If you are in Orange County (California) in a couple weeks, know that I have a signing at the Aliso Viejo Barnes & Noble on April 25 at 1 pm. Give a little talk, sign a few books, pop to the brewery around the corner for a small after party. It's in between Boston Marathon week and Orange County Marathon week, so running will be in the air. It's also the start of track and field's postseason, meaning no lack of running/runners/strategy discussion.
A lot happening between now and then. There's Springsteen in LA, a weekend of track at the legendary Arcadia Invite, then the publication of The Long Run. Hoping to make the NYT list in the first couple weeks before that B&N signing but I'm also aware the majority of the running world doesn't know the book is about to hit them. I'm confident my numerous upcoming radio and podcast appearances will get the word out. As I've told all of you for months, it's a running book like no other running book. I wrote it with abandon, myth busting and taking points of view and summoning my dramatic powers to describe the sport's most incandescent races.
It is the book I am hanging my career on, in no mood to go back to straightforward history. So to say I hope it hits a home run is an understatement.
It's funny: 30 years ago I stopped writing about running because it felt like a dead end. I began writing history because it meant I could write about anything. And research. And travel. And learn how to make words dance a jig on the page.
But now I came all the way back around, using those same skills to write what I feel is the definitive book on running. No less than George Hirsch, one of the sport's seminal voices, has called it "the best book on distance running" he's ever read. I don't say this to brag. I say it as a sales pitch. I very much want you to read this book and write a nice review on Amazon and send me an email with your thoughts. I will respond to each and every one.
Yet as good as The Long Run may be, I will never write anything as good as Calene's eulogy. I go back to the service time and again in my mind, marveling at the powerful words of her sister, Cate; the power of the band (“The Pretender,” “You Are the Light,” and “The Story” will never sound the same again); and, those minutes I got a chance to get up on stage and tell the world about my Queen.
I rewrote those words a hundred times, making them just so. Not for people to tell me they liked my writing — which is the case with The Long Run — but so they could know the force of nature that made this world such a special place. We're lucky if we get one chance like that in life and I could feel her there with me, giving me the courage to talk about our love and fights and even sing a little. She deserved nothing but my absolute best. It was the hardest thing I've ever done.
These are emotional times. Yet there is a lot of good to come.
"We are pressed on every side by troubles, but not crushed and broken," Paul wrote to the Corinthians.
Calene gave me these words as part of a framed gift during our very first Christmas together. Cate read them at the service.
"We are perplexed because we don't know why things happen as they do. But we don't give up and quit... though our bodies are dying our inner strength in the Lord is growing every day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen but what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary but what is unseen is eternal."
I am grieving, for sure, but my strength is coming back. I'm going to go hard these next few weeks, getting my shit together and moving forward with boldness and courage. My Queen would expect nothing less.