Early in Harrison’s experience at Colorado Mountain College, while taking a class called “Writing for Academic Success,” he started writing a book. The idea was partly my idea to get him interested in his assignments. With autistic people, helping them think the task is their idea can be key. In his mind he was writing a sequel to my previous book Full Tilt Boogie. He even designed a makeshift cover for this book before it was more than a handful of words. He called it Full Tilt Boogie, II.

The original Boogie was about my early experiences and acceptance of his autism, while also preparing for a last-ditch run at the World Championship Pack-Burro Race when I was 53 and he was 9. It made for an ironic title as the book really was not so much about the burro by that name as it was about literally and figuratively running or operating at full capacity.

What surprised me was that Harrison diligently stuck with the writing and suggested I join in. The idea of us co-writing the book seemed appealing yet daunting. I had not written much of anything in years, and was quite burned out on writing in general. In fact, any attempts at it were excruciatingly painful in ways I cannot describe. Friends would ask me why I wasn’t writing more and I could not explain it. It simply hurt my brain.

Nevertheless, the experiences we were living as he navigated college life as an autistic student and athlete were compelling— not to mention the complete absurdity of me living part-time in a college dorm at the age of 62 to support him. I began to take down some notes, sometimes just a couple of words, to spark my memory. I wrote some short passages. Slowly the story started to take shape and I found myself actually writing again, though it was still a rather painful process. Harrison had somehow managed to make me think this was my idea.

All the while, he insisted we call the book Full Tilt Boogie, II. I tried to explain that the title really didn’t make any sense because it’s not about Boogie. He protested. I thought about this for a long while, trying to think of some clever way to incorporate Full Tilt Boogie into the title. I realized I had been operating at full capacity for many years. Also, Boogie herself does make some cameo appearances in the book, including as Harrison’s running partner in his first pack-burro race. Suddenly the silly idea of Full Tilt Boogie Too popped into my brain. It still doesn’t make a lot of sense but then little in life really does.

We settled on The Blur Goes to College with the subtitle (Full Tilt Boogie Too). It’s part comedy and part tragedy, part train wreck, part triumph. Moreover, this is a story of empathy and compassion, and exploring the rights of people with so-called “intellectual disabilities.” We wanted to get the story out as soon as possible. We hope you enjoy this serialized rollout on Substack as we finish the book and eventually get it into print.

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The day before graduation the class of 2022 gathered for the mandatory rehearsal. As these things go, the stage and chairs were all set up in the quiet high school gymnasium. The soon-to-be grads marched in, found their chairs, then stood for the National Anthem. From an overhead speaker a painfully tinny and static-pocked rendition of the Star-Spangled Banner shrieked from the PA system. After hearing this, Harrison interrupted the practice by raising his hand and asking out loud if he could just sing the thing. The school counselor, Troy, who was in charge of the event, waved me over and asked what I thought.

Harrison was the first documented student with autism to go through the entire system at Custer Custer School, from preschool through Kindergarten, elementary, middle and high school, and its first openly autistic cross-country and track athlete. The ceremony held a special significance for so many people — administrators, teachers, coaches, classmates, and especially his parents, myself and Mary. Not to mention this was an important milestone for the other 23 members of his graduating class as well. I told Troy it could add a really special touch to the ceremony — or it could go really badly if he botched it and melted down on stage. Countless public tantrums rushed through my mind.

After a pause for some thought I said, “I guess I'm willing to take the risk.”

The words were barely out of my mouth when Troy said: "Let's go with it!”

Though Harrison had sung the National Anthem several times with the choir for volleyball and basketball games, it had been a couple years since he’d done so. I knew the anthem is not especially easy to sing because of the extensive vocal range required. In the back of my mind there was the grim memory of a graduation ceremony he had disrupted with a meltdown as a member of the choir. On the other hand, Harrison possesses the rare ability for perfect pitch, and has an almost photographic memory of lyrics.

We went back home to prepare for the big day. Family and friends were arriving for the celebration. I insisted he practice the anthem a few times that evening. He seemed pretty comfortable singing to himself but I wondered how it would be in front of a crowd of several hundred people in the big gym. I knew I would not be able to relax until the anthem had been sung right down to “the home of the brave." I printed out the lyrics for him to have in hand in case of a brain lapse.

On the way to the ceremony the next morning we sang the anthem together in my truck. We both sang it perfectly, the way it always sounds in a vehicle, or the shower. I hoped he would do as well before an audience. I briefly entertained the notion of accompanying him on stage but quickly dismissed this as ridiculous. I dropped him off at the school’s library where the seniors were donning their caps and gowns and preparing for the big event. Carrie Driver, who had been Harrison’s special education teacher since 8th grade, waved me off with body language indicating I was not welcome to hang out. I left, but down the hall realized that I had not given him the printout of the lyrics. I turned around. This time Carrie was blunt with the tough love and told me to leave. He didn’t need the lyrics, she said, he knows them. It was time to let him go, time to let him fly.

When the graduates marched in file into the gym, a balloon ominously popped right as Harrison passed beneath the archway. There was a brief silent moment and I could feel the tension of a few hundred people expecting a meltdown. He laughed it off and marched on.

Then he took to the podium, welcomed the crowd to the 2022 graduation, and asked them all to stand for the anthem. What happened next was nothing short of extraordinary as Harrison sang the Star-Spangled Banner flawlessly. Before it was over the entire audience had joined in and quite a few of them were teary-eyed, including me.

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My name is Harrison Walter. I was born at St. Mary Corwin Hospital in Pueblo, Colorado. I was diagnosed with autism at The Children's Hospital in Denver when I was almost four years old. Due to my autism, I learn and process things differently than other people. It is also challenging for me to develop relationships with others. With my autism, I also have elements of ADHD, dyscalculia, and Tourette’s syndrome. I grew up in Westcliffe, Colorado, and I attended Custer County School pre-K through 12th grade. I'm the only known person diagnosed with autism to have gone through all 13 years in this school. My favorite class was art and Carrie Smith was my art teacher for 12 years. One of my best friends, Mara Backsen, who was in school with me until she moved away in fifth grade, helped me out through elementary school. Even though I am different from other people, I do not like to be called “disabled,” but rather someone who is neurodiverse. However, due to my difficulties, I had to have aides present with me in the classroom early on. This extended to middle school. Gradually through high school, I was able to function without an aide.

Early on in my childhood I was obsessed with doors, locks and door closers, as well as roads and clocks. In fact, I filled the walls of our utility room with dozens of cheap clocks purchased from Family Dollar and other ones that people from local businesses gave me. These clocks were all set to different time zones and I had printed out city labels and taped them on the wall underneath each clock. My curiosity about the doors kind of drove my parents crazy, especially at restaurants. I would just constantly open and close the doors. Of course, this obsession subsided over time. 

One of the clocks I had was an Audubon Society Singing Bird Clock, which would play a different bird song every hour. One day when I took it outside, I was turning the knob. I noticed that one of the burros named Jimi started snorting and running around in circles. I had no idea at first why this was happening until I figured out that it was the bird at 2 o’clock, a.k.a. the Northern Mockingbird, that triggered his snorting. I think this was because of him confusing it for some sort of predator or warning. Also, this was repeatable. So, every time I played that bird, Jimi would snort.

I have been a fan of Apple products since I was very young. One time, my parents took me to the Apple Store, and it felt like I was in Disneyland. When I saw an iPad on display, I was able to operate it in mere seconds. I got my first iPad when I was in the second grade. A lot of other devices followed. From the very beginning, Apple products have been an essential part of my daily life. I feel like a self-made expert on the Apple “ecosystem” and company. I am a virtual encyclopedia of the history and evolution of Apple products throughout the years, including specs, software releases, etc.

I am a runner. I live in Colorado. I often train at places near our home at Bear Basin Ranch near Westcliffe. I have been running competively since middle school, and ran hundreds of races in cross-country and track through high school. We traveled to meets in places like Avon, Gunnison, Pueblo, Colorado Springs, Salida and Monte Vista. Running on a team gave me a feeling of belonging and a built-in group of friends. Having a good race made me feel great. Running cross country and track gave me an awesome sense of belonging and accomplishment, and would eventually fuel my dream of running in college.

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By Harrison’s senior year of high school, it had become a common question: “What’s next?” There was no clear plan. His life had been school and running. Art and music were major focuses. He expressed interest in continuing his education, and running for a college team. College had always been my highest hope for him, but was this realistic, when several people had suggested a group home?

Also, I had been his coach for his entire high-school career. Could he adapt to another coach’s methods? Could another coach adapt to him? He’d not done anything spectacular as a high-school athlete but I also knew he was a late bloomer and that the potential was there. Some of the unconventional coaching methods I’d used with him might make it difficult for him to conform to another coach’s program. Also, running for a college would require a focus on academics, and traditional subjects were not his favorites. Nevertheless, he actually had earned 12 credit hours of early college while in high school, scoring A’s in Introduction to Engineering and Design I and II, Philosophy 101 and Ethics 101.

Harrison’s running career really began in sixth grade after the school's coach suggested he go out for the middle school cross-country team. I’d never considered at that point that Harrison would ever be on a school sports team, but when he said he wanted to do this, I was all in. I’d never considered this would lead me to being a coach myself. As those first after-school practices wore on, it became clear that I would need to be around in case Harrison had a meltdown. Before the season was out, Head Coach Jack Swartz was referring to me as “Coach Hal,” and I was starting to help the other kids as well as Harrison during practices and meets, and even substituted as assistant coach for one meet. During that same year I found myself in heated discussions with teachers about equitable grading, and experienced Harrison being escorted out of the school by sheriffs deputies for physically striking teachers and ultimately lunging at the principal. I had experienced so many lows that his running seemed to provide the only balance to an otherwise gloomy outlook on life. I was also reckoning with the fact that my lifelong career in print journalism was in a spiral with the decline brought on by the Internet. Mary had taken on the role as main wage-earner while I was literally now an unwilling and unpaid caregiver and working freelance side jobs both an editor and a ranch hand.

