The tires hit the tarmac at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport, and I pump both fists in the air. Tears stream down my face as the plane shudders to a stop. The passengers around me smile at this strange foreign man overwhelmed with joy to be in Kenya. They couldn't know that this moment was years in the making—my being here now, to literally chase a dream. And a book brought me here. "Ken-ya," I whisper to myself, feeling the synchronicity. My name is Ken, and I am meant to be in Kenya.

It was Jason Karp's The Inner Runner that finally led me to set my goal of reaching Kenya. I discovered that book during one of my darker periods, stuck in depression, feeling like my running had lost its meaning. I devoured it, listening to it on repeat during my runs. Karp expressed things about running that I'd never encountered in any other author—he captured what it means to be a runner, the way running becomes not just exercise but a way of processing life itself. The book broke me out of that depression and inspired me to reach out to him directly.

Dr. Karp's response changed everything. He encouraged me to get certified as a running coach through the International Sports Science Association (ISSA). I followed his advice exactly. While taking that course, a new certification appeared—one that Karp himself had authored for running coaching. The synchronicity felt too powerful to ignore. After I completed the certification, I learned that Karp was running training camps in Kenya. I set my goal: I would take one of his running camps, meet him in person, and follow the path he'd laid out for runners seeking to understand their sport at the deepest level. But the universe had other plans. By the time I was ready to sign up, Karp had resigned from the training camps. Instead, he recommended the Kenya Experience camp I chose to attend.

But to understand why Karp's book hit me so deeply, I need to take you back to where my running journey really started. I was fourteen, bored out of my mind on a family vacation, when I made the decision to lace up some sneakers and just run. Four miles, as it turned out, when my father clocked me in the car afterward. He seemed as surprised as I was. That's when it hit—when I realized I can go and go and not stop, and it's fun. For years, that's all it was—running just for fun. Pure, uncomplicated movement.

Everything changed in 2008 when I committed to my first marathon. I had just gotten sober—again—trading one addiction for another. I signed up for and ran race after race. My knees began screaming in protest. Doctors mentioned surgery. I was facing a choice: run myself into the ground or find another way. That's when I discovered Run Less Run Faster and chose a different path. The title alone was revolutionary to someone like me—an all-or-nothing addict. The book's central premise challenged everything I thought I knew about running, which wasn't actually much. I just ran. It taught me that you never have to run every day. Rest is vital—not a weakness—but an integral part of getting stronger.

I followed what the book said because that was exactly what I wanted—to run faster. And if that meant running less, okay. It also meant running smarter to be able to stay in it for the long game. In 12-Step recovery, I learned about balance, about not replacing one extreme with another. This book was teaching me the same thing about running. The book connected to something deeper brewing in my consciousness. Around the same time, another member of my 12-Step fellowship had recommended The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle. I decided to dive into Tolle's writing, where I encountered Buddhist ideas—like seeing every breath as precious, that the present moment is everything. As I learned to apply the Run Less Run Faster principles, I began to see running itself as something sacred, something to be preserved and honored rather than exploited.

At sixty, having the health and fitness to run the times I'm running—I already feel like a champion. Yet I continue to "chop wood, carry water," as the Zen saying goes. I choose to keep training. Keep learning. Keep running. I learned to balance the spirituality of running and my competitiveness when my sponsor introduced me to Alfred Adler through an offhand comment: "You need to have the courage to be disliked." That phrase's alarming weirdness stuck with me. Later, I discovered it was the title of a book by Japanese authors explaining Adlerian psychology. I chose to study The Courage to Be Disliked, which opened up an entirely new understanding of what it meant to run authentically.

In Korea, where I was teaching English, I entered races all over the country. But here's the thing about Korean marathons—I wasn't living in Seoul where races happened every weekend. I was stuck in small towns because I wasn't ambitious enough about my ESL career to impress a university in Seoul. So I'd spend hours pouring over the internet, trying to find marathons that weren't too soon or too far out to train for properly. Sometimes this led to three-day affairs traveling to remote rice towns just to run 26.2 miles. But I embraced Adler's teachings and made a decision: sometimes you have to have the courage to push through, to assert yourself, to run your own race even if others don't approve. I stopped holding back just to be polite and elbowed my way through crowded bike paths shared with cyclists and pedestrians, determined to reach my goal time.

The loneliness of the long-distance runner took on new meaning. As an adoptee, a solo traveler without family, I'm often the only guy doing what I do. That used to feel isolating. Adler helped me understand that authentic living sometimes requires solitude, and that trying to please everyone is actually a form of selfishness—it serves my need to be liked rather than truly serving others. I made use of Tolle's version of Buddhism through his The Power of Now, but it was when I chose to explore Prentiss's Zen and the Art of Happiness that I really began to love this Zen stuff. The title caught my attention, and its content transformed how I understood life's challenges—teaching me that the universe is always working in our favor, even when things seem difficult. This book is my traveling companion. I reread and re-listen to it countless times. My brain thrives on repetition.

