Meeting an Old Friend

Greetings,

I've noticed that you came to visit again, old friend. When you came into the room I was shocked at first, as I always am, and it took a while for me to realize that you were staying for more than just the night. I know I've told you this before, but you have caused me plenty of mental, physical, and emotional hurt over the years, and you seem to come at an inopportune time every time.

At first I ignored why you would be here at the camp now. You haven't visited me much at the camp in the past few years, which is fine because I see you enough during the school year. Most people would be touched that a friend would travel across the state to visit them, but I was actually quite content and peaceful here before you came along. You followed me around camp for a while until I couldn't really ignore you anymore.

At first I finally gave in and let you run with me for a little bit in the morning, but you are still annoying, so I had to cut the run short. Fortunately I was able to bring you along with me to VBS in Bismarck for a few days and we could simply hang out and rest up, getting plenty of time to sleep along the way. I suppose the only negative thing is that when you are around I think a little more about body image and how much I eat, so I scaled back a little on the calories and ate a lot more fruit. 

It was kind of fun to have you meet up with my teammate Cataldo. Though we were only able to do a short jog, didn't you see how nice of a guy he is? I thought it was kind of cool how he mentioned that he had met a guy just like you not too far back. 

After I acclimated myself to your arrival, I started listening to you. You can be annoying and frustrating, but you are also my greatest teacher. The advice you have given me is humbling and motivating at the same time. You always take time to sit down with me and allow me to think about what I want my life to be about. You make sure that I don't surround myself with unnecessary idols. You allow me to rest. You let me take more time to appreciate the beauty of the outdoors. You show me how to be grateful for everything I have. You motivate me to do more reading. You come with me to spend more time with friends and family. You give me time to allow my joy to flow and my excitement to come back after a grinding summer. 

I usually spend a lot of time fearing the fact that I will see you again. I know deep in my heart that you will come back again with your difficult lessons and struggles. But I learn through them how to take care of you; I learn how to take care of other people; I learn where my priorities are. So while once you leave me I would love to have some alone time to focus in on what I'm doing and get where I need to be, I also thank you for teaching me patience.

And so this is my thanks to, injury bug- my old friend. I know we have a love-hate relationship with all of the ups and downs. I'm sorry if I ever lose my temper at you, but I know that the lessons I learn from you are valuable and will help me down the road. For now I will allow you to keep teaching me, and when I have learned I hope you break the chains off for a while. 

Blessings until we meet again,

Nate

My Opinion on the UND Nickname (Part 2)

One interesting thing about being a student-athlete is the ability to travel for the University on a regular basis. I have run in cross country and track meets from California to Montana, and Missouri to South Carolina. Sometimes we drive (like our 16 hour one-way trip to Bozeman) and sometimes we fly. Everywhere we go we come across UND alumni, UND supporters, and people that are simply interested in us and our school. Often, seeing a large group of people all wearing the same thing, they will approach us and start up some sort of conversation.

I would imagine that for most schools the questions would be about important events going on and the education in general.
'How do you like it there?'
'How are classes treating you?'
'Anything new happening over there?'

This would be perfectly logical for anybody to ask. You'll never guess what people are interested in when talking to UND athletes: the nickname issue! For years I've had to field questions such as:
'Have you guys figured out what your new nickname is going to be yet?'
'Yeah, how is the whole process going?'
'Hey, didn't you guys have some nickname trouble or something?'

There's no good way to describe how I feel answering these questions, but humiliated and embarrassed are the two big ones that come to mind. There are so many things going on at UND- successful programs, education, new buildings, record-breaking student-athlete GPA and service hours, but we instead have to waste our time talking about our nickname debacle. I would LOVE to talk about school, running, and what I do in my little free time, but I have to instead offer my ideas of a cool new nickname and how I feel about the NCAA. It's frustrating at best.

Is that how we want our university to be known? When UND gets brought up in conversation, do we want it to be the nickname issue or do we want it to be our success both academically and athletically? If you wish for the former, I'm sorry; there's not much for us to agree on. I'm sick of it and would love to shine forth UND to all, not be sidelined by this issue.

This brings me to my next topic: card games. Yes, card games. How many of you have ever played with somebody who changes the rules in the middle of the game? It's annoying. I've been on both ends before- the rule changer and the offended, and many a time we've had to clarify that rules can't be changed mid-game, and that's for EVERYBODY'S benefit.

