Robert Scribner is a senior majoring in marketing. He can be contacted at [email protected]. A little more than a year ago, I sat down with my teammate and apartment-mate, Ashenafi Arega. We spoke about his near-loss of a thumb due to a table saw accident. Unfortunately, after that interview was published in The Reflector, he eventually lost part of the thumb due to complications.
In order to shed a little light on his current life, one year removed from the thumb removal, we decided to do a follow-up. We spoke about life post-thumb, his accomplishments in distance running and his beloved homeland of Ethiopia. Here’s what we said:
Robert: Thank you for sitting down with me today here in our living room. This is a rare treat indeed.
Ashenafi: Thank you for having me.
Robert: So it’s been just over a year since you permanently lost half of your left thumb. Would you say that life is harder now? Or is it more fun?
Ashenafi: I can’t say it’s more fun, but at the same time it’s not harder. I have somewhat adjusted to it, so it’s not as bad as I thought it would be. It’s gotten a little easier since then.
Robert: You’re running pretty well these days. Is that at all related to the loss of your thumb? Perhaps it motivated you to succeed? Or maybe your hand is a bit more aerodynamic at this point? Thoughts?
Ashenafi: I think after losing the thumb last year, it gave me time to sit back and evaluate my life, and running was one of the things I missed dearly. When I got back into it, it made running a little more fun and enjoyable, and I realized the things I had taken for granted before this injury.
Robert: You finished 20th place in the SEC in cross-country and also made the all-region team. What’s it like being a celebrity on campus? I bet you have to fight off the ladies with your track spikes.
Ashenafi: Hmm. Being a track star, it’s not an easy thing, but I’ve found ways to deal with this problem. Some days it’s tough, and some days it’s pretty easy to deal with this problem.
Robert: Your best time in the 5-kilometer footrace is 14:35. To put that in perspective, can you tell us how many meters per second that is?
Ashenafi: I haven’t sat down and thought about it per second, but we need to break it down to per mile or 400 meters. We don’t do it per second. So I’m not sure. I am going to need a calculator or something.
Robert: Well, forget it then. Your Ethiopian countryman Kenenisa Bekele holds the world record in that event in 12:37. That’s 4:03 per mile for 3.1 miles. What makes Ethiopians so gosh darn fast?
Ashenafi: I don’t know. If I really had figured that out, I would be as fast as he is right now. It takes luck to be from a specific place, I guess. The upbringing of a person can make them a better runner than others.
Robert: Is there anything else you would like to add, specifically regarding your thumb? Because that’s the real issue here.
Ashenafi: Yes, I would like to thank everyone and everything that helped me get through it – my family, my teammates, my trainers, college basketball games, the Nintendo Wii … and if I forgot anyone or anything, then I’m sorry.
So there you have it, folks. There’s a very simple lesson that we can all learn from Ashenafi Arega. As the old adage goes, “It’s not the size of the thumb attached to the man. It’s the size of the man attached to the thumb.