can’t make anything without a microwave and would like you to occasionally visit to vacuum, I feel like things have turned out pretty well.

My favorite, most memorable, moments with you include:

First, our 18 hour trek from Springfield to Tempe for my freshman year of college. Specifically, the moment when you turned the music off and said, “I know you are going to have fun and drink but just please don’t drink and drive.”

Second, the moment I let you know about being accepted to train for the F-16. I am not sure if they were tears of fear or happiness, but it was sure memorable. You are notorious for the family crying moments when my delinquent sister and I both happen to converge on Springfield at the same time but I have a feeling this was a slightly different kind of cry.

Third, the only time you tried to ground me in high school. I was a pretty reliable kid but didn’t let you know I was spending the night at a friend’s house that evening. I think I declined to accept the grounding and fortunately we never had another problem.

Finally, all of the times you conveniently interrupted my high school girlfriends and I at just the right moment with offers of cookies or “anything we needed.” Your timing is impeccable.

Oh and that time I was born. I guess that worked out well for me as well.

You are the best cook I know. Seriously. I know everyone says that about their mom but I would take any bet with people who may disagree. I am genuinely impressed and envy your rapport with people and generally attitude toward life.

And best of all, I think I inherited most of your good looks.

While I never said it, I love you.

Son

3,716

3,716 is the number of miles I have traveled on foot and bicycle in the last 3.5 years when I started endurance athletics. This distance is equivalent to a trip from Salt Lake City to Barbados or a cross country trip from New Hampshire to Oregon. I write about this today as the distances are equally split between running and cycling.

Running/Cycling has become, and will continue to be, a dominant part of my life for a variety of reasons. Not only health, but some of my favorite memories in the last few years have been associated with this passion. Trips to Africa, Rio de Janeiro and Rome wouldn't have happened. Further, the relationships I have created and then reinforced by pounding the pavement together are very important to me and have significantly improved my life. There are not many truly beneficial activities that isolate you from cell phones, TV and other distractions for a couple hours like running/cycling.

While, I have seen many more sunrises, idiot drivers, roadkill and hills than I sometimes would prefer, I never regret it afterward. A difficult statement to make about anything else.

When it comes down to a per day mileage, that 3,716 miles only turns out to be about 3 miles a day. A number that is obviously very manageable.

You just have to start and the addiction begins.


Special thanks to Katie B. and Tom P. for getting it all started.

Also to David Y., Mike F., Eli B., Stephanie J., Emily B., Jamie S., Brian H., Cole D, Venessa L. and then rest of you who have provided some motivation to get out there and do it.

"Me love you long time"

For some odd reason I love attempting to communicate with foreigners. There are the language and cultural differences creating the challenge of getting the message across and the excitement of getting unexpected answers because we can’t understand each other or due to their culture being simply different. Some, if not most, seem to hate this challenge. I’ll admit it can be frustrating to spend five unavailable minutes determining the coordinates of a bathroom or have any conversation of real intelligence, but the element of surprise and comical error in each conversation is worth it.

Seeing the redness on my sister’s boyfriend's face when they each had rings on their left ring finger over Christmas break and my dad asking for an explanation was priceless. His already very broken English, combined with nerves, turned into mumbling, sweating and probably fear. However, in a moment of genius, he hopped up to open another bottle of wine and all was remedied.

My freshman year of college, I visited my sister in a town outside of Milan and asked this girl in her class out on a date for drinks one evening. I spoke no Italian and she spoke no English. Each armed with a dictionary, good attitude, broken Spanish and some excellent charade abilities; we chatted for over three hours and had a great time. Overall, a generally normal evening made memorable by this simple difference.

The best is when someone has a basic knowledge of a new language and attempts to say things. My friend Bryn is currently taking classes Swahili classes in Tanzania and had a couple good examples from her blog. Instead of saying "see you later" or tutaona she found herself telling the teacher tutaoana, which means "we will get married".  For extra credit in High School Spanish, I found a Spanish speaking chat room and had a conversation with a female my age in Mexico. After printing it and turning it in, I found out I kept announcing I was pregnant when I meant to say something about a girlfriend. Extra Credit denied.

My story with Elton, the Zambian kid I met on my trip was documented before and our correspondence continues. He is 12 and it’s fun to watch his English develop.

This love for foreign communication also explains why on my 7 continent marathon tour, Australia excites me the least. I feel like it will be similar to traveling to an England with cooler accents and less historical significance. Will I be excited to go? Of course. But not nearly as much as Asia or I was for Africa.

