Martin Dugard's Blog

I stood in my backyard last night. Just before 1 a.m. It wasn't meant to be a symbolic moment. In truth, I was just letting the dogs out to pee before calling it a night. But in the crisp darkness and 50 degree temperature I call California-cold, I looked up at the sky and saw the three bright diagonal stars of Orion's belt blazing just above. Ptolemy named Orion one of the original 48 constellations back in the 2nd Century. Alnitak, Alnilam, and Mintaka. Each is more than 1,200 light years away. I traced the asterism known as Sword of Orion, dangling straight down from the belt. If you know where to look, there is also Betelgeuse and the shoulders and the shape of a great hunter.

I just stood there, a little numb from a long day of competition and travel, gazing up at this magnificent touchstone in my life. A very long time ago I stood on the deck of a tall ship sailing across the Mediterranean. A very dark night. Inky blackness. Absolutely no ambient light. Stars hovered in the sky like enormous dinner plates (actually, not as circular. More rounded and frayed at the edges like the splat of a cow patty). I understood for the first time why the constellations were once so important. Rather than the pinpricks of light I see each night they were so enormous as to demand immediate attention. No wonder the ancients were fixated.

Orion appears in the southern sky in late-summer, coinciding with the first day of racing. By then we've spent 12 weeks training. I rise from bed at 4 a.m. that first week of September each year and get my first glimpse. Twelve weeks and 84 days of training, competition, and all the emotions comprising the journey to the State Meet, Orion is no longer a predawn constellation but something to be admired before calling it a night. Or calling it a season.

I have never coached better than I did this year. I have never enjoyed the team chemistry as much. The rest of the coaching staff has never made me feel so supported or made me laugh so hard — which is saying a lot, because the daily act of coaching, with all its observations and asides, has been cracking me up for decades.

But as Orion was reminding me, this year's cross country season is over. Boom. Done. No practice on Monday. We ran just fine at the State Meet. I've been taking what amounts to a sabbatical from writing, putting words on the page each day but far more focused on the team's training. I've watched the seniors and juniors develop from non-runners into elites over the course of the past few years. So gratifying. So amazing to watch them grow and spread their wings and run really, really fast.

If cross country season is my Christmas in autumn, as I have so many times before, today is December 26th (thanks for that reminder, Sean Zeitler). I'm not as old as Orion. But my fire burns as bright. And just as the Hunter disappears from view for months at a time, I'm going to enjoy a time of quiet before turning my eyes to the spring track season. The Long Run will appear in stores in April. I'll write the sequel. There will be travel for research and hopefully a Springsteen concert. All the while I will be awaiting the return of Orion in the morning sky and the many star-filled nights between now and the start of cross country season.

I usually blog on Sunday while watching NFL Red Zone. The rest of the week is for regular creativity. But tomorrow is the Southern Section Cross Country Championships and I'm a little preoccupied with race strategy, the rain currently pelting Southern California, and oblique terms like “green arrows” and “tight spread.”

The official online results give a runner green arrows counting how many people they pass. Blue means you're not passing anyone. Red means you're getting passed. Green arrows are such an important goal that I should have t-shirts made.

A tight spread is the time gap between the 1-5 runners. One minute is nice but 30 seconds is better. One of Coach Joe Vigil's Adams State NCAA Championship teams put all five runners across the line almost simultaneously. Their spread was an enviable one second.

So I wrote my Substack post this morning which really wasn't writing at all — I just posted a picture of a blurb card from the legendary George Hirsch, who calls The Long Run perhaps the best book on running he's ever read. I sort of like this new Substack gig. I was all set to write a post and then it felt just fine to download an image and call it a day. For those interested, this blog is going to keep up the balance between life, writing, and anything else that pops into my head. I'm going to take readers down the running rabbit hole with the Substack, just because it's all about promoting my new book and also because I think about running and coaching runners just as frequently as I think about the written word. The commonality is process.

Anyway, I'm blogging on a Friday to take my mind off tomorrow. I'm more pensive than nervous. Coaching distance runners is not like coaching a ball sport, where you can call a timeout and make midgame corrections. Our work is done in practice. Once the gun sounds the only thing cross country coaches can do is yell loudly, not really sure if we're being heard.

So I will rise long before dawn tomorrow, be the first customer at Starbucks, then stand on the course with a large cup of dark roast and cheer for these runners of whom I am deeply fond. Boys race at 8:05. Girls at 8:55. I won't talk with them much before they race. The dispensing of strategy is for this afternoon's practice. No runner wants Coach Dugard getting in their grill just before jogging to the starting line.

My weekend's pretty much over once the racing is done. No plans. No mission. I won't write. I probably won't read anything (current books: A Bridge Too Far by Cornelius Ryan and The Siege by Ben McIntyre — history at its finest). Practicing my guitar is an option.

