Martin Dugard's Blog, page 6

I'm a procrastinator who writes books with such total focus that the rest of my life goes on hold. It's like being a double procrastinator. So now that Taking Midway's first draft is with the publisher and I am paddling back to shore, there are a few odds and ends that need attending.

For instance, if you wrote to me requesting a signed bookplate and, a) feel forgotten; or, b) are slightly miffed that I didn't come through, please know I'm on it. I didn't forget. I've just been a little underwater. And I apologize.

The same for the books I owe Chad Windham, Mickey Miela, and Sean Zeitler. Thanks for your patience, my good friends.

There are three bikes in my garage that need my attention. Same for my golf clubs. My garden is a lunar landscape. And don't get me started on my office. The space was spotless and neat back when I began work on Midway. Now it is mountains of papers, pens, books, trinkets, and relay batons (don't ask). I honestly don't know how it got that way, because I didn't notice until now.

I've got a book coming out on Tuesday. Confronting the Presidents is the last volume of the fourteen books I've co-authored since 2011. It's solid and insightful and I am grateful for the chance to write first-person essays about Trump and Biden as my contribution to the last couple chapters. My co-author also wrote his own opinions on the two. We both had a lot to say, much of which will surprise the reader. A great way to end the book.

Heading to Hawaii this Wednesday. The team races at the Iolani Invitational on Saturday and I'll be doing secondary research for Taking Midway at Pearl Harbor on Thursday and Friday. There's a moment early in book research when everything is new and unknown. Then comes the PhD-level investigation that comprises the writing, which means that the last time I visited Pearl Harbor I had only a vague awareness of what I was looking at. Way different this time around.

A random aside: toward the end of the book I surprised myself with the awareness that I could name — off the top of my head, and for no reason whatsoever — America's first eight CV's (aircraft carriers) by number and in order of commissioning. CV-1 was the USS Langley, for those paying attention at home. Later converted to a seaplane tender. Sunk off Java in 1942. What will I do with this arcane knowledge when I move on to my next book? I have no idea. But it sure helps when I'm watching Jeopardy.

Finally, I need to take a moment and introduce you all to my assistant, Nikki (no last name — think Madonna or Cher). I've mentioned her in passing before, but this strong, dynamic genius deserves more. My first text to blow up my phone every Sunday is from Nikki. Just one word: "BLOG!" Every single post on my author page is Nikki. I have no idea how to do all that tech stuff. I just do words. We should all be so lucky as to have a Nikki in our lives. I am truly blessed. Thanks for everything, Nikki.

Aloha.

Up at 4:40 this morning. Cross country practice scheduled for 6 in Huntington Beach, a solid 30-minute drive, so I needed the early start. Sadie wanted to go out, so I let her into the backyard and looked up into the southern sky, searching for an old friend.

There he was. Orion and his belt is missing during summer but reappears in the early morning just in time for cross country season. I'll track its march across the sky into late-November and the end of the season, the warrior constellation a timeless reminder that this is autumn.

I cannot believe I still have the same passion for coaching cross country as I did when I began twenty years ago. That "Hollywood" line about dogfighting from Top Gun still hits me when I hear the first crack of the starter's pistol.

Our first race last Friday gave me even more reason to celebrate because I finished Taking Midway and hit “send” to the publisher just an hour before driving to Trabuco. Then there was Ballpark Pizza afterward, a worthy post-meet tradition if ever one existed. I'm a little more pragmatic than I used to be, not getting too euphoric about a great first meet. It's the first week of September, after all. We need to build on that performance with careful layers of strength and speed. Twelve weeks of training in the books but it's twelve more to State and thirteen more to Nationals.

I'm going to take a couple days off from writing to enjoy the start of the season. I have about twenty projects around the house I've ignored for months. Going to take care of those, too. Been a lot of comfort food in the past month, so it will be nice to have more workout time in my days — nothing beats watching yourself on C-SPAN to suggest the shirts are fitting a little tight. There will be revisions on Taking Midway, which is actually the most exciting part of the process. But I want to think carefully about the next book and get my head back to normal for awhile before taking the deep dive again.

This past weekend was amazing: cross country, college football, Italian Grand Prix (way to go, Ferrari), some golf, US Open tennis. Thursday starts the NFL season — and fantasy football. I've got Derrick Henry and Travis Kelce in that opener. Very excited about my draft.

