Our town backs up to the local mountains. Some cities have houses facing the sea. We have Mother Saddleback staring at our backyards. Fire ravaged the steep areas on the very edges of Rancho Santa Margarita a few months ago, burning all the way to the summit and up the slopes of the valley on the other side for miles. Last Wednesday Santa Ana winds roared through the pass connecting our town with cities on the other side of Saddleback.
I'm gambling on the October Surprise.
Every cross country season has two parts: regular season (first nine weeks) and postseason (final three weeks, leading to the State Championship). I've had a pretty good run these past twenty years, making the postseason almost every time with both the boys and girls squads. I love being in Fresno the Saturday after Thanksgiving. The atmosphere is electric, the racing is intense, and I get to see all my coaching buddies. Standing atop the podium is also pretty excellent.
Up at 4:40 this morning. Cross country practice scheduled for 6 in Huntington Beach, a solid 30 minute drive, so I needed the early start. Sadie wanted to go out, so I let her into the backyard and looked up into the southern sky, searching for an old friend.
There he was. Orion and his belt is missing during summer but reappears in the early morning just in time for cross country season. I'll track its march across the sky into late-November and the end of the season, the warrior constellation a timeless reminder that this is autumn.
My two weeks of solitude are over. Arrived back from Mammoth High Altitude Training Camp (I used to call it a "high altitude leadership seminar" for those kids looking for something high-falutin to put on their college resume) Saturday. Door to door from the condo to our front door in just under five hours.
I surprised absolutely nobody yesterday when I tweeted that I am going to continue coaching. It's been almost eighteen months since Calene was diagnosed with a rare cancer. You never know what's going to happen with a Stage IV situation. So as we got used to waiting rooms filled with other cancer patients and the wonderful nurses administering chemo, it just made sense to step away from anything that prevented me from focusing on getting her better….
