Rebuffed.

I started running almost eight years ago, actually - the week my youngest daughter, McKenna, was born. My motivation was that I wanted to have the energy, stamina and overall health to keep up with my kids as I got older, and her birth was the catalyst.

I didn't want to be one of those dads who didn't have the lungs to run up and down the soccer field or the basketball court once or twice without having to take a rest, panting and sucking air as a heart attack loomed overhead. I didn't want to be sidelined with frequent back or leg injuries. But more than anything, I wanted to maintain my 20 year old mindset (indestructible/no limits) in my soon-to-be 40 year old body...without having to pay a heavy price.

I started slow back then, short distances, frequent runs, eventually building my stamina and becoming more comfortable increasing my time and speed. I started signing up for 5ks and 10ks to keep me motivated and goal-oriented, and then half marathons and marathons. It's become a critical component of my life - one that I love and can't imagine living without.

Of course, my girls love the race medals that I've accumulated over the years. In fact, I'll frequently find them - washcloths in hand - cleaning and buffing the microscopic dust specs off of them, ensuring they remain in pristine condition.

"I want a medal!" I'd inevitably hear during their repeated labors.

"You have to earn it..." I'd respond, "It takes hard work and training; I'll help you any time you want to try."

So they've both run a few kids races in conjunction with one of my own, starting out like a bat out of hell and then crashing back down to reality after a quarter mile and struggling to finish. But these races always seem to give out ribbons, not medals, and, as they quickly discovered: ribbons cannot be buffed.

Last year, my oldest, Reese, began asking me if she could run with me. So we'd go out - slowly - for a mile or two, and I'd take the opportunity to talk to her about pacing, building up stamina, strategy, humility, motivation, etc. ...And it seemed to be sinking in.

But McKenna just wasn't interested...

Then there was a kids half mile race on the 4th of July before a race I was running in River Park, and Reese asked if she could participate. On the way to the race, I told her to go out slow - maybe 75%, "Don't expend all your energy at once; maintain control and keep some gas in your tank. If you feel strong at the turnaround point, turn it up, see how you feel, and if you still feel good, go all out for the last quarter of the race."

Sure enough: she won. And she was ecstatic. Her prize, in addition to the big announcement in front of the crowd, was a nice metal water bottle - which she (of course) proudly used every day last summer.

And, as expected, all this slowly sunk in with McKenna: in order to achieve what she wanted, she was going to have to work at it...

Fast forward to a couple months ago... I decided to run the Eugene Marathon, and when I signed up I saw that they had a unique kids marathon program in which kids can run 25 miles in the months leading up to the race weekend, and then run the last mile on race day to earn a medal. A real medal!

This was huge.

Of course, when I shared the news with the girls, they were chanting, "I WANT TO DO IT, I WANT TO DO IT!"

"Do you guys understand what kind of commitment you'd be making if you sign up for this?" I asked them. "It means you have to run 25 miles. Not all at once, but one at a time - and it's going to take time. You have to be the ones to do it, you have to be motivated."

Both were undaunted. A real medal? "I want to do it dad," they proclaimed in unison as they ran up the stairs to re-re-buff my medals.

So I signed them up in mid March; race day was May 1st. They had 7 weeks to get 25 miles in. No problem, right?

But, of course, life goes on...softball games, swimming, piano and dance practices, play dates and school functions... Suddenly it was two weeks before the race, and the girls had only managed to bank four  miles.

That night we sat down with the calendar and I showed them what it would take to get those 21 miles in over the next 14 days. Reese was undaunted, "Dad - let's run 6 miles tomorrow!" (she had good intentions...) McKenna, on the other hand, didn't entirely grasp what needed to get done...

"I'm going out back to look for ladybugs..."

...So even with the best of (tepid) intentions, they both still had 15 miles to go at the end of that week.

On the last weekend day (Sunday) before the race (the following Saturday), they asked if I'd run with them down to the local high school and back: a mile each way. So we headed out on the levy by the river, and they were in good spirits. When we got there, they saw the track and asked if they could run around the track too. "How many laps is another mile?" Reese asked, after I had hopped the fence and they had slipped underneath to get in.

"Four..." I answered, but she had already taken off running. So McKenna and I started slowly, alternating walking with jogging until, after much whining and stopping for drinks and bathroom breaks, she completed two laps.

"I'm done," she whined as she collapsed on the infield grass. "I'm too tired..." I had visions of her precious medal slipping away...

"Tell you what," I brainstormed, "I'll pay you a dollar if you can run two laps before I can run four."

"A dollar?!" She jumped up. "OK!"

"What about me?" Reese had overheard as she completed another lap; she wasn't about to let a money making opportunity slip by.

"OK, if you help motivate her to beat me, you'll earn a dollar too."

We started and I went out at a medium-hard pace. I knew that McKenna would tire again after a half a lap, Reese would try to motivate her - and would be successful for another half a lap, but then McKenna would likely determine that it wasn't worth it, and stop to rest. There was no way they were beating me.

But as I rounded the track after the first lap and looked back across, they weren't too far behind, and, more importantly, they weren't stopping. I turned it up. As I started my third lap, they only had half a lap to go, and - was I really seeing this right? - McKenna was breaking away from Reese. She crossed twenty yards ahead of Reese, and forty yards ahead of me; I didn't even finish 3 laps before she got her 2 in. I was astounded.