A new season of cross country. A new football season. A new season of life. I'm excited to be writing completely solo again, controlling my own schedule, writing the words that make me happiest. I feel like I'm coaching at a high level. I took a whole lot of chances with Taking Midway — so many that in the middle of it all I wondered how I was going to land the plane, so to speak — and feel like the book is at a very high level.

OK. I'm just rambling at this point. Life is good. The best days are to come. Party on.

Good to see you, Orion.

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"Charge system fault." That's what I googled in the waiting room. The warning light had just come on in the Rover. Red and important. Didn't know what it meant so I asked my drunken know-it-all friend.

Google told me precisely what would happen next. One by one, my car's electrical functions would shut down. Then it would stop completely. Just a matter of time. Get to a mechanic immediately.

We got a little sideways news from the cancer docs that day. The kind that reminds you that the things you thought were under control have other plans. We made some dark jokes on the way to the parking structure. Then we fired up the Rover and headed home. Pretty much at the same time we hit bumper-to-bumper freeway traffic on the 5, that damned light came back on. Then the systems began shutting down. I like to think I am calm under all sorts of pressure but I was becoming unglued.

"It's going to be ok," Calene said, reaching over to touch my arm.

I made it to the next exit. Things were really going wrong with the vehicle. I found a strip mall and nosed into the parking lot just as the Rover shut down like a stubborn beast, refusing to move another inch.

Nice strip mall. Donut shop. Taqueria. A security guy sauntered over to wonder about my precarious parking job. Then we called AAA and waited for our tow.

One thing you learn when cancer invades your home is that each day is as dark as you make it. Being upbeat is a choice. Not a fucking easy choice, but a choice.

"At least we weren't in a crash?" I told Calene. "That would have really sucked..”

"And we didn't break down on the freeway," she replied. "We'd be waiting for a tow on the shoulder."

I called National to order a rental car. John Wayne was on the way home.

"And we can Uber from here instead of having to call someone to say we're stranded in Santa Ana and need a ride, like in the old days."

"And we can afford a nice rental instead of you having to beg to use my car," she added."I don't beg to use your car."

"Hm.”

The tow truck guy showed up. Super positive. Small round man with bowlegs and a limp. Sweat poured off his bald head as he hooked up the Rover but he was a mountain of positivity. I walked back over to Calene, now sitting in the shade on a curb. The society garlic behind her was overpowering and I promised myself I would never plant it in our garden again.

"And we ended up in a place with tacos," she reminded me, picking up the gratitude thread.

So we went inside and ate rice and beans with tacos and drank ice cold Coke from an old fashioned bottle, making the best of a sideways cancer day.

"You sound like an asshole. You know that, right?"

Calene is never less than direct. It began as an easy enough conversation: I don't think certain sports belong in the Olympics. I see the Games as the ultimate purist form of competition. A clear cut winner and a clear cut loser. That means track and field (or Athletics, if you are European), wrestling, weightlifting, cycling, and anything else where you compete head-to-head. This does not mean anything subjective, and by that I mean events decided by a judge: gymnastics, synchronized swimming, break dancing (!), diving, surfing, and on. I am also on the fence about basketball, soccer, and golf, arguing that they have their own pantheon, but grudgingly admit there are clear winners and losers in those sports and should be included.

Calene's point is that I am incapable of doing the superhuman feats of a Simon Biles. Doesn't matter. She is an amazing athlete. Her sport is hard. I just prefer to see competition like I saw on the track all week, men and women pushing to the limits, determining their own fate. Calene thinks I am an elitist. I like to say purist. And yes, I know I sound like an asshole.

This is not my hill to die on. For that, I will literally point you to the legendary Mt. SAC Cross Country Invitational's decision to take one of their three legendary hills off the course, altering the finish to a 300-meter finale on the track so their big new video board can be put to use. Poopout Hill is the second of two hills on the 2.93-mile circuit, a short steep incline that segues into another 150 meters of dastardly uphill. It's been that way for almost seventy years. Changing a course known as "the Cathedral of Cross Country" after that much time for something as ephemeral as a video screen is not really heretical, just kind of dumb.

I feel very strongly about these things. Enough to sit down and write this blog. Not sure why. Do they really matter? Maybe I need something to push up against. Another example is that I think USA Track & Field is a horribly run organization that does little for the athletes. The leadership is a joke. I feel very strongly about that, all the while knowing there's little I can do to alter that.