Finally, by pure chance, the Air Force placed me in a class for pilot training that includes training people from various NATO countries as well. I can only imagine the radio stories that derive from the higher stress environment of military aviation training. Here is a video I found of a Japanese student and instructor and the communication problem that ensues. It gets pretty good around the 35 second point. 

Best Picture?

I bought a Groupon the other day that will print a picture on large canvas for hanging.

Problem: Deciding on a picture.
Solution: Your opinion.

Below are my finalists and each represent some part of my life. Please email or comment on your favorite. This will be the dominant piece of art that follows me on my gypsy lifestyle the next couple years. They are in no particular order.

1.

2. 

3. 

4. 

5.

6. 

7. 

Elton's Chance

Call me Angelina Jolie because I have found an African.

Life has a lot to do with chance. I have written before about increasing your odds for success but sometimes you get to be on the other side of the coin. When you have taken advantage of your “chance” and start achieving things, you may have the opportunity to give someone their chance.

My Africa trip was a game changer and why it took me four months after to write Elton, I will never know. Why Elton and not the other thousands of kids? Well, chance for one, but he was willing to smile and sometimes you just click with a person. Many of the kids seemed scared, nervous, skeptical, or annoyed with me and their life but not Elton. You can sense his optimism in the letter. He has the attitude to do something bigger than most, especially given his situation. In the letter he is not making excuses, he is just asking for some assistance, something I have utilized throughout my life from many great mentors.

As a friend of mine said after reading the letter, “Children from regular places, even if they aren’t well off, have big dreams. But children who have so little, yet dream so big; their ambition, determination and joy of life is just heartwarming. It makes you want to make their dreams come true that much more.”

How amazing is it that I can have a conversation with a kid 8500 miles away who lives 20 miles from a power source? Granted, it takes 3 weeks for a letter to travel that distance, but for a kid who has to deal with a hungry season, my impatience can easily tolerate the delay.

While we are currently only pen pals, he is definitely someone I would like to help give an opportunity.

The question is, how?

Here is a photo of the letter with a transcription below. I tried to copy the text just as he wrote it.

 Dear Taylor Fox

                How a you my Pen-Pal. I hope you well with me I am fine.

I enjoyed your company and personality I am in grade 8 at Mambilima basic school my performance was very good uniform Like that you are training see in the picture  I have enjoyed reading the latter that you sent for has inspired me much you have that you a training for the Air Force for the United States it is so nice to hear that I would olso like to take such coreer when I finish school. The if you start work is that don’t forget to assist me so that I become

    I con’t forget about and I hope you con’t fogert about me I really enjoyed being with you and am missing you so much. Taylor Fox the time I received your latter I said thank God you are my only freind in the United Stetes of America  God Bless you as you training for a good job.

Yours sincerely

Elton Mambwe

No Yoops, Papa

“No yoops (loops), papa.” This was the deal I made with my grandpa, a pilot, before I would board any flight  from birth until age eleven. I loved flying and sitting in the cockpit but the fear of going upside down was overwhelming.

Thirteen years later, flying and yoops, have become the center of my life. People often ask, “what is your favorite thing about flying?” I began realizing my answer was different each time, a decent indicator this is something I really care about. They include:

The view from the cockpit is amazing. Seeing the earth’s shadow at 45,000 feet, sunsets, cities glistening at night, cloud formations and lightening storms (from a distance) are all incredible experiences, every time.

The feeling of climbing on top of the clouds on a dreary overcast day to a bright world of marshmallows and cotton balls blanketed with bright sunlight.

Flying alone is the only place you are truly isolated. Pull the power to idle, turn the radios off, and it is just you and the sound of air streaming past the wings. No one can watch or say anything to you.

I love flying formation. The challenge of mentally overcoming the instinct to pull away from an airplane that close and the requirements to work as one unit to fly just a few feet from another airplane is exhilarating.

Similar to how looking at stars puts things in perspective. Looking down on cities and the earth has the same effect.

The country seems smaller.

Finally, the most common answer is aerobatics. I love turning airplanes upside down. It is a freedom of expression unmatched with anything else I have found in this world. Adding an additional axis of control and an empty sky is the perfect recipe for fun.

This diversity of “things to love” makes it great and long term passion. Below is a video I shot yesterday of my flight complete with aerobatics in a 1943 Boeing Stearman.

Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I've climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun-split clouds - and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of - wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov'ring there
I've chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air.
Up, up the long delirious, burning blue,
I've topped the windswept heights with easy grace
Where never lark, or even eagle flew -
And, while with silent lifting mind I've trod
The high untresspassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand and touched the face of God.

   -John Gillespie

Sacrifice, Pride and a Buzz Cut

Ever since I swore into the United States military, I have wanted to see Washington D.C. one more time before the commencement of training. Last week, the opportunity presented itself during a trip to the Northeast. Fortunately, I took advantage and the city has a much different meaning the final day before I commit a significant portion of my life to the numerous symbols in the city

For two days, I walked the city by myself, allowing me to see, think and reflect on the various memorials and government buildings on my own schedule and opinion.

Walking through the museums, exhibits and memorials of the millions who have died sacrificing for our country was a surreal feeling.  I envisioned myself doing the same thing. How would I react?  At one point, all of those servicemen and women were two weeks from starting their military training, not fully knowing what they were getting into either. The surreal feeling occurs when I am actually doing something that happens very infrequently. I often get it when I prepare for a lengthy amount of time for an event and it is finally occurring. There is a pause and a realization that something important is actually, finally, happening.

As I walked through the various memorials, I tried to piece together what those men and women must have gone through during their service. By putting together various books and movies I have read and seen, I tried to recreate their final sacrifices. Imagine life with mortar shells incoming and bullets flying by. Then imagine that just one of those shots could finish your life. I began to realize, with video games and paintball, war is entertainment to my generation. The sacrifices our veterans have made were done knowing there was not a restart button on their own life.

As a kid, you listen to your parents and other people who care about your life as they give you advice. The older you get, the less we listen and begin to think we know better.  I am proud of many of the decisions I have made and believe that my ability and willingness to seek advice from those who have been successful around me has helped improve my decision making, a process not always accepted by those of my generation. On my latest life changing decision of being a pilot in the Air Force, only three or four people have thought it was a dumb choice and they are all my age. I am excited to be doing something millions of people will stand behind. It is a powerful feeling.

I tried to look at the Capitol building, White House and Supreme Court the way I look at the Coliseum in Rome. Not as places to see but of history in the making. There will be a time in the future that many will look upon them the same way we do the museums displaying the past. These are the places deciding if and where I will fight to shape history.


I have been fortunate enough to travel the world and know we live in its best society . While we all take it for granted every day, it wasn't always this way and won't be unless we do something about it. I have never been more ready, physically or mentally, to be one of those people doing something about it.


The hair is cut. The uniforms are pressed. And the journey starts tomorrow. 

 See more pictures from my Washington DC trip here

Celebrations

It seems there are those who celebrate and those who mourn. Mourn the fact that it is Monday, cold, the laundry is dirty and countless other reasons. There are others who celebrate the start of a new week, being able to have a fire outside, the smell of fresh clothes and almost everything else.

Two and a half years ago my family and I rafted the Grand Canyon and met part of a great family from Colorado. Their daughter, who did not make that trip, passed away last week at age 28 from the flu. They chose to celebrate, not morn, by putting on a full staged production that encompassed the great attributes of her life and personality because that is what she would have done. While having never met “Allie,” I began watching the show online as they streamed it to the world. For over two hours, people across the world watched friends from every part of her life come to act out and tell great stories of Allie.

I felt the full spectrum of emotions watching the event but now that it is over, I feel more inspired than ever to make the most of each moment. If not anything else, the event encourages me to make life more fun and creative in every situation. You can go through the motions or do it differently and better. Allie and her family chose to do things differently and it was better.

Numerous people in the show mentioned her desire to change the world. She changed the world for everyone in her life and who watched today by leading through example. A world of celebration and fun is a happier world, and therefore, a more productive world.  

I am not sure how I would have classified myself before today, celebrator or mourner, but thanks to Allie, I hope to be perceived as a celebrator from this point forward.

You can see a copy of the performance here:

http://www.ustream.tv/channel/celebrate-allie

You must have a Screw Loose

“You must have a screw loose.” “Are there rocks in your head?” These are the two questions I was asked by my grandmother and grandfather, respectively, as I set out on a run the other day during temperatures hovering around 20 degrees. On the surface it does seem a bit odd to leave a temperature controlled environment to enter a potentially deadly climate for more than an hour to do something that can cause pain. However, my immediate response was that I felt they were the ones, in fact, that had a screw loose.