She collapsed, dead tired but successful, having given everything she had. But as I caught up to her, she lifted her head off the grass and yelled, "You owe me a dollar!" Awesome. I had told her earlier - and privately - that she was just as fast as Reese (she was doubtful), and that the only difference was that Reese's mind didn't allow her to quit. Now she saw firsthand that I had been right.

Suddenly re-energized, the girls ended up doing 8 laps each, ran home, then asked to go out on another run in the afternoon for a total of 7 miles in one day. Incredible. Now with the end actually in sight, they ticked off the remaining miles over the course of that week, and when we arrived in Eugene on Friday night, they were all caught up.

So saturday morning rolled around. They were excited, nervous, anxious...and dying to win that medal!

We got to the starting line early, standing around for 45 minutes - each one becoming an agonizing lifetime in anticipation of the start. But finally the gun went off, and the girls took off running: focused, driven and, most importantly, having fun.

I ran with McKenna and I'd never seen her so relaxed, so strategic - ensuring she maintained a manageable pace in order to finish the race without having to stop or walk. And when the finish line was in sight, she took off from me and crossed on her own. She was sweaty, tired, but completely proud of herself as the race organizers led her through the chute and - gasp! - to the medals. A volunteer congratulated her and hung one around her neck, and she turned and ran to Paige and I shouting, "Look at my medal!!!"

But after we admired it and gave her a big hug, she started examining the medal...

Hmm...this was strange. It wasn't actually metal, it was some type of plastic/rubber thing. It looked like a medal - with the Eugene Marathon logo in full color - but it most definitely was not metal. Her expression soured.

"Dad," she finally said, disappointment and confusion battling with the pride of her accomplishment, "Why would they call this a medal if it's not metal?"

I actually looked up the word "medal" in the dictionary when I got home and she was absolutely right, it said, "A round, flat piece of metal which is given to a person as an honor for an act of bravery or skill."

She was suddenly having to redefine her previous definitions of motivation and success right there at that particular moment. All that hard work...and a non-metallic medal as the reward?

What did this now mean? How would she go on from here?

She had anticipated that the metal medal was what people, and she, would be proud of. Instead, as we headed out to breakfast with family and friends, what she found was that people glanced at the rubber "medal," and wanted to hear how she felt, what it meant to her, what she had done to earn it. By the end of breakfast, the medal had simply become a symbol, and not the accomplishment. And when she retuned to school earlier this week, she proudly wore it to class, ecstatic to have people see it and ask her what she had done...so she could share her feelings.

Awesome.

Of course, to bring this back to the meaningless, this is the exact same motivation for Russell on Survivor. Now, granted, Russell is a complete douchebag a-hole, where McKenna is the sweetest, most innocent child on the planet (a title I realize will soon be woefully obsolete once the teenage years come raging into our household...). But people: HE. IS. AMAZING. Forget about the money: he wants to win solely to achieve his goal. And damn, he is good at it.

I am in complete awe of the man. Do I hate him? Yes, of course. Is he a piece of sh*t? Again, yes, of course. Is he the single best player in the history of Survivor? Without a freaking doubt.

In the single best season of Survivor EVER, we get week after week of stellar tribal councils, mind-bending strategy, ruthless execution, and tremendous drama to spackle all of the remaining nooks and crannies.

Break up a rock solid alliance with Parvati and Danielle? With anyone else, it would be a deathwish. But Russell? I still don't know how he does it week after week, but it WORKS, even this time, and Jerri literally switches her vote at the last possible moment to change the entire course of the game.

I don't care how much of a 100%, iron-clad sure thing it may be at any given point that Russell is going to be voted out: he will figure out a way to NOT ONLY be safe, but to twist the drama so that he is in complete control as well.

It's astounding.

You can hate him and he can disgust you, but holy geez: admit that you are irrepressibly drawn to watch what will happen next! There is, and has been nothing - and I mean absolutely nothing - more engaging that Russell in the history of reality television.

Russell doesn't need - or strive for - the million, just like McKenna didn't need a metal medal. He wants control, he wants power, he wants success...and he never loses focus, not even for a moment. But although his motivation is right on target, the car-crash component is that his execution is reprehensible. And while it was nice that Rupert called him out (although Rupert is a tool - immediately changing his tone the second Russell decides to save him), Rupert is no match for Russell. Nobody is. He's too focused.

How did he get to be this way? What was his path that led him to this impressive but hateful point? Where does his evil motivation lie? How did it come to be? Was there some catalyst in his childhood where he realized what it would take to achieve his goals...and he twisted that motivation to the dark side? That while other kids were focused on tangible things, like awards, or prizes...or medals, that he would have the advantage by focusing on the intangibles - at the expense of his complete integrity...?!

Holy crap.

OK, I've just decided: McKenna is absolutely FORBIDDEN from ever applying to be a contestant on Survivor.

Um, by the way, does anyone have a recommendation for a good trophy maker? I'm suddenly in the market for a three-foot gaudy beast of a trophy...

Until next week,

PB