The running component had at least provided the potential for fun, though there were many setbacks along the way. A successful race could provide a glimmer of hope to a story that appeared headed toward a depressing future. I’ll never forget his first track meet in Mosca when I drove nearly three hours not knowing if he would have the focus to stay in his lane for one lap around the track in the 400-meter dash. But he did. There was a meet in Salida where he finished a race and smacked a clipboard out of one of the volunteer’s hands. Two friends — Tom Sobal and Curtis Imrie — and I formed a huddle around him and moved him off the field. It was cold, and when he emerged he was wearing Curtis’ Leadville Loppet beanie, which we still have.

In another meet he stopped and ran backwards, then freaked out. A group of runners from another school’s team came to the rescue encouraging him to continue, and he did — finishing the race and running away after crossing the finish line. It seemed the running community was his tribe and there were always angels ready to jump in and help him succeed.

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I was really lucky to grow up in the small community of Westcliffe, Colorado, where it seemed like there were people there to help me at every turn. I attended the same small school for 12 years. I went to daycare and preschool with several kids that were in school with me until I graduated. Two of them, Kaya Huffman and Brooke Flynn, went to Happy Hearts preschool and daycare with me when we were two years old, and were in the same class with me all the way to high school graduation. In a bigger school I probably would have never had the experiences I had at Custer County. So many of my teachers, coaches, classmates and their families supported me along the way.

Early on in school, I enjoyed music classes like band and choir. I also liked art. When I first started in band in middle school, I played a variety of different drums. Also, I had the same teacher, Carrie Smith, in art class from Kindergarten through high school. My art projects earned me awards in the annual spring fine arts show, where I also performed in band and choir.

When I got to high school, it was my chance to try again in the mainstream classrooms. In middle school I would spend most of my day in the resource room and go to just one or two regular classes. In high school, even though I went to more mainstream classes, I still spent up to two class periods in the resource room. This would continue throughout my high school years.

During my freshman year of high school, I joined the choir. Mrs. Peachey was a great choir teacher. She at first put me into the alto group because my voice had not changed yet. The choir was pretty big and almost everybody in it accepted me for who I was. We performed a Christmas show, sang the National Anthem at games, and had a spring concert. I have “perfect pitch” and it would sometimes cause me problems when people next to me were off-key. One of the choir members, Makenna Reiff, who has a brother with Tourette’s syndrome, helped me out with my occasional issues.

A highlight of my choir experience was a performance with two other regional schools at the Salida High School auditorium. That day, we had to leave our school early in the morning to get there in time to rehearse. We ended up practicing all day long with a lunch break. Then around 7 p.m., the performance began, first with the middle school choirs, then followed by us singing “Tres Cantos Nativos,” “Till The Stars Fall From the Sky,” and “Wade In the Water.” After this, the high school and middle school joined to sing a piece called “Stand Together.” 

Running on the cross-country and track teams opened up a whole new world for me. I loved being outside in the fresh air and the activity helped calm my brain. I started running cross-country in sixth grade. My first coach, Jack Swartz, had been my fourth grade teacher. My dad signed on as a volunteer coach to help out. I also started track in middle school with Coach Traci Terry.

There were some adventures early on in middle school. In one track meet at Mosca, I did pretty well in the 400-meter run, but in the 800-meter run, at the end of my first lap, I fell down. It took me a few seconds to get back on my feet. That was when one of the coaches from Alamosa, Justin Bethea, appeared and ran my second lap with me. After this, I threw a minor fit on the turf. I was feeling bad because I had cuts on both my knee and my hand. Then, my friend Bailey, who was a jumper on the team, came over to comfort me and said, “It’s OK. I can’t even run that far.” I felt better that she cheered me up. This was just just another instance showing how there were often special people looking out for me and helping me to succeed.

When Coach Swartz moved to Arvada, Jesse Taylor took his place. Eventually Jesse moved on and my dad took over as head high school cross-country coach and assistant track coach.

In high school we ran cross-country and track in towns all over southern Colorado. Between cross-country and track I competed in around 150 races, even though I missed my entire sophomore track season and had an abbreviated cross-country season my junior year because of the Covid-19 pandemic. I especially liked the courses in Monte Vista and Salida, though I usually placed better when there were more hills. There was one big hill in the Salida course. When you go down that hill, you have to be extremely careful not to fall and hurt yourself. It was fun running down it and it made me feel like I was flying.

I had some amazing teammates over the years. Kaya and Brooke who had been friends since daycare ran cross-country. Also, there were friends from other classes I’d grown up with like Joey Arnone, Brooke Bomgardner, Emma Rusk, Kyleigh Martin, Jonah Carichner, and the Zellers – Betsy, Noel, Elias, Micah and Laurel. Micah particularly was an inspiration. He and his brother Elias were Ethiopian and had been adopted by the Zeller family when they were very young. He was initially homeschooled, then went to a public school in Wyoming before returning to Westcliffe. In his senior year Micah placed second in the state cross-country championships and then won the 3200 meters in the state track championships.

I had so many great experiences in cross-country and track. A favorite memory is running the Cheyenne Mountain Stampede “Pre-State” meet at the Norris Penrose Event Center starting in my sophomore year. This is the same 5K course as the state championship meet. The year before, I ran in the Unified Race at state which is on a shorter 3K course. But this time I was excited to have this opportunity to run the full 5K. So I guess you could say I ran in the state championships in my mind.

When my dad started coaching he began taking us to the cross-country meet in Leadville early in the season. This course was on cross-country ski trails at 10,000 feet altitude. The start was on a flat field then went right into the forest where there was a curvy trail with many steep hills both up and down. Runners were warned by their coaches to not go all out on the downhills because then the uphills would feel impossible. One year Kaya missed a turn and got lost out there for over an hour. I thought about the song “Lost in the Woods” from the movie Frozen as a theme for what happened that day and even requested it for Kaya at Homecoming dance later that night. Little did I know then that someday these Leadville trails would become my home training grounds.

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What is autism? Nobody really knows. The diagnosis is at once a tragic reality and a myth. I have lived with an autistic person for two decades now and I don’t know what it is. It is not a medical condition or a disease, yet some medical experts say raising an autistic child is equivalent to the stress experienced by combat soldiers and comparable to parenting 10 neurotypical children. Though autistic people are often placed on medications and undergo various therapies, there is no treatment and there is no cure.

Autism is diagnosed through stereotypical symptoms and behaviors. Many people believe autism to be a “Spectrum,” and it is. However, it is non-linear, subject to change at any time and under any circumstances, and reflects each individual’s unique set of symptoms and manifestations. As the saying goes, if you’ve met one autistic person, you’ve met one autistic person.

In Harrison’s case this could not be more true.

During the high school years Mary enrolled our family in a genetic study being conducted by Spark for Autism. The organization is collecting DNA samples from families of children on the spectrum with the goal of better understanding autism and its causes. As parents of an autistic child, I think there’s always a tendency to seek out an explanation for why your child is autistic. We want to have some reason for it.

I always thought Harrison’s autism must have to do with some strange combination of genetics and environmental toxins like glyphosate or mercury, perhaps vaccines, or my being an older father, or other factors we have been conditioned to associate with autism.

Spark sent us sample-collection kits and we all spit into the vials and mailed them off. We really didn’t hear much back from Spark for the next couple years, though we received a regular email newsletter. From time to time we wondered whatever became of the study, then we forgot about it.

So it seemed random when one day we got an email saying the research had uncovered a specific genetic cause for Harrison’s autism, and inviting us to a genetic counseling session online. Mary quickly signed us up. There were a tense few moments as we waited to see just whose side of the family was responsible. As it turned out, it was neither.

In this conference call we learned that Harrison has a “de novo” genetic change in a newly discovered autism gene called ANK2. This genetic change is very rare. The Spark study tested more than 26,000 families of autistic children. It was mind-boggling that fewer than 10 individuals of those autistic people tested were found to have the ANK2 genetic change.

It appears this random change can happen early after conception during the gene-copying phase of development. Neither the parent’s genes nor environmental factors are to blame.

This makes Harrison very unique and the gene is present in every cell of his body. While ANK2 has been associated with cardiac issues in some individuals, this is clearly not the case with Harrison. While Harrison didn’t inherit ANK2, if he were to father a child, there is a 50-50 chance he would pass on the gene.

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Harrison’s high school years all blended into what seemed like one big season of running with upwards of 150 cross-country and track races. His nickname became “The Blur,” something I came up with because his unique running form reminded me of an old buddy who went by that tag — and who also had some interesting quirks. Through a succession of changes, as first Jack Swartz, and then Jesse Taylor, moved on to other jobs, I found myself as head cross-country coach and assistant track coach along with head track coach Joy Parrish, of the Custer County Bobcats. I had learned a great deal from these two collegiate All-Americans and added that to my own base of knowledge about running and fitness which came from training for marathons, pack-burro races, ultramarathons, cycling, cross-country skiing and endurance multi-sport competitions.

When my first track season as an official coach rolled around, Harrison was a freshman and the only distance runner to turn out for the small team that also included sprinters, hurdlers, jumpers and throwers. It was a remarkable situation that as distance coach I was able to coach my own son, one-on-one. In the spring our dirt track at 7,800 feet altitude was often a quarter-mile oval of wind-swept ice, drifted snow and mud, and not runnable. I improvised with workouts on paved streets in Westcliffe, utilizing straight-aways and a loop around the local park as a makeshift track. With two weeks of practice behind us, our first meet loomed and none of our team 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 and it was all good training. Over the years running four events, including relays, would be standard for him in track.

My first season as head coach of the cross-country team, when Harrison was a sophomore, was about building my own confidence as much as that of my runners. That fall Micah Zeller returned as a junior after spending a semester in Wyoming, and we had a whole cast of other characters too, mostly schoolmates Harrison had known all his life. Micah was a rare athlete, a raw combination of physically and mental running talent that many coaches never have the opportunity to work with.

Our tight-knit distance squad struggled through the Covid year, missed an entire season of track in 2020, and followed the mask rules in cross-country and track in fall of 2020 and spring 2021. I would eventually be blessed with coaching Micah to second place at the 2A State Cross-Country Championships and the 2A State Track Championship in the 3200 meters his senior year.

Harrison’s high school years streamed by like some sort of strange independent film, an improbable story of someone doing the impossible. There were setbacks and little victories. Often I felt like I had two jobs — managing Harrison and coaching the rest of the team. And I also regularly drove the bus. Typically the biggest challenge was getting him out the door and to the starting line. I could breathe easy after the gun went off. He was inspiring people with autism and without. He scored points consistently in cross-country and especially at small track meets where he sometimes was among only a few runners to show up for the 3200 meters.

