TIME TO BREATHE
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.
ATTRIBUTION
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.
A TOWN CALLED MALICE
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. . . .
THE "C" WORD
. . . I had never given goats much thought, but I found myself wondering if maybe raising a few competitive goats would be a nice pastime. They looked cute enough, and it seemed like there wouldn't be much to it. But as with all new endeavors, you don't know what you don't know. What seemed simple on the surface would become an obsession. I like to win. I'm not embarrassed to say it. And all-consuming passion is very often what it takes to win.
A NEW BOOK
It is only July, and yet I am already feeling the nerves of November. My cross country team just finished its fourth week of training. These summer workouts are when the championships of autumn are won. I normally coast through summer, cursing the twelve weeks between the first day of training and our first September meet. But this season is different.
LOPSIDED
The temperature outside is a rough sixteen degrees, though it is more tolerable now that the wind has died. A thin carpet of new snow covers the earth and my car windows, meaning this is the day I get to use the once-a-year windshield scraper I carry at all times. It does not feel like your ordinary day of reckoning, but there is a clock ticking and a few issues that need to be addressed.