So why waste the breath? My thoughts keep going back to that lost guy who bumbled through the crowd to my side during the Springsteen concert two weeks ago, and how much I identified with him. He was angry he couldn't find his way and was just trying to do something about it.

Maybe that's where I am. Trying to find my way in a season of change, ranting about things that don't matter all that much. On the other hand, these core beliefs about the Olympics and a beloved cross country course are dear to me. Standing for God, family, and country are almost a default set of values. It's those other life opinions that says who we really are, as Crash Davis so eloquently phrased it in his "hanging curve, high fiber, good scotch" and defiantly anti-Susan Sontag speech these many years ago.

So I embrace them and espouse them, even if I sometimes sound like an asshole.

Photo: Martin Dugard

My two weeks of solitude are over. Arrived back from Mammoth High Altitude Training Camp (I used to call it a "high altitude leadership seminar" for those kids looking for something high-falutin to put on their college resume) Saturday. Door to door from the condo to our front door in just under five hours.

It was a great week of training. A little tempo, many hills, short speed, a long run, then an eight-mile climb to Minaret Vista to close things out. First year ever that everybody did every workout, every day.

This is the twentieth Mammoth, so a couple of the neighbors who live in Mammoth year-round used the term "it's that time of year again" when they saw the team gathering on the grass outside the back door of the condo. I used to think they saw us as an annoyance, a bunch of loud high school kids in running shorts with no volume control. Now I know these neighbors look forward to our arrival.

Now it's time to move on. Mammoth marks the end of summer training. It's a nice milestone. August is just a lot of busy stuff as school begins. September is when the racing starts. First competition is just twenty-four days off. Then, of course, we get into the season, which does not end until November 30. The roller coaster still appeals to me and I look forward to the racing.

For some reason this feels like a season of closure, as if not just Mammoth Camp is over. I'm awash in melancholy. This usually means big change is on the horizon. Or maybe it's just the end of summer.

Made it to Mammoth. The sky is clear and blue. Temperature borderline between wearing a sweatshirt for the hike I'll take when this is written, or just going in shirtsleeves. A few too many people for my taste, but this is peak season. I just need to abide.

I took a little detour on my way here. The plan was to leave Tuesday, board the dogs, then spend a few relaxing days writing in Mammoth while waiting for the team. Calene's in South Dakota so my time is my own.

Source: Nugs.net

But I've been itching to do something impulsive and figured now is a good time. So instead of driving straight to Mammoth, I drove to LAX and hopped a flight for London. Springsteen was playing at Wembley and I wanted to feel what it's like to stand in the pit at a European show.

Everything fell into line: got the upgrade, found a nice price on a concert ticket, booked my favorite hotel at a good rate (everyone's in Paris for the Olympics. London hotels are cheap right now).

It's thrilling to throw caution to the wind and launch into an impulsive adventure. I carried on, traveled light, wrote on the plane, then went to the show the day after I landed. I don't need to describe iconic Wembley, or what it was like to be in a sea of people who sang along with EVERY WORD. This is my tribe. I was right where I was supposed to be.

I'll admit I wasn't loving life in the pit at first. People stand very close. My feet hurt from standing up for eight hours (pre-show and show). I like to sing along but I was self-conscious because I am not a good singer and the guy in front of me was so close that I was basically shouting in his ear.

But about an hour in, during the first strains of "Youngstown," a drunk guy holding a large beer came shoving through on his way to the stage. About 25, muscular. Everyone around me was afraid of him and at the same time very angry. Some pushing and shoving. Lots of yelling.

Somehow the guy ended up right next to me with nowhere to go. He looked lost, as if trying to find his friends. He looked right at me, as if I could help. I was wary but not afraid.

Man, I had a few of those lost moments back in my early twenties. I would have killed for someone to help me find my way. I don't know what made me do it, but I put my arm around him, made sure he didn't spill his beer on the people around us (or me), talked to him in that language only the very drunk understand, and defused the situation with kindness. He kept looking to me for answers and I just held on to him and talked to him like a friend.

He curled his fist around mine in a left-handed bro handshake (the right hand still clutching his beer, of which he did not spill a drop), then a medical team in the crowd came and led him away. Suddenly, everyone around me was saying thank you, right in the middle of Nils Lofgren's "Youngstown" solo.