At one track meet at Fairplay his junior year, when Micah opted to sit out the 3200 meters, Harrison was the only runner to compete at that distance. With Fairplay, Colorado, having the highest-altitude certified track in the world at nearly 10,000 feet, Harrison ran what was considered the high-school record for the highest-altitude 3200 meters. The refs let Micah ring the bell for the final lap and Harrison finished under a human bridge formed by his teammates’ extended arms. Dozens memories like this were already making it difficult to for me to let go of this experience, and Harrison still had his senior year left.

When colleges started recruiting Micah, I got a first-hand look at how that system worked. We toured Western Colorado University, where I hoped he’d go, then he decided to sign with Adams State University. Ultimately Micah changed his focus and opted to join the U.S. Coast Guard. Suddenly my top runner was gone and my focus was on Harrison’s senior year, as well as his other teammates who were now juniors. I believe having a front-row seat to Micah’s college recruitment process put the idea of running in college into Harrison’s head, and mine too. This notion sort of became stuck in my brain and took hold. It suddenly seemed important to me that Harrison give college a try when it had never even been a consideration. But was this realistic for him? My own college experience a the University of Colorado head been a period of much personal and intellectual growth that far outweighed my Bachelor of Science in Journalism. It opened my mind to a larger world and vast spectrum of ideas. More importantly, I felt like college taught me how to learn, a lesson that served me throughout my life journey.

Harrison’s senior high school season of cross-country opened with him catching me by surprise and assuming the role as our lead runner, capturing our most points in the first several meets. A highlight of the season was when he and teammate Jonah Carichner led the way to the boys team placing second in the Southern Peaks League Championship.

However the most significant meet of Harrison’s senior year may have been a golden fall day at the Colorado Mountain College XC Open in Leadville. It was our third meet in eight days and the highest-altitude cross country meet in the world all on trails at 10,200 feet. Harrison took a tumble on the rocky course in the first mile, then jumped back up and ran to 13th place. Afterward I watched the college race that was also being held there. I had the random thought that Harrison could hang with these athletes. It was a cavalier notion for a kid not even likely to qualify for state as a high school runner.

This daydream of Harrison going to college was quickly tossed out the window when on the return trip from that meet, we stopped for lunch and he threw an embarrassing world-class tantrum over iced tea that made for a tense situation in a restaurant. A couple of his teammates helped me diffuse the situation. It had already been a long day but the homecoming dance was that night. Back in Westcliffe we quickly picked up flowers for his date, got him home to get cleaned up and changed, then drove back to the school. He danced until midnight and had a blast. That frenetic day was symbolic of a life that was always a roller-coaster, but it was also a milestone for a ride that was about to get even wilder.

A few days later I would have a phone conversation with Coach Darren Brungardt at Colorado Mountain College. I told him about my idea of Harrison running on the cross country team there. Darren said, “He could totally run with those guys. Harrison is a mountain runner!” As we talked, Darren indicated he’d be willing to take a chance on him running for CMC, and that his current top runner was also on the autism spectrum. He’d been able to get this runner a waiver from the National Junior College Athletic Association (NJCAA) to run with a reduced course load. Darren mentioned the school offered a variety of services to support students like Harrison both academically and socially. Knowing Harrison’s inability to score well on standardized tests, I asked what qualifications a student needed to be accepted by CMC, and Darren chuckled: “A heartbeat.”

I mentioned this possibility to Harrison one evening and didn’t get a response though it remained in the back of my mind as I went about coaching the last few meets of his senior cross-country season. A couple weeks later Harrison proudly came home with a letter of acceptance from CMC. He had applied to the college in his Careers class. I was stunned that he had taken this initiative to apply on his own without much of a discussion about it.

A few weeks later on National Signing Day Harrison sealed the deal with the NJCAA to run cross-country and track for Colorado Mountain College. There was a last-minute impromptu ceremony in the high school’s east gym, witnessed by a handful of teammates, classmates and faculty. As his coach and dad the moment seemed surreal and a prelude to something that was not very likely at all to even happen. It had been seven years in all since he began running in middle school. In the first few years we didn’t even know which direction he’d go when the gun went off — or if he’d actually run at all. Now he was signed up to run for a college.

It seemed like an impossible Quixotic journey. This was a kid who had never spent a night away from home. He could recite the parts from various animated movies such as “Frozen,” “Sing” and “Moana” but taking a test on academic material that he darn-well knew was extremely difficult. One of his teachers said sarcastically, “I hope you have a good tutor lined up for college algebra.” But I wasn’t thinking Harrison would take algebra, or anything difficult, really. I was wanting to try something out of the box and I was literally making up the plan on the fly.

My hope for him was to give college a try and to have an authentic experience. There was also something comforting in that Leadville was a familiar community, where we knew people. Mary and I actually lived there for a year when I was editor of the weekly newspaper, The Herald-Democrat. We had raced burros in Leadville for more than four decades, and I’d run the Leadville Trail 100, and competed in a number of other sports events. Leadville had always felt sort of like another home in an alternate universe and it was about to become even more so.

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During the fall semester of my senior year of high school, I applied to Colorado Mountain College in Leadville in my Career Exploration class. My dad thought this college would meet my needs because it’s not too far from home, and the campus is small. Everything is within walking distance and the downtown area is less than mile away. Leadville is a historic mining town in Lake County, Colorado. My dad has run in the pack-burro race there every year since 1980. The town itself is at 10,158 feet above sea level. It is also within view of two of the tallest peaks in the state including Mount Elbert and Mount Massive. Later that fall, I signed a letter of intent to run cross-country and track for CMC. 

In early December after I was accepted my dad and I toured CMC with my new coach Darren. It had snowed a little bit overnight, and there was still a mask guideline in effect from Covid. We first met with Darren at his classroom upstairs in the New Discovery building. He introduced me to the cross-country program with a Powerpoint presentation about what I could expect for the training schedule, and sponsorship, including clothing and footwear from a company called On.

Next he took us to see other buildings on campus. These included the Pinnacle Resource Center, Mountain View Residence Hall, Rattling Jack (the welding shop, The Climax Molybdenum Leadership Center, and Get Outdoors Leadville buildings. Additionally he took us to the Crown Point building which houses the maintenance department and Ski Area Operations program — I even got to climb inside one of the snowcats. The campus also includes an extensive trail system. Darren concluded the tour by taking us to lunch in the Coronado Cafe dining hall where I met some of the running team, including future teammates Ana Garcia and Abby Hagen, as well as runners Madisen Johnson and CJ Brenny who were in their last year. Overall, visiting the college was as exciting as going to the Apple Store, and I felt bummed when it was time to go home. We went running on the trails in Buena Vista on the way back.

I had taken four early college classes in high school through Pueblo Community College which were two semesters of Introduction to Engineering and Design, one semester of Philosophy, and one of Ethics. I got an A in each of those classes. In my spring semester of high school I also took an online class with CMC called Intro to PC Applications/Mac. At first, I thought that I was going to kill it in this class since it I thought it was all Apple. But, no. I later found out that the class was mostly on Windows programs, which I was not familiar with and struggled to understand. I also had difficulty understanding the Canvas program where the assignments were posted. So, I was getting a D in the class due to me not understanding the material or the assignments. We later sought help from a CMC counselor, who agreed to meet us at the CMC Salida Campus, which is in an old school building. When we got there, we went into a classroom on the 2nd floor to have a meeting with the professor over Zoom. Everything went well until I had to get up to go to the bathroom. As I left, I reached for the handle and somehow caught a splinter that went deep under my fingernail and even past the cuticle. I shrieked out loud but still went to where I needed. When I came back, I just kept making noises until the meeting was over.

It was snowing really hard and we had a long drive home. When we left, my dad called my mom and told her about this and he suggested that when we got home he could take a pair of tweezers and remove it the cowboy way. That was when my mom wanted a picture of my fingernail. I sent it to her and she even texted it to our doctor. After this, she told my dad to take me to the hospital in Salida. And so my dad drove there and then we waited to talk to the receptionist. Next, we were led to the emergency room for the doctor to remove the splinter. I laid down on the bed and was given a nerve block injection right into the upper part of my palm. My dad was expecting another ballistic reaction to happen. However, I remained silent the whole time. After that, the doctor was able to dig into my fingernail with tweezers and remove what turned out to be a pretty big chunk of wood. After this he put a bandage on my finger and then we were free to leave. I ended up dropping that PC/Mac class later in the spring.

During track season my senior year of high school, I met another future CMC teammate. His name is Nate Encinias. I was first introduced to Nate at a high school track meet after learning that he also signed a letter of intent to run for CMC. Nate went to Rocky Ford, and I went to Custer County. We actually had been running in meets together since middle school.

The week before high school graduation, I was awarded two art scholarships to help pay for college. My art creations were also chosen for an opening at the 3rd Street Gallery in Westcliffe where they were displayed through June.

I focused on my training program all summer long to get ready for college cross-country. This training program consisted of distance training, tempo running, speed work and strength workouts. I was really excited and a little nervous. Regardless, the time to go to college was fast approaching.

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Harrison’s final high school track season went by uneventfully. I held out hope that perhaps he would have one great race, a major breakthrough in the 3200 meters, but it did not turn out that way. I knew the potential was there, but his late physical maturation, along with lack of mental focus needed to put together a qualifying run, was holding him back. In fact, he had reached puberty years later than most young men, and also was years behind most teenagers in his physical and muscular development.

It was at one of Harrison’s final track meets of his senior year that we met Nate Encinias, a runner for Rocky Ford High School. I knew from Nate’s coach, Ron Shepherd, that Nate had also signed on to run at Colorado Mountain College and would be attending the Leadville Timberline Campus. “Coach Shep,” as he’s fondly called by his runners and other coaches, is a legendary CHSAA Hall of Fame cross-country and track coach who is known for turning out hard-working athletes and solid citizens. Nate seemed right off to be a calm and inquisitive young man, wise beyond his years. He and Harrison had been competing with each other throughout middle- and high school, and now they were going to be running on the same college team. I didn’t know it then, but I had just met Harrison’s guardian angel.