Well I saw the rules changed today. I was working a Vacation Bible School in rural central North Dakota, checking my phone periodically for messages from camp (if any), and I had a text from my Dad telling me that President Kelley had entered further into this issue by suggesting that he might allow the 'no-nickname' option to come back into the discussion after public backlash from the removal of it. I remember that when the committee was first presented to the public, people seemed pleased that the group was so diverse in their UND interests and the consensus was that an agreeable solution could be reached. However, now that trouble is a-brewing the rules can be changed. Suddenly the committee's recommendations don't mean as much anymore.

Let me ask you this: you really think the committee has 'the fix on'? You REALLY think that they are throwing UND's best interests away just to piss off a few hundred folks? You REALLY think that keeping the attention at UND on the lack of a nickname is a good thing for the University moving ahead? You REALLY think threatening to go to a different college if we pick a new name is helping anything? I say we let the committee keep going with their decisions. They are courageous enough to understand what is best for the university long-term.

By the way, in my few years at UND I've never seen or heard anything about Devils Lake High School's former mascot. They were the 'Satans' until 2002, when they got rid of it (because it was offensive). Of course people fought it and claimed that it's not a problem in a town called Devils Lake, but I'm pretty sure people have moved on. So will we.

My Opinion on the UND Nickname

*Note: I didn't want to write this. But after scrolling through social media these last two days, I had to speak up.

My name is Nate Peterson and I'm a student-athlete at UND. I'm entering my fifth year of school so I can continue on and finish with my track and field eligibility. Track has been going great and occupies a lot of my time. I have finished a math major and am now working through a history major so I can teach both subjects in North Dakota.

Both of my parents are UND grads and I was raised in a Fighting Sioux household. Every year we tried to make it up to a Sioux game, and I remember checking the paper for women's basketball results because they would always be like 26-1 late in the season. When I narrowed my school search down to universities in North Dakota, the choice was easy: UND.

For years now I've been able to throw on that North Dakota jersey, and I've grown more in my pride for my school and state every year as a result.

My first semester of freshman year we were still the Sioux. Man it felt good to be in the huddle before a cross country race and hear 1..2..3 and yell SIOUX! But going into track that winter we had to get rid of the nickname, removing it from all parts of the team. We couldn't even have the logo on our water bottles. I was upset at this overreach and NCAA-brought injustice, so I cheered for the Al Carlson-led legislature when they forced, through law, the University to keep the nickname. Then, my sophomore year we didn't get invited to a meet at the University of Minnesota because of our name. Through that (and my Dad's wisdom) I realized that it was over. The Sioux nickname was gone. It still is. IT STILL IS. So you can retweet and repost all the UND hockey players you want, but the Sioux name is not coming back.

Eventually people moved on, because that's what North Dakotans do- they move on when awful things happen, just like we move on after bad storms. That brings up an interesting thought: what is the spirit of North Dakota?

The natives were obviously here first, some settling calmly near the Missouri in agriculturally-based permanent settlements, while others were more nomadic and travelling around (and much more prone to fighting). They were resourceful and came up with stunning ways of defeating both the winter cold and summer heat of Dakota (remember: no heat or AC back then).

The white settlers: first trappers, then military, and finally homesteaders, all had to endure the similar climate, unforgiving loneliness of the prairie, and ruthless exploitation by outside railroad and grain interests. They endured. Through an insistence on the strength of family and community coupled with a 'God will provide but you must also work' mentality they fought out a living here. Hail would destroy crops, droughts would scorch the land, and floods would wash life away, but they endured. They were able to move on and not dwell on the past. Things change, and we understand that in a state where storms can rise up in a matter of minutes.

North Dakotans are hesitant to embrace change initially, especially in government and politics, but we eventually get there. People can set aside their own interests for others as they always have and move towards a common good. That's the North Dakota spirit. What isn't the North Dakota spirit? Refusing to let go of something that's gone; downright insulting those whom you do not agree with; making outrageous claims to show anger. Here are two examples from facebook:

"The solution? If UND Fighting Sioux Hockey has the nerve, a petition of names of people who will NOT attend a und sport activity under any name other than North Dakota. I will stand right at the door refusing to cross that elitist, non participating yet knows what best for us, name making boards threshold. Of course it will hurt the Ralph, but I can imagine him barring the door with his own arms crossed."

"We should destroy the REA. It should go down with the Fighting Sioux. That's what Ralph would want all the f***** whiny a******* can go build another arena themselves with their crazily stupid new name."

STOP. Just stop. You are not helping anything. You are making all of us look bad to the nation, but you are also poorly representing North Dakotans and hence the University of North Dakota. If you truly love the University, you help them through this tough time, not act like a child.

My honest opinion? IT'S JUST A NICKNAME. Tomorrow  the sun will rise and set. Winter will come and spring will follow. People will do great things that they never believed they could do. The Earth will even continue to orbit around the sun. If we continue to dwell on the past and refuse to move on, at some point down the line we will go through this entire process again. It's absurd to keep fighting. When fighting an enemy, you keep fighting if the only other alternative is to lose. What is the loss here? Are the new nicknames really that bad?

Fighting Hawks: The Fighting Hawks captures the North Dakota spirit. Their sharp eyes and piercing talons are perfect for the open rolling prairies here. Often you can see them perched upon a fence post or hay bale, waiting and looking for their next meal. Even in a land without trees, hawks have adapted. That's the ND spirit. I would support this nickname.

Sundogs: For those of you who don't know, a sundog is a halo of rainbow that you see in the sky on frigid cold and clear days in the winter. Normally this kind of cold is what we receive after some kind of blizzard or we are in some kind of cold spell. Nevertheless, sundogs are a beautiful sight that only endurance of some kind of harsh weather can bring about. The North Dakota spirit has a lot to do with enduring hardships and finding beauty in the aftermath. Also, sundogs are beautiful! I would support this nickname.

Roughriders: This is an obvious reference to Theodore Roosevelt and is already a nickname for Grand Forks Red River high school, but what's the problem here? Roosevelt fell in love with western North Dakota and its rugged beauty. The calm and peacefulness of the spectacular landscape affording him enough courage as to even say that he would not have gotten as far as he did had he not been in North Dakota. Even so, if you think about a more literal meaning of the word, there are so many folks in the state that enjoy riding horse, and especially out west there are plenty of rough areas to ride. That's the North Dakota spirit. I would support this nickname.

Nodaks: Kind of rolls off the tongue, eh?

North Stars: Too much of a Minnesota thing, so I'll pass.

My recommendation is this: MOVE ON. We will not be the Sioux again. I honestly don't care about the injustice the NCAA committed to UND by telling them their nickname was offensive. It's in the past and can't be changed. We can either wallow in self-pity and anger, looking bitterly on the past, or we can look forward to a new future. If you truly love this university, THIS STATE, you need to realize that you are giving it a crutch by continuing to beat this dead horse of not having a nickname. Being nickname-less sucks. Every other school has some kind of cool mascot and logo except us. It's time to move to the next stage of UND's life. Are you ready?

When an Easy Run Becomes a Workout

It's been an interesting week of training so far. On Monday I was up at 5:40 in the morning to get in a fartlek workout before heading off on Trekkers. This is a camp where we leave in canoes on Monday with tents, food, clothing, etc, and come back on Thursday. We go canoeing around the lake, camping on the shoreline wherever we want, and cooking meals over a fire. The kids had a great time! The act of canoeing for hours under the summer sun every day is taxing enough, but then stopping somewhere without a public access road makes running almost impossible. I was fortunate to only have to take one day off this week, but my runs were exhausting, even at an easy pace. I wasn't eating the best food and I definitely wasn't getting enough sleep. Then today happened.

This morning was my long run. Luckily enough, a friend of mine from Bismarck who has a lake cabin near the camp was there to run with me. His name is Elliot Stone and he just came off of a stellar senior season at Shiloh Christian where he broke the State Class B records in the 1600 and 3200, and now he is training for his freshman year at NDSU. I enjoy running with him because he has a great laid-back personality to compromise a calculated attentiveness to training.

I stepped out of my cabin at 6:55am and was greeted by a strong gust of cool wind. We have been drowning in humidity for the past couple of weeks, but the weather has changed. Today a west wind gusting in the mid-to-upper 30s kept everything nice and cool. I had a 13-mile easy run scheduled and he had a 13-mile progressive on his sheet (a progressive run is where each mile is faster than the one before it, so you progressively increase the pace). The first half of the run was awesome, but we had the wind either at our back or at our side. Recall that on the gravel roads to the camp, there is only one road coming in, so every run becomes an out-and-back, so we had to turn around and come back. In the last five miles, we had a two mile stretch continuously into the wind and a decent uphill at the end of it, followed by a downhill mile with the wind at our side, then another uphill into the wind mile, and then we ended with a last mile where the wind was at our side again.

I have no idea what our paces were in the last half of the run, because I was just trying to survive. We eventually shed the idea of trying to hit faster paces, choosing instead for an easy pace, and focused on fighting the wind and trying to traverse the North Dakota countryside. Our conversation quickly faded, for we couldn't hear each other without yelling. We had to check behind us often, because we were running in the middle of the road and had no way of hearing a car or pickup coming behind us. We were grateful for the rain this week, because if not we would have had gravel and dust thrown constantly into our eyes.

I can hold my own against wind. I've been running long enough in North Dakota to know to slowly grind away into the wind and to not get angry or upset at it. Hills, however, are still my enemy due to the fact that my Red River Valley legs haven't studied up on changes in topography much. I quickly and often fell behind Elliot while running up the hills into the wind. I would look ahead and pinpoint exactly where I would give up and ask to stop for a rest. Every gust of wind punched me in the face, but more importantly in the legs and almost took away my resolve to keep picking them up. The wind masked the fact that I was starting to wheeze. My legs were turning to lead and becoming impossible to pick up. Honestly, the fact that Elliot was continuing to push kept me going, and I did everything I could to not stop and instead kept close to him.

We got to the end of the two mile stretch into the wind and turned the corner for our downhill mile with the wind at our side. My breathing was heavy and my legs were slow. I looked at him and coughed out "how are you doing?" "I'm fine" he says "that wind is kind of tough isn't it?" Elliot is from Bismarck, and Bismarck is a hilly place, so he handles hills like a boss. I couldn't see it, but I'm pretty sure he tied a rope around both of our waists and drug me up a few of those hills today. My supposed 'easy' run turned into a battle against mother nature, and as anybody from North Dakota knows, mother nature doesn't like to lose. In fact, she really never does. But we can extract our revenge by conquering the elements little by little. I am now stronger today for finishing this, and that's what's important.

This next week I'll be in Bismarck doing day camps (vacation Bible school), and I know I'll have to be ready for the hills. Hopefully it isn't too windy; I have some easy runs scheduled!

Have a Great Weekend!

A Letter to Dave

Hi Dave,

It was great seeing you out at the Camp this week and everything you were able to bring to the kids. Being that this is our only week where the on-site campers are all middle/high school age, having your Christian hip-hop seemed to light them up and bring them a little energy that we might not have been able to give.

You caught me off guard the first night when you came up to me and asked if I was a runner. A lot of people who ask me that question simply want to know how many miles I run a day, but you were looking for someone to run with. I couldn't believe my good fortune! One thing about the North Dakota countryside is that even though it is beautiful, sometimes it can be lonely with nobody to share it with.

You spent an enormous amount of time apologizing in advance for how slow your pace would be, but in all honesty you probably went faster than I normally do on my easy runs. People who take running seriously can usually do easy runs together, no matter what their PR's are, because easy days aren't about your pace. I don't even look at my watch anymore, because if I start breathing too hard, I know to slow down. I will admit that on Tuesday when my legs were exhausted, I was using an unusual amount of strength just trying to keep up with you. So don't sweat it that you've only been running for a little more than year- you pushed me.

I'm a talkative guy, but being able to listen to someone else's stories was truly a blessing. Hearing about your experiences growing up and all the people you've engaged with was refreshing. I also was interested in your stories about how difficult it is to run when you have young kids at home, now that  they are old enough to not want to ride in the stroller anymore. As you mentioned about how free it is to run out here, I often take for granted being able to go out and run whenever I want to, without worrying about people to take care of. So props to you for sticking with it in the face of adversity.

When you mentioned how beautiful the countryside is, you put a smile on my face. It's not too often that people from outside North Dakota can come here and appreciate the openness. In fact, it was touching to know that the week before you go rap in front of 35,000 kids in Detroit, you spent time with 35 kids in rural central North Dakota. I know that you had a major impact on them, and I'm assuming they did on you. I enjoyed sharing my limited knowledge of training with you, and in return I'm thankful for the deeper theological topics you've learned in seminary that you were able to share with me.

I want to let you know that the most awesome thing you did for me this week was at campfire in the middle of the week. You were eating an apple and somebody asked why you had brought it with you when we were handing out cheese-filled breadsticks to the kids. You pointed at me and said 'I go by what he says; he told me that apples are good for runners in training'. That meant a lot to me. I hope your trip goes safely this weekend, and that you can inspire the thousands of kids you meet next week. I hope you can find a person to run with and nice running places in the Detroit area. If it ever gets too noisy, just remember the quiet ND countryside with the wheat swaying in the breeze. Because odds are that's where I'll be. Peace be with you.