Life is funny. We were now connected, thanks to that lost drunk guy clutching his beer like a safety blanket. For the next two and a half hours we were the best of friends. Best of all, that guy in front of me moved away in the fracas and I now had tons of personal space. Italian guy to my right, Spanish woman in front of me, a guy from India and his family — all singing along and pumping our fists. I was so into the show. The words I've heard a thousand times (and many more) felt new. My little adventure was worth it.

Got to Mammoth yesterday. Team arrives in about four hours. It's been one hell of a great week.

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Source: Columbia Pictures Corporation (link)

Sunday morning on the back porch. Dogs at my feet. Looking out across the arroyo to the conical hill with the satellite towers on the northern edge. Yogurt with blueberries. A press of coffee. Yellow legal pad with a to-do list for the week ahead.

I ask you: is this the behavior of a man whose wife is out of town for ten days?

Dropped Callie off at John Wayne yesterday. She's off with her sister to see cousins in South Dakota. After a suitably appropriate moment of sadness as I drove off, because I will truly miss her presence, a devilish grin crossed my face. Home alone! I can do whatever I want!

I have lived a life, folks. I have done some crazy shit in my days. Even after the boys were born, a few days without my better half involved antics more appropriate to a bachelor. Pizza every night. Laundry left unfolded. Bed unmade for days and days. We're not talking strip clubs and all-nighters, but I've been capable of rebellion against adulthood. Why? It just seemed important.

Well, let me tell you, I tore it up yesterday. A long workout in the park. Wrote for four hours. Edited thirty pages over lunch at Board & Brew. A nap. Read a while (Bill Buford's Dirt). Practiced my guitar. In bed at 8:30. Yep, that's what rebellion looks like these days.

I don't need to fight the man anymore, because I've become the man.

The Marlon Brandon Wild One rap ("What are you rebelling against, Johnny?” “Whatta you got"), doesn't sound cool in the slightest. I like solitude in extremis but my days as the angry young man are no more. I can still get in a spot of bother about things like e-bikes on sidewalks, people whose politics are just plain dumb, and cross country coaches who cheat instead of actually coach. But really, that's life, not rebellion.

It's off to Mammoth in a couple days for a week with the team. This is the perfect time for Calene to go back east, because Mammoth doesn't make any sense now that our kids are no longer high school runners. It'll be just me in the condo, which is an amazing writer's retreat. In the winter it feels like The Shining, snow higher than the windows and total silence.

And while I will revel in all things Mammoth as I put a final polish on Taking Midway, the truth is that I'll miss Callie. Love is a wonderful thing and I am lucky enough to have a soul mate. I get along just fine when she's not here, but I'm so head over heels for that woman. We are not joined at the hip, which is why her trip to South Dakota and my little adventure in Mammoth are so important. But, you know, I'll be happy to wrap my arms around her when all is said and done.

So there's that. Totally unplanned. Didn't see that bit of emotion coming. I'm so busy rebelling that it snuck up on me.

Have a great week, my friends. Love the one you're with.

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My stopwatch died the other day. Ultrak 495. Matte black. Capable of recording 100 lap splits. I've been using an Ultrak for about fifteen years. To my mind, the best stopwatch on the market. I carry a spare in my coaching backpack. My primary stopwatch resides in my car door, ready to grab when I walk out to the track for practice. We go through a lot, my stopwatch and I. It is a comforting talisman, my fingers clicking start-stop-reset without my conscious mind noting. It is my grown-up version of Linus's blanket, a security totem that soothes in ways I am not prepared to publicly examine. On race day, when staring at a final result, the watch gives me a small endorphin rush.

It sounds like masturbation when I put it like that. So be it.

An Ultrak 495 is not easily found. I know of no stores that sell them. So as soon as the battery on my stopwatch died, and I realized to my, well, horror, that I couldn't find the backup, my first call was to Sean Zeitler at VS Athletics. A good man. An old friend. He moved to Idaho a few years back and all of us who once coached with him miss having Sean around on a regular basis.

Sean overnighted two new watches. I didn't have to go twenty-four hours without my watch. They're here with me now. Order has been restored to the world. My world.

I crave order right now. I'm also practicing my guitar every day, following an online program known as Tony's Acoustic Challenge. It props me up, makes me realize I can learn a new skill if I just stick with it.