When the Colorado State Track Championships in Denver rolled around, Nate was there as part of Rocky Ford’s 4x800-meter relay team, and Harrison was there running for Custer County in the “Unified” 100 meters and 200 meters. Harrison viewed his participation in these Paralympic events as a “watered-down” experience. I assured him that his time was coming, and that at least this got him a trip to the state meet. Graduation was just a week away. And things were starting to get real.

There were more discussions with Darren, and he put me in touch with Jen Speight, the inclusion and disabilities coordinator. We were encouraged to enroll in TRIO Student Support Services, which is a U.S. Department of Education program that provides academic and social support for disadvantaged students, including those with disabilities.

The original plan in my mind was an experimental transition period with Harrison staying in Leadville and taking a couple classes two or three days a week, then coming back home for the rest of the week. We asked CMC’s athletic director, Angela Dunn, to apply for a waiver from the NJCAA to allow Harrison to compete with reduced credit hours.

At some point an in-person meeting was arranged through Jen with Evan Weatherbie, the assistant dean of student affairs. We drove up to Leadville and Darren took Harrison for a run while Evan and Jen talked with me about my vision for him at CMC. I explained that running was central to Harrison’s academic success and asked what the grade requirements were to be on the team. Evan replied that he needed to maintain a C, or 2.0, average. We discussed that I would have a strong supportive role in his course work. Then Evan asked what exactly were my expectations for Harrison. I said I just wanted him to have a “college experience.” Evan, nodded OK, and seemed relieved that I wasn’t pushing for Harrison to obtain some impossible degree.

In the following weeks we would meet with Paloma Hammond, the academic advisor. I studied the online course catalog looking for classes that might hold Harrison’s interest — a key to success. He was required as a freshman to take a class in “The College Experience.” It was also recommended that he take an introductory English class.

I liked that CMC offered traditional academics along with vocational classes, which experts such as Temple Grandin quite often recommended for autistic people. Looking through the catalog, I wondered about welding. I took welding in high school and learned the basics of acetylene, and ARC processes. I remembered that I enjoyed welding and I considered it a skill that I could probably pick back up with some review. I recalled that we learned acetylene welding with the gas torch first, then moved up to electric ARC welding. I inquired with Paloma about the welding program and asked if he might be able to take the “Oxy Fuels Joining Processes” class, which looked like an advanced version of the acetylene welding I took in high school. She replied that he could, but she also recommended that he take the “Basic Shielded Metal ARC” class simultaneously. I hadn’t considered that a student could take both at once, but agreed to enroll him right away as Paloma said the welding courses filled quickly.

As we jostled the schedule together I realized that we had committed Harrison to more hours than I’d planned, which meant more days on campus. Before it was all said and done, he was enrolled in 13 credit hours, which meant he didn’t need a waiver to run on the team or to stay in the dorm. Still, I wanted to obtain the waiver from the NJCAA as backup in case the course load proved too much for him to handle and we had to drop classes.

All the while I’d been making jokes in my various conversations with people at the college about camping and “couch-surfing”with friends in Leadville. One day Jen called and said there had been a discussion. Since Harrison was going to have a single room to himself, they were offering me a pass to stay in the residence hall. “Because we know you’re going to be actively involved and will need a place to stay . . . and we know you won’t abuse the situation,” Jen said. I laughed, “No, I don't think a 62-year-old guy is going to want to move into a college dorm full time.”

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As an autistic person, I often struggle with social interactions and reading verbal and non-verbal cues from other people. This is called “social cognition.” It also includes understanding body language, expressions and feelings. Electronic and social media also can be especially tricky for me.

During high school I started having a crush on a girl when I had a summer job at the Whitebird Emporium in Westcliffe. I worked there scooping ice cream, making coffee drinks, and sometimes I ran the cash register. Her name was Sallie and she was a classmate in art and choir. She even participated in dance and musicals, and was best friends with Abi, who was in the same grade as her. Also, she was very artistic and had a great singing voice.

One day when I was working, Coach Taylor and his family walked in and I scooped ice cream for them. It was fun to scoop ice cream for my old coach and his kids. Then around 1 p.m. when I clocked out, Sallie walked in. When I noticed her, I shouted in excitement and immediately handed over my iPod touch, which was actually my starter phone (or “WiPhone”), for her to enter her contact info in the Contacts app. Then when I left the Whitebird, I texted her repeatedly and of course, I heard nothing back. This upset me. I explained this to my dad and he told me not to text her too much or it might creep her out. He said she might even block me if I continued to bother her.

While this talk with my dad did help a little, I still went on her Instagram and liked every new photo she posted and even left a smiley face comment on one of her posts. I realize now that I was perseverating on her, and this would only continue throughout the cross-country season that fall including during practices and at meets where I would randomly talk about her.

The art teacher Miss Smith had a project called “What Lifts You” and it was posted on the bulletin board outside of her art classroom. The students each cut a leaf from a thick piece of paper, painted the leaf, and then drew several pictures related to themselves on the leaf.

One day, I tried to ask Sallie during class if I could take her picture so that I could use it to draw her on my leaf project. I still don’t know why I wanted to do this. I guess it was because I liked her and just wanted to see a drawing of her face on my leaf for whatever reason. She didn’t say anything. I thought that this was because she might not have wanted to see me become upset in front of everyone else in the classroom, and she might have also felt embarrassed. Later after lunch ended, the school psychologist talked to Sallie for a while, then I asked her again and she said no, and told me I should pick someone else. Because of this, I became really upset. Then the psychologist walked me up to the resource room where I continued to cry in the sensory room.

After this Sallie began to ignore me. I was giving her too much attention and then she gave me the cold shoulder. I was upset and confused about the whole episode. A couple of months later when I checked Sallie’s Instagram, I noticed that it said, “User Not Found.” I also noticed that the tags of her name on friends like Abi’s posts were gone. I kind of thought maybe that was because she blocked me.

Anyway, several months later, I finally managed to get myself past this whole Sallie thing and forget about the situation. A couple of months later after that happened, I noticed that her Instagram page was back up, but I did the right thing and decided not to follow her again or else I would run the risk of the whole thing starting all over.

Even to this day, I regret how I handled this situation and wish that I hadn’t obsessed about her and sent her all those texts and paying excessive attention to her on social media. If none of that happened, I think that she would have talked to me more. But I realize now that I can’t go back in time and correct the situation.

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“Truck-training” — summer 2022

Coach Darren emailed a summer training schedule starting in June with a 25-mile week. Within a couple weeks the mileage began to increase. Higher-intensity workouts were included as well as a weekly long run starting with nine miles.

Four years of high-school coaching experience now all seemed to lead to this summer of preparing Harrison to run at the next level. I knew that he could run forever, but increasing his leg speed was going to be the key to success in college. I quickly realized that it would be difficult for Harrison to do some of these harder workouts from our home because of the hilly terrain and also the higher altitude at 8,600 feet.

Another challenge was meshing the time required for these training sessions with the rest of our lives. We had to approach it like a part-time job. Each day had a specific plan with six days on and Mondays off. There also were mobility exercises and strength-training sessions.

I came up with some creative work-arounds. One thing I liked about Darren’s workout plans was there was always a decent amount of warmup and cooldown time. For some of these workouts we’d warm up around here and then I would have Harrison do the faster running on a long slight downhill to improve leg turnover, with the cooldown period being back up the hill. Sometimes I even had him do the warmup, then paced him with my truck on the downhill, keeping the speedometer at 9-10 mph.

For more specific interval workouts we drove to Westcliffe, where the altitude was about 1,000 feet lower, and used the high school’s dirt track with warmup and cooldown around town. Another regular hard workout was a tempo run with a 1.5-mile warmup and cooldown, and a three-mile run at about six-minute per mile pace sandwiched between. For this workout we would drive out Hermit Road east of Westcliffe in the Wet Mountain Valley, and park at the junction with Kettle Lane, a north-south thoroughfare. I chose this spot because it’s about the lowest altitude and flattest piece of dirt road in the valley. Since I could not keep up with Harrison for the tempo run I would bring a bike. I would run the warmup with him, jump on the bike to pace him through the tempo phase of the workout, then dismount and run the cooldown. As the summer wore on, this tempo run would increase to a three-mile warmup and cooldown with a five-mile tempo run for 11 miles total. The long run increased to 12 miles. By then the weekly total had doubled from 25 miles to 50.

It was a much more rigorous program, with more mileage and more intensity than Harrison had ever done in high school. The cross-country distance in college was typically 8K rather than 5K, and the competition would surely be more fierce as well. Harrison seemed to adapt to the program well, though there were some days when the speed work didn’t go quite as planned. A side-stitch would slow him down, or his legs felt tired from the accumulated training load. Sometimes he would become angry in frustration. One day we were attacked by swarms of biting flies, and we realized they were attracted to the brightly colored bandanas I was having him carry to improve his hand swing.

But he stuck with the program. Soon he would be meeting some of his new teammates as Darren had a team activity planned in connection with the Leadville Race Series, which hosts the Leadville Trail 100 and other events.

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In addition to the Leadville Trail 100, the Leadville Race Series hosts a number of other running and mountain biking events throughout the summer. One of the major fundraising activities for the CMC running team is providing campsites for some of the race series entrants at the college. For this, Coach Darren invited the team up for the Silver Rush weekend, which includes a 50-mile ultramarathon and a 50-mile mountain bike race. As part of this team-bonding and get-acquainted activity, the team also got to stay in the dorm. It was apparent Darren intended to foster a family-style camaraderie among teammates, while also building partnerships with the race series and sponsors like On and Honey Stinger.

We left Westcliffe bound for Leadville on a Thursday in early July for this first opportunity to meet teammates. As it turned out, only two other runners were able to make it — Ben LaGue and Harrison Freis-Levy. Ben was from nearby Buena Vista and the other Harrison was from the Denver area. In addition to having a second “Harrison,” there was more comic confusion because the other Harrison’s dad was also named “Darren.”

Coach Darren got everyone introduced and then we set about staking out campsites on the CMC soccer field. Each campsite needed to be 20 feet by 20 feet, which create a bit of a large-scale math puzzle — no problem since Coach Darren happened to be a math professor. We also set up a tent at the entrance where the campers would check in. Since NJCAA rules prohibit coaches from working directly with athletes out of season, Darren asked me to take the three guys running on the college multi-use trail system.

