Why Do You Have Monkeys on Your Shoes?

The question we get asked by every single child and trail runner.  Why do we wear monkeys on our shoes?  Why do the monkeys matter to us?  The other day I was driving down the freeway and I looked up at the monkey that is zip-tied to my antenna, felt a small shot of confidence rush through me, and thought back on it all.

It started 17 years ago in high school when Sam and I caught an episode of The Pretender where Jared discovers Barrel of Monkeys.  Back then we also took a few other child toys from that show and incorporated them into our day to day lives.  This would include our fine collections of Pez dispensers and the month we chewed hundreds of Bazooka Joe bubble gums in order to collect every single comic.  However, the monkeys stuck around.  We placed them under the bottom cross on our shoelaces where they wouldn't fall off.  We first put them on our track shoes and then on my football cleats.  They were there when I threw the Javelin and took 2nd place in State.  They were there with their hands ripped off on the muddy, rain soaked field after my final football game against Jordan.

The monkeys were mounted on the front of our duct tape wallets and thus travelled with us on our missions to Germany and Venezuela.  I remember looking down at my shoes while sitting in one of the large auditorium classes while working on my Computer Science degree at the University of Utah.  During the same time Sam would drive back from Greeley Colorado, where he was working on his masters degree and we would go on our annual car camping trip.  Without fail, he would show up with monkeys on his shoes.

When I began running in 2010, I mounted the monkeys on my first new pair of running shoes in over 10 years.  The monkeys made it with me the entire journey of my first half marathon in June, and then my first full marathon in September of that year.

We began to make the transition from road to trail running.  Sure enough, the monkeys made their way to those shoes as well, and it seemed they had never found a better place.  We began staging "summit monkey" photos on every new peak we summited.  They were there on the shoes when Sam completed his first 50 miler, and the same weekend they were there on my shoes while I was at the hospital for my six year old son Trevor who battles severe autism.  He was dealing with some mouth pain and some bad medication that caused him, for six months, to punch himself in the head and smash his head against the wall repeatedly. 

This year, the monkeys have travelled the length of the Zion 100k, and have been on dozens and dozens of peaks throughout several different states.  They were with us last weekend when we attempted to summit the three tallest peaks in Utah in one shot as part of our first attempt at the triple crown. And they will be with us in October when we have a go at our own OTM 100 course. Maybe they'll even end up on a belt buckle one day.

So, when I looked up at the monkey the other day on my car antenna, I had to grin a little.  It is a small symbol... or better said, a reminder of some of the great and hard things I've been able to accomplish by the grace of God.  A monkey that has quietly watched me do things that sounded really hard.  A monkey that reminds me that even though I'm training for my first 100 miler, or feeling worn down by Trevor's autism, or accepting assignments at work or church that sound hard, that this isn't the first time I've had to do something that scared me a little, and certainly won't be the last.