When pain hits during a race now, I choose to wonder how the universe might benefit me through this challenge—a lesson from Prentiss about seeing every experience, even difficulty, as the universe working in our favor. One reading of a great book isn't enough; I've learned that wisdom only sinks in through repeated exposure. I began deliberately applying these teachings to my running in profound ways. During difficult stretches of a race, I choose to lean into the emotions that running brings up—especially thoughts of my father.

We had a turbulent relationship, but later sharing our knowledge and experience of running was the bridge that finally connected us. It was the one thing I admitted to have in common with him after years of always trying to be what he wasn't just to spite him. My father had been a marathoner long before it was trendy—back in the 70s when if you ran seriously, you were full marathon bound. There was no in-between. He'd never even heard of a half marathon when I ran my first one. "What's that?" he asked. Back then they had something called mini-marathons, but the running culture was pure American extremism—casual jogging or the full 26.2 miles. He'd never heard of a 10K either, was always asking me, "How far is that in miles?" But he knew the exact distance of a full marathon to the decimal and quoted it often.

Despite our difficulties—his temper, the fear he inspired in me as a child—I recognized something magical about him after his runs. That's when he was most peaceful, calm, loving. While I was chasing peace through partying, drugs, and destructive behavior, he had chosen peace in those miles. Running was his domain where he actually trained seriously, unlike the social sports like tennis and softball where he was just naturally better than me. For an introverted kid who felt inferior at everything, running offered the one chance to beat dad at his own serious game—just me versus the clock, no teammates needed.

That example called to me long before I understood it. When I decided to start running seriously, I chose to change our conversations. From Korea, I'd call him to share my training updates, my race results. It blew him away when I ran a marathon and discovered afterward that my time had qualified me for the Boston Marathon. I didn't even know the qualifying standards—I just ran and happened to go sub-3:30. I didn't run Boston that year, but earning that qualifying time let him know I was going beyond where he'd gone with running. I no longer felt inferior to him, finally free from all that internal conflict I'd created.

All these books—Run Less Run Faster, The Power of Now, The Courage to Be Disliked, Zen and the Art of Happiness—were preparing me to fully understand what Jason Karp was saying in The Inner Runner. Karp wrote about running as an art form, how we put all our emotions into it. For me, those emotions center around my dad and my own journey from addiction to authenticity. When I read Karp's words about the spiritual essence of what it means to be a runner, everything clicked. This wasn't just about getting faster or stronger—it was about becoming who I was meant to be. The book didn't just give me running advice; it gave me a mission.

But there's another layer to this story. In April 2024, I flew to America to meet my birth mother for the first time in fifty-nine years. We had four months together before she died in August, but I'd already lit the fuse on dynamite that would blow up my comfortable life in Korea. Her death confirmed what I'd suspected: I was ready to be done with the safety of a regular paycheck and the predictability of expat life. I was addicted to travel now, making deals with websites for the next flight and room fix like a drunk on a bender.

So here I am, thanks to Karp's guidance and my decision to follow through, sitting in Nairobi as these words pour out of me. The journey to get here was about completing an emotional and spiritual journey through the wisdom of books that demanded action, not just contemplation. When those airplane tires hit the Nairobi tarmac, I felt all these teachings with me, but also something more. I felt like I had become the one carrying forward what they had given me. Like the ferryman in Siddhartha who helps others across the river, I want to help others find their way to running, to joy, to getting off the couch and out of depression.

I'm a recovering alcoholic and adoptee who found his way out of addiction and into authentic joy through running—a spiritual practice that connects me to something larger than myself. But I'm also someone who's replaced alcohol with travel addiction, someone who can't walk past a chocolate shop without familiar cravings, someone who books flights with the same rush I once got from ordering another drink. The difference is that these addictions are socially acceptable, even admirable in certain circles.

Now in my accommodation in Nairobi, I'm preparing for the next phase. In a few days, I'll join other runners at a camp in Iten, the legendary "Home of Champions." I'll meet Kenyan athletes who have mastered what I'm still learning. I'll train at altitude, push my body in new ways, discover what my legs can do in the thin air of the highlands. But more than that, I'll have the chance to practice what Adler and Prentiss and Karp have taught me: to be fully present with each person I meet, to look them in the eyes, learn their names, focus completely on their stories rather than worrying about what they think of mine.

Every book that shaped my running life prepared me for The Inner Runner, and The Inner Runner led me here to Kenya. Each book changed my actions, but Karp's book gave me the final piece—the understanding that running is how I process life itself, how I connect to my deepest emotions, how I honor both my struggles and my victories. Tomorrow I'll run in Nairobi for the first time. But I already know the most important lesson: I'm not running alone. I carry with me every page that brought me here, every word that taught me to see running as more than exercise, and especially Jason Karp's vision of the inner runner who transforms challenge into purpose.

In one week, I'll run the 10K I registered for in the Nairobi City Marathon. The Inner Runner guided me here, and every step of this journey—from choosing sobriety to earning my coaching certification to booking this trip to Kenya—represents goals I set and achieved. What comes next will be determined by the goals I choose to set and accomplish from this moment forward.

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