We headed out from the campus through the lodgepole forest. When I lived in Leadville I skied those trails frequently during the winter, but I quickly realized the network had changed a great deal over the decades. Some of the trails were the same but more had been added and some of them ranged farther from the campus and connected to the Mineral Belt Trail, a paved route that skirts the entire south and east side of Leadville. Another network extended even farther south. These CMC trails had all been given names, like “Perma Grin,” “Boulders” and “Swoop,” and the system was initially confusing to me.

Darren wanted us to do a medium-distance run so we headed out from campus, crossed the Mineral Belt then continued south, passing beneath a big overhead power line. The trail then dropped off steeply into Iowa Gulch and crossed a creek. I continued on with the guys as this path looped east, crossed another small creek, and then curved back north toward the campus. I had it in my mind that this trail would loop back to the main system but it abruptly ended. The choice was to either turn around and make the sweeping run back, farther than we intended to run, or bushwhack down the gulch, across the creek and scramble back up the other side.

If there was any doubt among the other two boys that I might be crazy, this was quickly confirmed by my decision to do the latter. The next thing we knew we were fighting through tangled willows, wading through a silt-bottomed beaver pond, and then climbing up the steep log-strewn embankment on the other side with wet feet. Harrison W. was especially not amused. We stopped on the aspen hillside to wring out our socks and shoes before continuing on a two-track road. I knew exactly where we were, and within a couple of miles we were back at the college. Soon we were reading rules to campers and guiding them to their campsites.

This was also our first experience of staying in the residence hall. The dorm rooms seemed cozy and comfortable — the ambience of a summer camp with views of the pines and towering peaks out the widows. Harrison seemed to be enjoying getting to know his new teammates and previewing his new living quarters. Later that night, per Darren’s request, Harrison and I walked through the campground to make sure people were following the rules about fires, drinking and quiet hours.

We went to sleep and I woke up to the shotgun blast starting the 50-mile run down at the bottom of Dutch Henry Ski Hill. We looked out the window and could see hundreds of ultramarathoners coursing through the nearby woods on the CMC trails.

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Notes from The Blur

Now that I had met some of my new teammates and spent a couple nights in the dorm, I felt even more excited to go to CMC for the fall semester. Also, after having the chance for more exploration inside the buildings on campus, I seemed to like the college even more.

I particularly liked that there was a big room in the residence hall called the Multipurpose Room, or MPR, where students could hang out to socialize, and participate in several fun activities such as playing ping-pong, foosball and pool. There was a big-screen TV for watching movies, and a piano. There was also a kitchen, so students could cook food during their free time.

The other thing I liked about the campus was the dining hall. I liked the salad bar and the way the food was laid out for students to choose.

I felt like things could only get better. Although, one challenge was that I was going to be away from home for the first time on my own, and also going to classes with professors I didn’t know. These things made me feel excited, nervous, and unsure how it was going to turn out for me. Nevertheless, the reporting date for the CMC Team was August 11. I was looking forward to meeting the rest of my new teammates then.

The last weeks of summer wound down, and the reporting date for the cross-country team was fast-approaching. The Sunday prior I ran the Leadville Boom Days Pack-Burro Race for my 43rd consecutive time. After the race we stopped by the CMC campus for Mary to look around. There were very few vehicles in the parking lot. The campus was strangely quiet and empty, but this was soon to change.

Back home, a pile of goods began to form in the living room. A memory-foam mattress topper, pillows and bedding, a five-cup Black and Decker coffeemaker, coffee cups, a small refrigerator, office supplies, lamps, a large rug, various clothes. That Thursday we loaded up our truck and Mary’s SUV and headed for Leadville. It was important to Harrison that he drive himself to college. He had a learner’s permit so I rode shotgun in the truck as we navigated the heavy summer traffic on the mountain roads to Leadville. The plan was for me to stay with Harrison until Saturday then head home.

We’d driven this route dozens of times but none of these trips were like this one. For years we had traveled to Leadville for the annual burro race. There was an old hay barn a few miles south of town, west of the highway near Box Creek. For many years we had noted it standing with its sagging and broken roofline. Then one year it had collapsed entirely, probably under the weight of winter snows.

Over the years if I found myself feeling hypoxic or otherwise badly after running the burro race I would load up and head out as quickly as possible to get to lower elevation. I would often begin to feel better in this general area of the collapsed barn, about 1,000 feet lower than Leadville. I don’t know if it was an altitudinal or psychic line of demarcation, but it had happened enough times to not be coincidence. I thought about this as we arrived in the upper Arkansas Valley, and at last to CMC’s Timberline Campus. In a flurry of excitement teammates with the help of some parents fetched belongings into the dorm. We unloaded and hauled all Harrison’s belongings to Room 111. The resident assistants had posted a hand-drawn name tag and a decoration indicating he was a member of the cross-country team on his door, with “Swoop” the Eagle, the college’s mascot.

Then everyone met outside. Coach Darren led the group through some introduction games, and Mary and I participated along with the other parents who were on-hand. In addition to Ben and the other Harrison, there was Nate, who we already knew, plus Paulo Aponte from The Netherlands, Kenneth Obregon from the Denver area, and Korben Long from Summit County. The women’s team included Brooklyn German from Michigan, Zoe Plummer from Indiana, Ana Garcia from Denver, Abby Hagen from Salida, Alexis Ricks from Fountain, and Anne Mawhinney from Kansas. My intuition was I could not myself have picked a nicer bunch of young people to be Harrison’s teammates.

The team’s first activity was to set up another campground for entrants in the Leadville Trail 100 MTB, which was that Saturday. The team also would help staff the Columbine Mine aid station about halfway out and back on the 100-mile mountain bike course. Once the campground was set, it was time for the first official team run of the 2022 season on the CMC trails.

The next morning we drove out to Hagerman Pass near Turquoise Lake for another training run. Hagerman is a dirt road starting at 10,200 feet altitude and gradually climbing into the 11,000-foot range. The men took off on a medium-length tempo run. Since the women were going shorter I stayed back with them and Darren and let Harrison go on with his new running mates. After the run we stopped back near the dam at Turquoise Lake and took a dip in the icy water to help with muscle recovery. It felt like the cold lake plunge was more a team-bonding activity than physical therapy.

The days and evenings were busy with setting up camp, reading the rules to the campers, guiding them to their campsites, and getting to know each other while sitting around in folding chairs in the cool Leadville evenings. We learned, for example, that Darren favored “Death Metal” music. Darren asked me and Harrison to go out and check the campground before bedtime. One night we went out to walk through the campground and were strolling back on the fire access road. There was a full moon out. Harrison out of the dark said, “I don’t why, but I like it here.”

The Saturday of the mountain bike race Harrison accompanied the team out to the aid station with Darren driving the van. I stayed back getting some things finalized in Harrison’s room before heading out on my own to the checkpoint southwest of town. The entire area was abuzz with race support vehicles, activity from crews and race officials. The trail was lined with tents from various sponsors. It was a madhouse of cheering, clapping, cowbells ringing and a dust storm of hundreds of cyclists. I found the aid station where the team was working amid the chaos and Darren quickly handed me a volunteer shirt.

For the next couple hours I watched Harrison hand energy gels to mountain bikers as they rode past. He had a huge smile on his face and seemed in his element. I stood back and helped out whenever I could. Darren had the men’s and women’s team take separate breaks and go for a run during all this, and so I took the time to go for a jog myself. When I got back from this run the realization that it was time for me to go home started to sink in. I had the urge to just stay another hour, or another week. Yet I knew everything had been pointing to this moment.

I had pictured some meaningful father-son good-bye but this was not the time or place for such. Harrison was working on the far side of the trail through the aid station and mountain bikers were speeding through, some of them drafting wheel-to-wheel, on this bumpy road back to the finish line. So I carefully picked a time to get across the trail. I gave Harrison a hug and told him I was heading out. I told him I was proud of him and knew he would do well. He was anxious to get back to work with the aid station. I crossed the trail back to where Darren was standing and told him I was heading out. I looked back across at Harrison happily handing gel packets to cyclists. He still had a big smile on his face.

Perhaps Darren could see or feel my hesitation. “We’ll take care of him,” he said in his matter-of-fact manner. We shook hands and I walked to my truck feeling more than sort of lost. The first few miles were a battle between turning back and tears.

For all my life I’d lived by the code, “Hang on tight, don’t let go.” It had served me through many wild rides both literal and figurative. Now I was learning a new one: “Hanging on is easy. Letting go is hard.” I passed the spot by the old collapsed barn at the south end of the valley with a confused sense of determination, mixed trepidation and relief, and drove on home.

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The next several days were strangely quiet. I understand “Empty Nest Syndrome" is a normal thing for any parents but Harrison’s absence left behind such a vacuum that I really didn’t know quite how to deal with it. For 18 years life had centered on him. I had spent maybe fewer than a dozen nights not under the same roof with Harrison since he was born. At the same time there was an underlying high level of anxiety in constantly wondering what he was doing and how it was going at college.

Our house was now insanely quiet. When Mary was home in the evenings we sort of looked at each other in disbelief of the relative silence. I suddenly did not have to worry about cooking dinners Harrison would eat — we could even have spicy foods. There were no OCD meltdowns over what time lunch was, or whether we had lunch at all. We didn’t have to worry about supervising his clothing choices, or getting him to and from school and other activities.

I also started early season practices for high-school and middle-school cross-country teams that week with new assistant coach, Heather Ramer, who taught English at the school. Between holding practices, introducing Heather to the running program, and planning out the season schedule, it helped take my mind off the void of not having Harrison home anymore. However, the double-edge sword was that I was accustomed to having Harrison at practices and on the team, and thus there was another empty space. Coaching didn’t seem quite the same.

Meanwhile, Harrison seemed to be enjoying his independence. To be clear, he had never spent a night away from home without at least one of his parents. He’d never gone to a summer camp, done a sleep-over at a friend’s house or anything like that. The first few days only the cross-country team was on campus, but soon the other students began to arrive for orientation.  Though Harrison did not call home much, there was a fair amount of “tele-coaching" about choosing running shoes for certain workouts, or what clothes to wear for other activities. We were apprehensive about a late-evening college orientation trip to the hot springs in Buena Vista. We learned later that he apparently bumped his head on a water slide there and had a noisy reaction that his teammates helped him through. Otherwise he was having a blast with his new friends in the summer camp atmosphere.

I wanted to be at the college for at least part of orientation, so one evening I left Westcliffe after cross-country practice and headed for Leadville. It’s about a two-hour drive. As the late-summer days were getting shorter I found myself stopping to refuel in Buena Vista and racing daylight to get to CMC. There were some thunderstorms moving through the area.

There’s a place about eight miles south of town the locals call “Lower Malta Curve,” which is where the highway makes an S curve crossing a high bridge over the Arkansas River, and then back north toward Leadville past a small complex of ramshackle cabins and shacks. I remembered when I was the newspaper editor in Leadville, on my early morning trips to Salida for production day, I would regularly see the sheep ranchers just north of this curve standing around in the driveway with high-powered rifles laid out across the hoods of ancient pickup trucks. Often they would be smoking cigarettes in the cold mornings, waiting to shoot at coyotes marauding their sheep in the pasture across the highway. Sometimes they would actually be taking aim as I drove by. Today that ranch is a jumble of deserted and collapsing buildings.

This evening as I arrived at this spot a rainstorm had just passed through, and the last rays of sun were sinking over the shoulder of Mount Massive. The pavement was inky black from the rain and to make visibility even worse a vehicle was tailgating me with its brights on. As I drove around the second curve at the old sheep ranch there was suddenly something in the road. It looked like a black box or a piece of electronic equipment. I had no time to react and hit it square on. I looked in the rear-view mirror and saw the disintegrated debris of whatever this object had been scattering in the headlights of the car behind me. My little Suzuki seemed to take it all in stride, but the car that had been tailgating suddenly backed off. I drove on the last few miles to the college and parked. When I got out, I could smell gas. Apparently the road debris had punctured the gas tank, and when I turned off the engine the rest of the gasoline drained out. This resulted in a call to the campus maintenance department and a hazardous material clean-up. There was enough gas in the fuel line for me to drive the car to the lower lot where we parked it with a pan of kitty litter underneath the tank in case of more leakage.

Now I was stranded in Leadville with no vehicle. It took a full day to make arrangements to have it towed to a local repair shop where it was in line behind a lot of other cars while they ordered a new gas tank. Mary was stuck with work and unable to drive up and get me. During this time I was able to meet with one of Harrison’s welding professors, and also help him prepare for the start of classes the next week.

I used Harrison’s bike to get around Leadville. One evening I strapped on a backpack and rode to the grocery store. On the way back to the college I took in the sights of Leadville as the sun was setting and reflected on my history with the town. I entertained the notion of riding the bicycle 100 miles back to Westcliffe. I’d ridden bikes that far before and knew I could do it in a day, but decided that would be my last resort. After a couple days I mentioned being stranded to my burro racing friends Erin and Smokey, and they offered to loan me their Honda CR-V to get back to Westcliffe. Smokey owns Community Threads, a thrift store and sports shop, and Erin is a recovering teacher and clay artist. As I drove the red SUV home on a bluebird fall day there was a comical moment when I realized the music in the car was not a radio station but a Grateful Dead cassette tape on auto replay. Their Honda would stay parked at our house in Westcliffe for a few weeks while I waited for my car to be repaired, and used my old pickup to get around.

The weekend before the semester began the CMC team was staffing the Winfield aid station for the Leadville Trail 100 ultramarathon. This aid station is at the 50-mile turnaround for the race. It would be an all-day outing. I talked to Darren and arranged to bring some of my middle- and high-school runners to help out as well. Mary went along as a chaperone. It was a real eye-opener for these young runners to see up close what racers went through at the halfway point of a high-altitude 100-mile running race. Also, since most of them knew Harrison from his high-school days, it was a glimpse at what was possible through running after they graduated.

Harrison seemed more tuned in to his new teammates and it was a struggle for both Mary and me to stand back and try not to give him guidance on social cues, and behaviors, and also to not prod him to focus on the work at hand. Of course Nate was there to keep an eye on him, and he seemed to have struck up a friendship with Lexi as well. It was a long day and finally we loaded up the kids and drove back to Westcliffe, leaving Harrison there with what seemed to be his new family.

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Orientation Week at CMC included several days of activities designed to help students get acquainted with each other, find their way around and get into the groove at the Timberline Campus. 

The cross-country team held its own team-building activity. Coach Darren and Assistant Coach/Athletic Director Angela organized a scavenger hunt and split the team into two groups, with one group being “Team On,” and the other being “Team Honey Stinger,” named after our sponsors. I enjoyed the activity, but had difficulty staying quiet and listening to the coaches explaining the game. Some of my teammates helped me through this and Lexi reached out with her arm to have me play a game on her watch to help pass the lecture time.

A mandatory presentation for all students was held in the Climax building to discuss Title IX regulations regarding boundaries, consent and self-awareness. This time, I was better at sitting through the lecture but had a difficult time processing what they were saying. Lexi again helped me through this lecture by sitting next to me in the classroom.

Then there was a meet-and-greet event in the gymnasium. I was kind of nervous to go in because I thought there was going to be more lecturing, which ended up being the case for the first part. Later, everybody got to introduce themselves to others seated with them, then switch rows to do the same with different students. This was all a little much for me. So one of the students I met that day, Hannah Scott, walked with me to the front entryway and we both sat down on a bench. She turned out to be another compassionate friend and someone who watched out for me during my first year at CMC.

A fun activity for Orientation Week was a trip to Mount Princeton Hot Springs, about an hour away near Buena Vista. The CMC vans left campus after dinner. I had never gone on anything like this without one of my parents around. When we got there, I managed to find the locker rooms and change into my swimsuit. After that, I joined my friends in the pool. I noticed that there was also a water slide and I wanted to go down it. After the first time I went down it, I felt like I wanted to do it again. However, I ended up bonking the back of my head as I was going down the slide at high speed. This resulted in me becoming upset. Some of my teammates stepped in to help get me calmed down.

It was a late night and we got out of the pool around 11 p.m. I went back into the locker room, changed back into my regular clothes and got back in the van.  We got back to campus around midnight.

The final Orientation Week activity was an All Hall meeting in the cafeteria. This was mandatory for all students living in the dorms. Jack, the head resident assistant, went over expectations, then we split into groups by floor. Since there was no R.A. on my end of the 1st floor, I didn’t have a separate meeting so I mostly just stayed in the cafeteria. The first week of classes began the next day. Once again I felt excited and nervous about the start of this new chapter in my life.

Notes from Hal

Harrison had been gone from home for 11 days now, by far the longest he’d been away and mostly he’d been on his own. Classes began the following week and we discussed over the phone locating his classrooms. The college was small enough for him to find his way around, and the residence hall was only a short walk to the academic buildings.

We had already scoped out the Rattling Jack shop so he knew where to report for his two welding classes. He also had Academic Literacy and Success, and College 101: The Student Experience. Both classes were in the New Discovery building.

Once again Mary and I were reflecting on what seemed to be an idyllic situation and transition to a new stage of life, for Harrison, and for us. Of course I was aware there had been some minor issues but that was to be expected. We didn’t think this would be a completely smooth ride. But it almost seemed too good to be real. . . . And of course it was.

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Orientation week seemed like summer camp. When classes began that next week it became another story altogether. I was enrolled in four classes, including a College Experience class, Academic Literacy and Success and two welding classes — Oxy Fuels and Shielded Metal Arc.

In addition I had cross-country practice and it was also initially difficult for me to understand the schedule. In high school everyone had practice at the same time, after school. In college there were some team practices, but sometimes we had to run on our own or with other teammates depending on class schedules. Eventually I got better at understanding this and realizing that sometimes I would have to take responsibility for my own training. That first week of classes everyone was just doing their own thing and busy with things like classes and homework.

With the “summer camp” experience ending I was a little nervous to go to my first college classes — especially welding. It was a longer walk to the Rattling Jack shop and I had to get all my personal welding gear — boots, safety glasses, safety clothes together before trekking up there. Thankfully, Brooklyn walked with me to the welding shop my first class and gave me a hug before I went inside.

One day that week I had some free time so I decided to ride the entire loop of the Mineral Belt Trail on my bike. This loop was approximately 11.6 miles. While I was riding, I found some historical remnants from Leadville’s mining days, like an ore cart and walls made of stacked timbers. I did this ride because I wanted to challenge myself to do something on my own. When I got back to the college, I reflected on this accomplishment and others. Overall, the idea of living on my own in a dorm room was a big step for me. It allowed me more independence and to transition to a more typical young adult’s life away from home.

Not everything was all rainbows and unicorns, however. All during orientation week Lexi was trying to help me fit in. I gave her the nickname “Mini Taylor Swift” because she looked sort of like Taylor but wasn’t as famous. I find relationships with women confusing. I feel like boundaries are often blurred. I think I had been developing a crush on Lexi but she was just trying to be friends. I may have misinterpreted her intentions when she tried to help me calm down or when I became mad or upset quickly.

Thursday, Aug. 25, 2022, will be a day I never forget as it had a traumatic impact on the rest of my college experience. I was trying to get Lexi to run with me since I had nobody to run with that day. Unfortunately, this is where things started to go downhill. I ran up to her door and knocked on it. Then I asked her to go on a run. When she said “no,” I became very frustrated and freaked out. After this, I ran up and down the hall, yelling loudly and knocking on her door. Finally, as I was leaving, I yelled out, “I am scared of you!” and ran down to the head R.A. Jack’s room.

After I got there, he told me to go to Coach Darren’s office in the new Discovery Building. When I got there, Darren was calling the assistant dean to his office. After Evan got up there, he went over what I had done, and told me I had to go home for the weekend. He also told me that I was in Lexi’s bubble a little too much these past few days. Upon hearing this, I went berserk and threw myself to the ground, crying and screaming. At times, I even put my hands behind my back like I was going to be “arrested.” I even mentioned once that I wanted to be dead.

Evan had me come to his office while we waited several hours for my dad to get there. He tried to get me to calm down by reading a book together and watching a movie. While this did help somewhat, the meltdown continued until my dad arrived. I was still sobbing as I was walking out with my dad. This continued as we got something to eat in Leadville. While we were in the restaurant, I noticed I had received a missed call from Lexi. I had no idea why she was calling, although I guessed it had something to do with the situation.

On the way home, I sobbed once again but later fell asleep listening to soothing Peter Kater music on my headphones. We finally got home around midnight. I was still very upset about the whole situation but exhausted. I went inside and went to bed.

As I was spending the weekend at home, I missed the team’s outing to climb Mount Sherman, a 14,000-foot peak, and became very agitated when I saw pictures of it on Instagram. I did receive news that I could go back up that following Monday, although I had to have another meeting with Evan then.

When that day finally came, my dad drove me up to Leadville. On the way up there, my dad tried to explain personal space using the sky through the windshield. “Look at that little cloud up there all by itself. Do you think it’s lonely? No. It’s just floating around on this nice day doing its own thing.” As we turned the corner, we could see some other clouds. And sure enough, his friends were with him. “When they maintain space, the day goes by well. But, when they get too close together, there could be a thunderstorm.”

We arrived back at the campus and went directly to the meeting with Evan. I signed a piece of paper agreeing not to be loud in the halls again and to not to invade Lexi’s personal space. During the meeting, he also suggested that I stay home for a couple more weekends for a transition. I would be allowed on campus for weekends when I had team activities or other events but my dad would need to stay over with me.

Later that day I was back in the dorm and Lexi came walking down the stairs. I told her I was sorry for the incident the previous week. She accepted my apology and told me we would have boundaries set with each other and that we would still be friends. Also, she came up with a fist bump as a “see-you-later,” and then sweep her fingers in an effort to make me laugh. This was fine, as it was still respecting boundaries. However, later on I would develop a strong reaction to it after others like Brooklyn eventually picked up on it and said, “knucks” beforehand. This was due to something in my brain telling me that they were scared of me and trying to avoid me, although that wasn’t true at all. I became anxious about having another uncomfortable interaction. I sometimes hid away from Lexi in places like the residence hall and cafeteria. Once I even ran out of the Multipurpose Room and outside when I saw her coming down the stairs.

The next few weeks were a little bumpy. I felt like going home on weekends was more like a punishment, or a “sentence” than a transition. I also had a few problems in the dorms and at cross-country practice. Thankfully, these did not result in any more conduct meetings.

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That Thursday afternoon I received a series of phone calls about Harrison having a meltdown and it was clear I needed to get to Leadville. I left cross-country practice in Westcliffe and I drove directly to the CMC campus, arriving after dark. I found Harrison detained in Evan’s office. He had been crying, and was still whimpering and talking nonsensically. We sat on the couch and discussed the situation briefly. From what I could understand, Harrison had been trying to find someone to run with, and had knocked on Lexi’s door. She told him no, that she could not run with him. He then flipped out and began running back and forth in the hall screaming and yelling.

Evan explained that he had to go home now and that we would talk over the weekend about him returning. We needed to get some things from Harrison’s dorm room and Evan accompanied us to the residence hall, and back to my truck. Harrison continued to whimper and then exclaimed dramatically as we loaded up to leave, "Goodbye Leadville! . . Goodbye CMC!”

Harrison had not eaten anything since lunch so we went to Casa Sanchez, the only restaurant open at that hour in Leadville. He was still very upset. While we waited for the food he suddenly became agitated and shoved his phone in my face. It showed a missed call from Lexi. We ate and started the long trip home. As I drove Harrison started to sob again. We passed Box Creek where I knew the old collapsed barn lay out in the dark field to the west. I felt a little stress lift, knowing Harrison was safe for the time-being, but he remained inconsolable. He cried for the next hour as I drove slowly watching for wildlife. He finally fell asleep and I drove the last hour in silence. As we arrived home the Milky Way stretched out across the northern skyline. I quietly urged Harrison inside the dark house and on to bed. He was exhausted. I looked at the unpacking needing done in the truck, shut the door on it and left it for the morning.

Harrison had been away from home for about two weeks and was a changed person. He was also dazed by what had just happened. Our motto had always been, “Tomorrow is another day.” But now that he had tasted independence, it was not the same. Being sent home was seen as punishment rather than a reset.

We did our best to keep him on a positive keel, but his negative behaviors and self-talk were elevated. I had to coach a cross-country meet that Saturday and he watched Sing II with Mary while I was gone. We looked over his class assignments, and carried out Darren’s workouts, including a long Sunday run. We would go back to CMC on Monday for a disciplinary meeting with Evan.

The meeting was in a conference room across the hall from Evan’s office. We sat down at a big table with Evan to my right and Harrison across the table from him. Jen was there as well, and across from me. Evan went over the events that had led us to this meeting, the disciplinary process at CMC and the consequences. Among these were that Harrison would be allowed on campus only on days he had classes, and not allowed to stay in the residence hall over weekends without prior approval and without me staying with him. During this discussion I asked about getting more help for Harrison and Evan shut that down quickly with: “That’s you.” For the first time in dealing with him, I bristled.

Evan placed on the table a four-page Conduct Letter for Harrison to sign. The overriding implication was this was a condition of returning to classes and the residence hall. I scanned the document and my brain froze. I could not digest the massive pile of legalese in such a short time and under these circumstances. Much less could I expect Harrison, or even a lawyer, to process so much material so quickly. I thought this through quickly and could see the cards were not in my favor at this poker table. I knew Evan was doing his job and going through the required motions. However, my intuition was that no court in the land would hold someone with processing issues like Harrison responsible for signing such a packet of legal gibberish under such pressure. After taking a breath, I nodded for Harrison to go ahead and sign the document and we were on our way. 

We went back to Harrison’s dorm room. It was a mess of clean and dirty casual wear, running clothes and shoes, welding gear and dirty coffee equipment. Things were piled on both beds, one of them unmade. It took some hours to get the room organized again.

Harrison saw Lexi in the hallway and apologized to her for the incident. I realized I was dragging my feet on leaving him again. Harrison had welding class that evening. I decided to eat dinner in the cafeteria and then leave. The running team tended to occupy a table in the middle of the cafeteria. It was always fun to socialize with Harrison’s teammates. But tonight was uncomfortable. There seemed to be a cloud over the group. Harrison apologized to Lexi’s roommate Anne for the situation. She told him it was all in the past.

When we got up to leave, Brooklyn went out the door with us, and then accompanied us to Harrison’s dorm room. I was really fighting the urge to stay the night but knew I needed to leave. What happened next was a pivotal act of empathy that would soon characterize the way fellow students dealt with Harrison. Brooklyn waited patiently for him to get his welding gear together then walked him over to his class. I quickly packed the last few things for my trip home. As I drove past the welding shop I saw Brooklyn arriving there with Harrison. It was a kind gesture to help him get back on track, and it was comforting to me to know friends were watching out for him. By the time I passed the old collapsed barn south of Leadville I was feeling better, but I also knew I would be back in three days to bring him home again.

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My two welding classes were Oxy-Fuel Joining Processes with Charlie Cooper on Mondays and Wednesday evenings, and Basic Shielded Metal Arc with Geoff Lautzenheizer on Tuesdays and Thursday afternoons. These classes were almost three hours long, and held in the Rattling Jack building at the south end of campus. Two of the students in both of my welding classes were my teammates, Ben and Kenneth. I felt extremely fortunate to have them in class for extra support. I made other new friends in the classes as well.

One end of the shop is set up like a classroom with metal tables and the other end has welding booths with black curtains so others don’t get blinded by the arc. Since students are literally working with fire and electricity, it’s crucial to wear protective gear, i.e., a welding hat, hood, welding coat, glasses, welding gloves, work pants and welding boots. I was issued most of that stuff from the classroom, although my dad bought me other things like the pants, bag, bucket, and boots with electrical hazard protection and steel toes. There were also some non-safety related items issued to me by the college like a wire brush, chipping hammer, striker, dark glasses for Oxyfuels, and of course, the steel, filler metal for oxy-fuel and welding rods for arc. Also, I had another pair of white work gloves specifically for oxyfuels. My first week at welding class was basically just lectures to introduce the class to the welding equipment and how it works. These lectures basically took up the whole class time, but somehow I managed to make it through the almost five hours of lecturing that first week.

The following week we started to actually weld in the booths. During oxy-fuel class, we got to do some test welds with the torch only on a thin piece of metal. Charlie went over how to turn on the torch. First, there are these gauges mounted to the wall with knobs underneath in which you’re supposed to turn until the gauge points to a certain area. You turn the acetylene knob then you take a striker and strike it next to the torch, which produces a flame. Then you turn the other knob which is the oxygen until the flame is like a pencil tip. Sometimes, the torch tends to make a popping noise followed by a high pitched noise. If it does, you have to close all knobs or else it could result in an explosion if not dealt with quickly.

Geoff’s class on the other hand involved high-voltage electricity. You turn on the welding machine by flipping a switch on the back. Then, you hook a ground clamp to the welding table which makes anything metal on it charged and able to be welded. Next, there is a stinger that you can stick a rod in. The rods were stored in an electrode oven near the metal tables back in the other room. There are many different angles that the rod can be positioned in the holder depending on which angle you are welding at. Once the rod is in the holder, you’re good to go. All that’s left to do is flick your head down, which drops the helmet shield over your face. Then, lightly strike the metal with the arc like you’re striking a match. This will spark the rod which starts the weld. To stop, just simply lift the rod from the metal. This can take a few tries to get it right.

When I first started stick welding, I struggled with striking the arc. Sometimes the rod would get stuck to the metal. This could happen while I’m striking the ark or once I got the weld going. Arc welding felt like I had more power in my hands than oxy-fuel, and I felt like this was a more serious welding process.

I liked welding from the beginning. It was exciting to be learning how to do something new. When I am welding, I must focus deeply on the task. If I made even one minor screw-up, it could cost me my cross-country season, and maybe even my life. When I am focusing, I usually think about how good I expect the weld to turn out, and in general how I use my brain to make good welds. I realized that doing well in this class was a key to being successful in college, and that welding would be a skill I could use to make money later in my life.

Charlie was easy-going and Geoff was a little more hardcore and serious. Later on, I found a video on YouTube about introducing CMC faculty members, and one of them was my professor, Geoff, saying something I found amusing: “Hi, I’m Geoff Lautzenheizer. Welding — it’s like sewing with fire!” I liked playing that part of the video on repeat because I thought it was a cool saying.

