FASTER: CHAPTER ONE (CONTINUED)
“And away they go,” the race announcer yells over the public address system. Billy Brailes, as he likes to be called, has practiced this race call for weeks. Forever after, he will be part of the pantheon of great race narrators once Dash Thorogood breaks four. Brailes is in the middle of a lackluster career calling horse races. Nine to an afternoon. Sometime after the seventh the bottle comes out. But not today. The failed stage actor is sharp as a tack.
WORLD TOUR
I've written before about my morning ritual with the yellow legal pad. It's nothing unusual, me getting my bearings by writing down the events of the day. The same list is already in my phone's calendar app, but if I write it down on paper it seems to stamp the day a little more firmly on my brain. On Sundays I go one better, writing down the entire week to come.
SCARIER
I just finished A Gentleman in Moscow for the third time. I like the ending so much that I immediately reread the last forty pages. I've never read the great Russian writers, so next up is Anna Karenina. It's a big book. I have trouble with big books. Everyone raves about The Count of Monte Cristo but I couldn't get through it. Someday I will go back and start from page one with a different translation, but for now the Count is on my list of failed attempts to read classic books.
It mirrors my own failure to finish writing a novel.
DRIVING DAY
The shower in our Mammoth condo has the coldest water. Comes right off the mountain as snowmelt and blasts out of the faucet like a river of ice. A solid minute of that, followed by a quick turn to the right and instant hot water makes for an invigorating way to start the day.
That's not the only reason I'm driving to Mammoth tonight. The Southern Section track and field finals will go until 5:30 and then it's four hours up the mountain. I need to get away for a few days, go someplace where I can think and pray. Get the perspective that only distance can provide. This past week was just plain rough and I need to escape.
MOTHER'S DAY
I'm going to church today. Haven't been in months, even before Calene passed. I don't really know why I'm going, to tell the truth. The worship music goes on too long, the message will be solid but my mind will drift, and it's a solid twenty-minute drive each way. Gas costing what it is these days, the trip almost seems like a luxury. But I will be around people and my thoughts will focus as I daydream, hopefully answering the questions troubling me this week. Perhaps I will run into someone I know and we will exchange hugs. That will make the journey worth it. In this world of fist bumps and high fives, sometimes the best thing is a solid heartfelt hug.
AEROBIC RECOVERY
Woke up late this morning. Scratchy throat. Feeling rundown but not sick. Just needed an aerobic easy day, in training parlance. I define that to my runners as a pace slow enough to facilitate recovery. The dogs needed to go out and the house was too quiet. So rather than putter around in the silence I reached for the remote. Maybe there were some good sports on TV.
Then I remembered: today is the London Marathon AND the Liegie-Bastogne-Liege bike race….