Why? By summarizing a chapter of the book “Born to Run,” I will explain and hopefully motivate you to consider distance running.. If you are not, it must be due to my poor summarization skills, and you should read the book to fully understand.

It comes down to why we are here. How did Humans make it in the beginning of the natural selecting animal kingdom? It comes down to eating and not getting eaten. It isn’t very helpful to run 20 miles when a tiger can catch you in 10 seconds and a deer out-sprint you.

First, let’s look at our anatomy. When conventional animals on four legs run, they get stuck in a one-breath-per-locomotion cycle. Humans, however, can pant. Why? To shed heat, which is also the reason we are the only animal that sweats. We are the best air-cooled engine evolution has ever put on the market. For example, after studying cheetahs it was found that when their core temperature hits 105 degrees, the cheetah shuts down and refused to run. That’s the natural response for all running mammals; when they build up more heat in their bodies than they can puff out their mouths, they have to stop or die. Further, the top galloping speed for most horses is 7.7 meters a second. They can hold that pace for about ten minutes but must then slow to 5.8 meters a second. But an elite marathoner can jog for hours at 6 meters a second.

To run an antelope to death, researches determined, all you have to do is scare it into a gallop on a hot day. If you keep just close enough for it to see you, it will keep sprinting away. After about ten or fifteen kilometers’ worth of running, it will go into hyperthermia and collapse. Translation: if you can run six miles on a summer day then you, my friend, are a lethal weapon in the animal kingdom.

As a hunter-gatherer, you’re never off the clock; you can be walking home after an exhausting day of collecting yams, but if fresh game scuttles into view, you drop everything and go. So we learned to graze, eating lightly throughout the day rather than filling up on big meals. This validates the theory many are adopting that eating numerous meals throughout the day is a healthier alternative to our conventional three big meals.

So why do most of us never want to exercise? Sitting around was once a luxury, so when you had the chance to rest and recover, you grabbed it. Only recently have we come up with the technology to turn laying around into a way of life.

 The brain is always scheming to reduce costs, get more for less, store energy and have it ready for an emergency. Runners know how good running feels because we’ve made a habit of it. But lose the habit, and the loudest voice in your ear is your ancient survival instinct urging you to relax.

We’ve taken away the jobs our bodies were meant to do, and we’re paying for it. Nearly every top killer in the Western world—heart disease, stroke, diabetes, depression, hypertension, and a dozen forms of cancer— was unknown to our ancestors.

If this isn’t reason enough, my grandparents' questions should be applied to you. 

Welcome to America

One of the most interesting things about international travel is experiencing a new culture and way of life. If possible, I always try to live at least part of the trip with locals and experience life past hotels and resorts. While it was very different and sometimes inconvenient to live in the African village or in Rome with my sister, what do people from abroad think of the United States on their first trip here? My sister brought her pure-bred Italian boyfriend Valerio (Vale) here for the holidays and I made note of his initial impressions.

Pick-up trucks were first on the amazement list. He saw an entire parking lot full while landing in Atlanta to change planes. Previously, he had only seen them on TV shows and they blew him away. He also ran into his first hotdog stand in the airport.

Traffic during the holiday season does not get any worse in Springfield, Missouri. However,  during 5 o’clock traffic he repeatedly remarked how light and orderly the traffic is.

Upon arriving at my parent’s house late in the evening, the wall-to-wall carpet amazed him. He proceeded to roll around on the floor in pleasure. Further, the size of our yard and house were unbelievable. Comparable to three or four standard houses in Italy, I believe ours is not much larger than the average in our area. Central air in houses and restaurants had him staring at duct work numerous times. Having only really seen an AC window unit, central is a beautiful thing.

Our food is really heavy compared to Italians apparently, full of flavor and very good, but heavy. This probably correlates to his numerous comments on the average weight of Americans. He has never seen anything like it and we only enhanced his astonishment after taking him to the mall. The malls also lead him to notice all of the “very young girls with babies.”

Valerio had a little back trouble and went to the hospital for a checkup. He was astonished at how nice everything was and compared our hospital to a nice hotel in Rome. Don’t they have universal health care there? Just saying.

Obviously a few positive and negative observations but on his last night I asked what he will predominately remember when he thinks of Missouri and the United States. First, what do you think of?  Besides being more organized, he replied by saying we seem to happier, calmer and smile a lot more to each other than Italians or any other culture he has seen. I will admit that surprised me.

Vale and his first chainsaw encounter: