That’s how much the funds the generous people in my life raised came to in the 10k I ran Sunday morning in Dana Point.
$1665, in total.*
From 40 people/couples/families.
I used to think that people said, “I’m humbled by your generosity” because that was what you said, as if it was some Code of Christian Charity or of Hallmark Card Inscriptions that’s become so entrenched in our cultural rituals that people say it out of obligation, because to not say it would be awkward. Like when the only other person in the waiting room sneezes and you say, “Bless you,” even though you’re not actually thinking, “God, bless this person and keep him well,” even though you don’t really believe in blessings.
I used to think that, I realize now, because I’d never actually been affected by people’s generosity before. Let alone been a vehicle for it.
When I was a kid, we did can drives, sold chocolate bars, did Swim-A-Thons, but I don’t remember one thing we raised money for. Partly this was because I was a little kid and didn’t grasp much of anything I was doing, and partly because as I grew into a bigger kid, it was cool to not care about anyone else and to not donate time or money and to not do things for other people, when there was so much other important stuff to do and spend your money on, like surf and chase girls and play basketball and smoke pot and look for old LPs at the flea market. For instance.
In college, what little volunteering I did was almost entirely selfish, either as a resume-builder or as a way to try to impress upon people the generosity of my spirit (which, of course, belies that very thing). Or, like the Habitat for Humanity Global Village trip I took to Paraguay in ’05, it was an excuse to go somewhere or do something cool. My college coach used to make the swim team run in this 10k every year to support Special Olympics, and I loathed it and complained bitterly about it the entire time. I thought Special Olympics was great and all, but I didn’t see why swimmers had to run to help them out. Why I had to, of all people. I tried coaching Special Olympics on and off over the years, but I never thought of it as anything but a potential way to “prove” I was more than just a jock, that I had a heart and gave a shit. (Though I’m sure it was pretty obvious to all involved that I wasn’t/didn’t.) Several of my friends and teammates loved doing it, and did all kinds of other volunteer work, too, and seemed to really enjoy getting out of themselves for a couple hours every week, giving of themselves, doing things for other people.
I mean, right? Kind of? No?
I just figured I wasn’t cut from that altruistic cloth. “Some people make good kindergarten teachers,” I reasoned, “and some people are born volunteers. I’m not.” I was better at “being me,” which basically meant thinking about myself and doing what I wanted to do, all the time, forever. Which over the years turned into crawling further and further into this small little black-holish ball of nihilistic narcissism (which story’s been told and is boring anyway).
And then one of my closest friends died.
A little bit about Fran’s death and his life and what he meant to me and others is here in this article I wrote a few years ago, but suffice it to say that he died suddenly and rather tragically, and it stunned me.
In the wake of Fran’s death, his family established the Fran Crippen Elevation Foundation as a legacy to the things that mattered most to him, and I realized for perhaps the first time in my life that here was something that had nothing to do with me that I actually really cared about.
Pic: Lars Baron/Getty Images
Fran was an optimist and believed that pursuing one’s dreams was the highest calling in life. He didn’t think any obstacle was too great to overcome, but he was also realistic enough to know that obstacles can’t just be wished away, and that sometimes people need a little help getting over life’s hurdles. In non-headliner sports like swimming, financial wherewithal is often the dealbreaker when it comes to deciding whether or not to keep plugging away at the dream, and to that end, the FCEF offers financial support to one male and one female athlete every year who has a plan to continue training, but faces financial challenges to doing so.
Which is where Team Fran and the race we did last Sunday come in. Team Fran is set up like Team USO, in that you raise money by participating in events that are already underway. For the last couple years, Team Fran has been running in Philadelphia’s Broad Street Run, and we were thinking it’d be nice to have a west coast fundraiser, as well. Thus the Dana Point Halloween Half Marathon, in which 300ish people ran. Eight of us were registered with Team Fran and raised money (three of them did the half-marathon, crazy awesome bastards), and a handful of others came out to run or walk the 5k or 10k.
I started asking for money on facebook about a month ago. I’d never done that before, and I felt a little uncomfortable about it, but this was for Fran’s foundation, so I kept at it. A few people pitched in right away, and I thought, “Aw, that’s good.” But they were teammates and close friends and I figured they’d donate no matter what I was doing, still thinking, Because that’s what you do, donate when your friends want you to. And then each week more and more money came in, and I started thinking wow, this is kind of cool. And then last week it was like the floodgates opened and before I knew it, sixteen-hundred and sixty-five dollars was sitting underneath my name.
I did my best to remember all the people that donated, my plan being to use them when the going got tough, to have them “carry me through the pain” type of thing.
But it ended up I needed them much sooner than that.
I’m competitive to a fault, to the point that I’d rather win than “have a good time” (which distinction is still a brave, new world to me). Backyard badminton, volleyball during a nice relaxing day at the beach, Monopoly or checkers with an eight-year-old on a snowy day – you name it, I want to win it, and if I can’t win, I probably won’t play. This is essentially why I considered quitting swimming my third year of college – it became obvious to me that, save a miracle, I wasn’t going to win NCAAs or make the 2004 Olympic team, and I thought, you know, what’s the use? (Thankfully, my teammates didn’t let me entertain that thought too long…)
Sunday was my first athletic competition in nearly a decade, and while I told myself it wasn’t going to be a big deal, the second I saw the Start/Finish line I got that tight/sour stomach, that flood of saliva, that need to open up my lungs.
I smelled blood.
And that worried me, because I hadn’t trained for this. I mean, I run a little to keep in shape, but I have no idea how to run a road race, how fast to start, how soon to speed up, where to make a move, who to look out for, how to take the downhills, what effect the inclines are going to have on my legs at 80% versus 90%. My first thought was, “Shit, I am not going to win this,” and I was immediately dreading every step I was going to take and all the moments afterwards until I could get out of that parking lot and pretend that the imminent, inevitable loss never happened.
I said to Erin, “Ugh, just the sight of a race course makes me nervous.”
She looked at me with her quizzical, stop-being-ridiculous look, and said, “Well don’t be. That’s not what we’re here for.”
And that’s when I called on those people who’d put up their hard-earned money – these days, when things are tough are all over – to support the FCEF. The idea seems so simple and obvious, right, that people weren’t supporting me, that no one cared how I finished, that it didn’t matter to anyone anywhere whether I was running at all on that foggy Sunday morning in south Orange County except as I functioned as a vehicle for their support of something that actually matters to a whole heck of a lot of people.
Well, those kinds of things aren’t obvious to me.
Or if they do occur to me, my self-concern obscures them again almost instantly.
But thinking about those donors, and about Fran’s family, and all the reasons why we’re involved in this foundation, and all the people that knew Fran and were friends with him and are my friends now because of that connection, kept me from getting wrapped up in my own stupid, meaningless competitiveness. Because it would essentially have been competition in a vacuum, empty of any reference or value, and I would not have fared well, and it would have lead only to disappointment and resentment, which would have been poison on a positive day.
I hung with Erin the first quarter of the race and enjoyed people’s costumes and cooed over the babies people were pushing in their massive strollers and oohed and aahed at the dogs trotting alongside their owners and laughed at the team of nine-year-old soccer girls who were making fun of their coach for running like and being “a dinosaur. Like, literally.”
And then when Erin made the turn at 2.5k, I put the pedal down and spent the rest of the time reeling people in. (So, really, I did kind of get the best of both worlds….) Which was fun because I got to think about Fran a lot, and guess whether he’d have liked coming up behind those people with me and picking them off, or if he’d have been way ahead from the beginning and talking trash about me having started so slow. He always did hate when I beat him in the final ten meters or the last round of a set.
“Yeah, great job at the very end there,” he’d say. “Where were you the rest of the time?”
I’m not saying I’ve turned into some amazingly compassionate person since Fran’s death. I’m certainly not saying “that’s what it took” for me to turn my head around. I hear that kind of thing sometimes – not about Fran, but in other settings – and it seems the height of egocentrism, even solipsism, to imply that “God took” someone so that you could become a better person. I’d rather be a sad, angry, sick and lonely man the rest of my days and have Fran still around. Any of us would trade me that for him, I’m sure. And well they should. My newfound generosity of spirit, whatever little it’s worth, is not a compensation. There is no compensation.
And yet, he’s gone, and there’s no undoing that. So we might as well use what remains to be better. We did a good amount of good the last couple weeks, those who funded those of us who ran.
Personally, the whole experience, but especially the race Sunday morning, was an opportunity to practice being a different kind of person, to see that what I’ve always thought of as my “default” or “natural” character, isn’t, necessarily. Or doesn’t have to be.
And meanwhile, everyone who gave money through me already assumed that I was a good representative of the foundation they wanted to support. “This is important to Ian. This is important to me. Ian is important to me. Sweet trifecta, that – lemme give a few dollars.”
All I had to do was show up and run a few miles.
And that’s what I mean when I say I’m honored and humbled by people’s generosity.
So I guess, Welcome to the human race, Prichard, right?
What are some of your favorite charities?
Do you do these kinds of volunteer/charity events?
Which has had the most impact on you?
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*You do the math, if you’re interested – I’m not posting that slow of a time for free.
At The Wellhead 