Taking London is selling well. I'm getting the best reviews of my career. Costco has become quite the sales forum. The New York Times has not yet seen fit to give it a rip, though in this political climate that is not surprising. A book about British fighter pilots and the fate of the world seems escapist — and it is. Nothing but action and history. Which, I would posit, is something we need a little more of right now.

Source: https://peanuts.fandom.com/wiki/Linus_van_Pelt

There is precision in the stopwatch. There is structure in learning new chords. These are things I can control. I can also control — I made a list — my happiness, gratitude, what I eat and drink, how much I train, whom I choose to spend time with, and what my next adventure will be.

And what I write. Take that down if you hope to become a writer. Deep breathing is a method of calming anxiety, but so is tending with loving care to the written word. When it all goes well, I even get a little endorphin rush.

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Hey All. I'm back. Took a couple weeks off to do some fun stuff and focus on Taking Midway. Traveled to Las Vegas for a weekend with the neighbors. I'm not a travel-with-the-neighbors kind of guy but Callie and I had a blast. Last week was the Olympic Trials in Eugene. Also, a wonderful time with my brethren at the USA Track and Field Foundation.

But as you all know, this is the start of cross country season. The teams look good and are getting after it. Happy to report that I'm getting after it, too. Put on a few extra stress pounds that I need to manage, thus I'm back into running. Always afraid I'm going to overdo it and require total knee replacement, but the option is cycling and swimming, in which I only have a passing interest. Can't swim on a trail.

I realized the other day that there are more books about Midway than almost any other battle in World War II. I'm happy to report that my spin is very unconventional. As always, I am more than happy to take a poke at the traditional staid historians.

Oh, and I'm thinking of running for mayor. Just a thought. Rancho needs some new blood. I'd have to put on a tie and attend grand openings and school plays but it's worth a thought. I would be a most unconventional mayor. Like I said, just a thought.

Party on.

1 p.m. Father's Day. Gift to myself: a new power washer. There's something amazing about a high pressure machine to clean every last bit of the backyard pavers and deck. It's like cleaning your physical soul. I tend to do this barefoot, just because there's something about walking around without shoes on when the sun is out and the pavers are warm.

This is not to be taken lightly. A few years ago, with my old power washer, I forgot that the water comes out at an astonishing rate of speed. My feet were hot and I sprayed my left foot down with the power washer. Well, that was dumb. I sliced open the top of my foot like I'd used a butcher knife.

I am happy to report that my new power washer has far more power. And when I took it out for a test drive yesterday, blasting every last bit of dog pee off the pavers, I also managed to avoid cutting off my foot. For these small things we give thanks.

Then it was 1 p.m. Twenty family members were coming for a BBQ. Call it a couple hours in the sun, call it the end of a busy week, but all of a sudden I didn't want them to come over. I wanted to sit out in my newly cleansed back yard, read a book, and watch the hummingbirds.

Calene came outside to make a suggestion about something else that needed to be done before the invasion. I snapped and said something sharp. She came right back with something equally angry. The woman can be fierce.

That's when I realized that neither of us were in a mood for company. Yet the 2 pm start was rolling around. No way we could cancel it.

It had been a week. Started off with a 2 a.m. visit to the ER resulting in a five-day hospital visit and surgery for Callie. Taking London hit stores on Tuesday, which is a wonderful sort of euphoria that comes with a schedule full of interviews and publicity. That's the great part. The downside is checking my Amazon ranking and the reviews, which is almost impossible not to do. Then came my speech and signing at Barnes & Noble on Saturday. Full house, cash register busy, lots of great Q&A (C-SPAN filmed it; air date TBD but some time in July).

So you'd think that when Calene (fresh out of the hospital) asked the rhetorical question on Wednesday about having a Father's Day BBQ, that I would immediately give the proper answer (meaning: no). Instead, I committed her to a family gathering that would make Father's Day perfect. Then, just one hour before the gun, that was the worst idea in the world.

We fought a little. We said the I'm sorry's. Then we had a perfectly lovely afternoon with my dad and hers, my brother and sister, and my boys. Thus, the week came to an end.

I have a habit of taking on too much, mostly for reasons of control. I had a talk with myself about faith, gratitude, and hope. Worry won't change a thing. I can't control who buys the book or what they say about it. It is finding its audience and I wrote my best. There's nothing else I can do.

Other than power wash, which is a strangely cathartic way to spend a Father's Day.