Hey, Marty, says a familiar voice. It's Lance.

I've been trying to get Lance Armstrong on the phone for six weeks. My career depends on our conversation. My real career. You need to get that one-on-one interview, my editor insists all through August, as I rise before the sun to pour words from my head onto the printed page. The deadline is forty days from the end of the 2005 Tour de France. I followed Lance and the Tour for the final time, watching him win his epic seventh title. Now I am close to finishing the book about that road trip, with its daily doses of history, wine, and lung-searing competition.  It is a book I was born to write. I want readers to know how I am inspired by this great endurance contest. How it makes me want to push my own limits, especially at a time in my life when I know for certain that my competitive days are in the past.

I don't just want to slam the book, as the publishing world calls anything written so quickly. No. I want it to be great. So I shut out the world and bleed into my computer each day, feeling the drain of emotion and energy as I pour every fiber of my creative being into this story. I am bruised like a boxer at the end of each session. Yet every morning I open my eyes before the alarm clock, seeing only darkness and hearing only my wife's soft breathing.

You need to get that one-on-one with Lance. That's my first thought. I hear my editor's insistent demand. I see the crisp font of his email. I feel the deadline sitting on my chest.

And now Lance calls. Now, of all times.

I've taken on another challenge in August.

This is a habit of mine. I don't like to admit I have limits. And I am loathe to squander an opportunity to fulfill a dream, even if it means stretching my already diminished faculties far past the breaking point. So when my oldest son transfers to a new high school in August, I strike up a conversation with the athletic director. It is a relatively new school, and their athletic facilities are still being built. But I grew up running competitively, and have lately felt the urge to help young runners.

I'd be very interested in giving your cross-country coach some assistance, I tell the A.D.

He's younger than me by fifteen years, but I feel like a child. I want to coach so badly that I make him the all-powerful authority figure.

We don't have a coach, he tells me. Do you want the job?

I say yes. I don't even have to think twice.

I am writing the book, grappling with story structure, sleeping troubled, and speed-dialing Lance Armstrong's office each and every day. And now I am coaching a high school cross-country team. Six days a week. Three hours a day. I am ordering uniforms, leading group runs, trying to find new runners (there are four on the first day of practice. All of them start walking before we have run a single mile), and basically building a program on the fly.

I am head over heels for this new hobby of mine. That's what it is -- a hobby. I will do it for a season, maybe two. What I don't tell anyone is that I am too good for the job. I'm an international journalist, always a phone call away from hopping on a plane. I'm a New York Times bestselling author. I have traveled around the world at twice the speed of sound, and traipsed through Africa without a guide. My articles about distance running have appeared in magazines like Esquire, GQ, and Sports Illustrated. I will bless these young people with my wisdom and then move on when Devin graduates. People will remember me with reverence for years to come. The athletes will tell their children about the special man who once coached them.

What I will not do is act like the stereotypical high school coach. I will not yell Listen Up, People or adorn myself in spirit wear. And I will never, ever drive a school van or ride a school bus.

But here I am, driving a Ford Econoline up the 405. Fourteen boys and girls are packed inside. In the back of my mind I am praying that they all found a seat belt. We are on our way to a race. They are giddy with nerves. I love it. I really do. I love the fact that we are going to race -- the first cross-country race I have ever coached. I am giddy, too.

I am also cranky that Lance hasn't called. The book goes to print in just one day. The whole purpose of Chasing Lance is the conceit that journalists battle each day for the one-on-one, chasing Lance. A couple of my buddies got that interview. Not me. The title will be ironic instead of triumphant.

I don't like ironic.

And then he calls. I drive with my knees, holding the phone to my ear with one hand, waving the other in a dramatic demand for silence. When that doesn't work I turn and mouth Lance Armstrong. The chatter and hysterics snaps into hushed reverence. They watch me drive with one hand, take notes with another, and conduct a telephone interview with the world's greatest endurance athlete at 75 miles per hour, cell phone squeezed between ear and shoulder.

We talk thirty minutes. I pull up to the course and mime for my team to warm up. I hang up the phone before they are finished, hurriedly jot notes on all we talked about, then phone my publisher with the news.

Five years pass. Devin graduates. Connor's a year off. Liam's right behind him.

I am still the coach. I say Listen Up, People. I wear spirit wear. I drive the van (more cautiously, and with both hands on the wheel). Coaching is the ideal alter-ego for a writer -- spend six hours each morning writing, then spending late-afternoon in the hills. I used to spend late-afternoons gardening. Coaching is better.

My runners are family. I write books that allow me the luxury of staying home. I coach my own sons, growing closer to them in a way that I never would have, had I not accepted that invitation. And I know that the simple act of service that comes with sharing knowledge and helping someone else realize their dreams is infinitely more fulfilling than anything else I've ever done in my life. 

To watch my runners train every day, pushing each other and bonding as a team feels like daily salvation. As I train them to be optimistic and diligent and perseverant, I realize how much I need to be like that, too. The inspiration I once found in a long away bike race, I find in them. The passion that I still burn into every page that I write, I also pour into every day of coaching. 

I am not too good for this job. That was just my fear of commitment and failure talking. I am blessed to have this job, and to know these runners. Every day, and for years to come, I will tell everyone I meet about these special young people who let me be their coach. 

Keep Pushing... Always