Cross country season has come to a glorious end. My top runner earned All-American status in the mud and slop of Glendoveer Golf Course, the redwood-landscaped track where the Nike Cross Nationals were held last Saturday. The conditions were old-school cross country, every runner finishing with their singlet spattered and unrecognizable.
Hello, dear readers. Many of you don't get my monthly newsletter, which is written to be light and motivating, as well as a blatant push for you to buy my books…. It's a little more heartfelt, with an edge not found in the normal newsletter (subscribe here). But this stuff is on my mind right now.
I'm afraid I haven't been completely honest with all of you. As much as I love the author photo posted on this site, it was taken at least fifteen years ago. For various reasons, I've never gotten around to getting a new one. But as it becomes clear that I am an older and more grizzled version of that guy, I'm not just going to leap blindly into the world of author photos.
I'm up in Mammoth with my team this week. The weather is pitch perfect and so far there hasn't been a forest fire to destroy air quality. Being a coach in the modern age means a list of duties and obligations my high school and college coaches would never have dreamed of adding to their to-do lists.
My Mom died this morning. I was in the middle of cross country practice when I got the news. I stood stunned, then finished the workout before wandering around in a weepy daze. Rosemary Hope Fitzgerald Dugard would have been 84 on August 1. Mother of five, married for 58 years; TWA flight attendant, Mass General nurse, Wing Commander's wife.
An excerpt from the new paperback edition of To Be a Runner. . . . "Ever think of giving it a try?" It was a year since my knee surgery. Liam needed new running shoes, so we were back at our local shop, the same place where I decompensated after that morning at the symphony. My youngest son was now a senior captain on the JSerra cross country team, tall, independent, and fully versed in the ritual of purchasing trainers and flats.
I'm waiting for my wife to get her nails done. Thankfully, the Laguna Beach Brewing Company is just across the parking lot from the salon. So here I sit on a picnic table outside, "A Town Called Malice" — one of the great underrated 80s songs — playing on the outdoor speaker system. Today, it's an ironic term in that I feel anything but malice in this special town I call home. . . .