Of course, There were some hiccups during my time in class. There was one time I was goofing off and drawing letters on the metal with the welding stick, leaving a raised letter. Geoff noticed this and took me outside to show me welds on his truck. He told me that the equipment was not to be treated as a toy, and was to be used more seriously. He said that in order to make perfect welds like the ones on his truck, I would have to step up and use the welding equipment appropriately.

Also, one day in class I made a mistake that posed a major safety hazard. I had apparently dipped my gloves in a dip tank right outside of the welding room, then went right to my booth with wet gloves and then connected the electrode to the holder. Geoff rushed immediately over to my station before I got shocked, and maybe even electrocuted. Unfortunately, he had no choice but to write another Care Report.

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During the next week, Evan called to discuss Harrison after looking over his schedule and situation. He’d made a spreadsheet for each day’s schedule for Harrison and met with him to go over it. He also suggested adding Academic Writing Skills with Prof. Kelli McCall, who also was his College Experience professor. This brought Harrison to 15 credit hours.

We talked about other ideas to keep Harrison occupied when he was not in class or at practice. Evan also asked why Harrison was not on the running team scholarship, which covers room and board. I said that I did not know why Harrison was not on the running scholarship, or the particulars of how one qualified. He said he had adjusted this to include Harrison on the scholarship.

This was a huge relief, as I was really starting to stress about paying for all this. My aunt Carol, a philanthropist who provides scholarships to college students, had generously offered to help with Harrison’s school expenses. He also had two small scholarships from the Sangre Arts Guild back in Westcliffe. His running scholarship would now cover living expenses. We will always be deeply grateful for all the financial support Harrison received.

After the incident that sent him home, Harrison’s outbursts and behaviors elevated to new levels. His teammates became concerned. Along with Brooklyn, Nate stepped up with even more encouragement for Harrison. Ben was watching out for him with a protective eye. Zoe also upped her level of support and even told Harrison that she didn’t think he should have been sent home, or excluded on weekends. I was now consigned to driving about 500 miles a week to chauffeur Harrison back and forth, and staying a few nights a week in the dorm myself.

Regardless, Harrison’s entire mindset about college had been damaged, and this trauma would stick with him to some degree for the entire two years he attended the college. Suddenly years of progress had been thrown into a nightmarish tailspin of self-destructive behaviors — even suicidal talk and statements — and elevated reactions to just about any situation. He hyperbolically referred to himself as a “stalker” and to Lexi as his “victim.” He would throw himself face-down to the ground with his hands behind his back as if to be handcuffed. He started hitting himself in the head repeatedly, sometimes grabbing one wrist with the opposite hand and slamming his open palm into his forehead. He refused to do any homework until the last minute, and often only after a lot of prompting. His reaction to just about any request was to stomp and make a grunting noise or yell out, “Oh no!”

At home he became more aggressive. He threatened during a long Sunday run to jump out of the third floor of the residence hall when we got back to the college. For the next two years, whenever we arrived back at the college from a weekend at home he would duck behind the dashboard and hide on the floorboard refusing to go inside. Typically, I would begin to unpack the vehicle and fetch bags to his room. Sometime later he would finally get out of the vehicle and go inside, often hiding in the study room or in the MPR if nobody else was in there.

Besides all this, my immediate problem became juggling my coaching job in Westcliffe with shuttling Harrison back and forth to Leadville. The typical schedule was to pack up on Thursday, then after practice in Westcliffe, drive to Leadville. After Harrison’s practice with the team on Friday morning, we would drive back home. We’d see him through his workouts and school work over the weekend. Sunday evening we would return to the college and I would stay over again, get him set up Monday, then drive back to Westcliffe in time for practice.

I felt like we might be “exploring the rules” with the Friday mornings and Sunday evenings on campus but I really didn’t care at this point — it was insane to race up there early Monday and then expect him to go to class.

I was also exploring new realms of my own resilience. The second weekend of the sanctions I ironically had to coach middle and high school on the CMC trail system and I brought Harrison along. We steered clear of the dorms and Brooklyn came over to the cross-country course to keep Harrison company. Over that weekend I had driven to Leadville to bring Harrison home, traveled to and from Leadville to coach a meet, then drove to Leadville again to bring Harrison back — 750 miles in less than four days. I felt like there were forces afoot trying to grind me down, and the situation would soon become a test of my own will.

One day before the first meet Darren passed out the uniforms, shoes and clothing in his classroom. It was an exciting moment as the team lined up to try on their new kit and take pictures out on the college lawn. Harrison’s mood seemed to lift somewhat with the spirit of the team in getting their new gear. The first meet of their season was in Alamosa the following morning.

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CMC’s first cross-country meet of the season was the Joe Vigil Open in Alamosa. The prestigious meet is named after the legendary coach who took Adams State University to 19 national titles in cross-country and track. In this same event, I also would have the improbable experience of coaching my middle- and high-school teams, while watching my son run his first college race. Once again, I drove Harrison home from Leadville Friday morning after uniforms were issued. The next morning we left the school in Westcliffe in the dark, with Mary following the school bus and Harrison in her car. He would meet up with his CMC teammates at the meet.

It was foggy and slow driving for a good part of the way, throwing us off-schedule for the middle-school race. I called ahead and asked that organizers give us a little extra time. We arrived late and Coach Heather and I literally jumped off the bus with our small squad of middle-school girls and ran to the starting line. The girls barely got lined up before the starting gun sounded. I took a deep breath of relief. The middle school boys ran right after and then it was time for the college races.

The Joe Vigil meet is considered a “fast altitude course” at 7,500 feet elevation. While it is fairly flat, there’s a loop with a gradual uphill, and the route alternates from golf-course grass to gravel golf-cart paths. There was a festive buzz building for the college races and a good number of spectators had gathered, while many of the high school teams were also starting to arrive.

The standard men’s college cross-country course is 8K, just short of five miles. I was nervous for Harrison in his college debut. I wondered how would he perform under the pressure and at this new distance and level of competition. Years of coaching and preparation — and hundreds of setbacks and breakthroughs — seemed to lead to this moment. Although he was wearing a dark-blue and black uniform, my hopes and dreams were standing quite naked next to him on the starting line.

He bounced excitedly up and down alongside his teammates and runners from other colleges like NCAA Division II powerhouse Adams State, Fort Lewis College, and NJCAA arch-rival Trinidad State College, as well as several unattached entrants. Of course the CMC team was going to get destroyed but these guys were undaunted in their excitement. There was, if nothing else, a friendly competition among the mens team as Darren had said he might only be able to take the top-five runners to the NJCAA National Championship.

The Blur jumped right into the thick of things on the uphill start and rounded the first righthand turn in heavy traffic. He seemed to be focused and running with a joyful gait. There was something both exhilarating and surreal about watching him settle confidently into his race.

While coaching an event I often run more miles than my runners. Today with Harrison’s college race, in addition to middle and high school boys and girls races, I would get a workout, sprinting from point to point to cheer and encourage all my athletes.

The other Harrison, now well-known by teammates as “Blueberry,” held down CMC’s top spot, followed by Ben, Kenneth, Nate, Harrison, Korben and Paulo. At one point Ron Shepherd, Nate’s high school coach, and I were standing together cheering on both of our college guys. Then I took off up-course to catch them on another loop, sprinting past Darren to another vantage point. Darren yelled at Harrison as he passed: “Let’s go Blur!” Then he turned and said loudly and cheerfully, “He’s going to score points for me!”

Indeed, if Harrison could hang on in CMC’s fifth position he would score points in his debut race. He seemed to be focused on Nate up ahead, but gradually Nate pulled away. Still, Harrison maintained his pace. Then on the long sweeping uphill in the last mile, he secured his position. He turned onto the final downhill stretch of grass to the finish and sprinted across the line with a slight smile. After all the drama of the previous two weeks, he couldn’t have been happier.

Following their race, the CMC guys watched their teammates — Abby, Anna and Lexi — in the women’s race, and ran their cooldown, while I got my high school runners warmed up and coached them through their races.

On the return bus ride I gazed out at the San Luis Valley scenery in the late summer light and reflected on the momentous day. The jagged peaks of the Sangre De Cristo mountains passed like a movie through the bus window just as they had during Harrison’s first cross-country season in middle school so many cross-country seasons ago. In all of them, I could have never envisioned the experience I‘d just lived.

Notes from The Blur

The first meet of my collegiate running career was the Joe Vigil Open in Alamosa hosted by Adams State University at the Cattails golf course. This meet included middle school, high school, and college runners. My dad had to coach both high school and middle school, and also watch me in my race. I felt excited about this race since it was my first one in college and was very much looking forward to running in it. Also several of my teammates from high school would be there to watch. I wanted to do well.

This course was familiar to me since I ran there in high school my sophomore year. The start was on grass and slightly uphill on grass then it turned onto a gravel golf cart path. This trail made a big loop around the entire golf course. In the high school 5K, you only run this loop once and then to the finish. In the college 8K, there was an additional loop around the lower end. Of course the level of competition was much higher than high school. I felt like I was well-prepared for this meet due to all the training I did all summer long.

In the first mile I was not too far behind Nate, but I passed two other guys on the team. This made me fifth position on the team. There was one spot where I started to turn the wrong way, and some people redirected me onto the course. Nevertheless, I scored points for my new team in the first meet. Also, I felt good running in the new On shoes and also running my first race as a college athlete.

Meanwhile, the men’s team was cooling down and the women’s 5K race was starting. I cheered on all the girls but still referred to Lexi as “Mini Taylor Swift” when cheering her on. I knew later that this was odd, and was a lingering thought ever since that day I had the problem with her.

Also at one point, the team got several yards ahead of me and I tried to catch back up to them. In the process, I happened to stand on a golf green and some people told me to stay off of those golf greens. This startled me and I didn’t react well to that situation. In a fit of lost impulse control, I screamed “YOU IDIOT” to them, then ran towards my teammates.

After the cool down and after the women finished, a photographer came over and got individual pictures with the teammates to put up on the team roster section of the CMC Athletics website. Everything was all good until my mom and dad learned about the incident about the golf greens. After that, they became frustrated with me and warned me about possible consequences if I kept this up. Of course, this upset me even more.

Despite all this, I got to run in my first race as a CMC athlete and actually scored points for my team. I felt like this was a great start to my collegiate running career, and paved the way for even better races in the future.

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