We are 161 days into a 169 day training evolution. This weekend and next at the State Meet have been the focus of my coaching obsession since well before that. You haven't really lived until you've watched a group of athletes with whom you've shared hour upon hour, day after day, of commitment and struggle toe the line and show how almighty tough they can be.

Think of me tomorrow morning, dear readers. Imagine a solitary man alone on the most distant portion of a wind-whipped, rain-drenched cross country course. My emotions are labile. My passion absolute. I have a stopwatch in my left hand out of habit. If anyone approaches to make small talk I will ignore them and move further away. I am powerless after months of being all-powerful. I pray without ceasing for green arrows and a tight spread.

So, yes, I am pensive. It is the absolute best feeling in the world.

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If you've got a fantasy football team that title means a very different thing than most who don't. I should actually change it to "agony," because that's what's happening with my team right now. Injuries, off days, and an amazing level of unpredictability have rendered this season a horror show. Thus I search for other outrageous hopes and dreams — fantasies, if you will — to come true.

My cross country teams race at the Southern California championships this weekend, which is always the best part of the season. We'll compete on the rain course at Mt. SAC because recent weather has turned the legendary hills of the regular course to thick mud. This weekend and next at Fresno for State are the races I have dreamed of since we began base phase in June. Our peak and taper begin Wednesday. I'm excited and nervous and so proud of my runners. My fantasy is that I am the best coach I can be these next two weeks.

My own running is impaired by a recent calamity with Sadie, my black lab (read all about it here on my Substack). My left knee got banged up pretty well. Enough blood gushed that the stain wouldn't come out, drenching my favorite pair of jeans. I don't often wear long pants, preferring shorts almost year-round. So while I'm sad about losing those jeans for good, I'm glad I was wearing them. The damage to my knee would have been much worse. I'm taking a break from running until swelling and pain go away. This means long walks on a forest trail, which are quite wonderful in their own special way. My fantasy is that everything heals and I can start running again.

Then there are the blurbs. The latest came in over the weekend, a wonderful riff by the great Des Linden. I have never written a book quite like The Long Run and am overwhelmed by the positive words from some very famous runners and influencers. My decision to go solo a couple years ago felt like the best possible course of action. Now, putting out a unique and personal story in my own voice validates that decision. I love all my Taking books, but stepping away from not just being a co-author but also conventional American history was a gutsy gamble that I'm glad I took. My fantasy is that The Long Run goes straight to #1 and sells a million copies.

Hopes, dreams, fantasies. Call them what you will, but these engines power my career. Even at my lowest ebb, I've held on tight to them. Because more often than you think, they really do come true.

Thanks to all of you for being a great audience. In this spirit, I'd like to share a behind-the-scenes peek into what happens between the final stages of writing a book and the work that takes place between then and the on-sale date.

I am in the final stages of cross country season, which means my bandwidth is completely devoted to fine-tuning the workouts and race strategies. Cross is usually my refuge, a way of blowing off steam after a morning of research and writing and hours in the infusion room. But now it's the other way around, my hours of writing the light part of my day.

Not that cross country is demanding — it's not. There's just an emotional weight that comes with championship season. It's like holding my breath, waiting to see what the next three weeks of racing reveal.

So, I continue writing my fiction project, amazed at where the story tells me it wants to go. I have literally planned each chapter right down to the very end but the characters are already pulling me in a new direction. It's fascinating.

In the middle of all this, as we have discussed, is book promotion. You'd think that I'd have the game nailed by now but I realize that I have been a passive observer to this point in my career, rounding up blurbs and waiting for the marketing pros to deliver my bestseller. It has worked, despite my feeble strategy. But now, in between writing the saga of Dash Thorogood and dreaming up race-pace peaking workouts, I'm doing the deep dive online to teach myself about the world of creating a bestseller.

Before I go on, I blathered about blurbs in the past few missives, so I would be remiss in not sharing a few. George Hirsch, Chairman Emeritus of the New York Road Runners Club and former publisher of Runner's World, says The Long Run "may be the best book on running that I have read." Bob Babbitt, formerly of Competitor Magazine, calls it a "masterpiece." Steve Magness, author of Do Hard Things, writes that TLR Is "a powerful exploration of how we learned to embrace endurance, not just as a physical test, but as a defining part of our modern identity. A must read!" And two-time Olympic medalist Grant Fisher writes that the book "captures both the passion of the hardcore runner and the curiosity of the beginner."

I share those with trepidation. I am not a self-promotional guy. My MO is to keep a low profile, all the better to avoid criticism. And yet if TLR is to find an audience, I need to market not just the book, but me. So I have been relentless in pursuing blurbs. Now it's on to pre-sales and substacks, which my research tells me are vital to a book's success. How come I never knew that? While I'm at it, I am told I need to take a few more selfies and maybe not wear hoodies everywhere I go.

There's my promotional update on The Long Run. On sale date is April 14. You can buy a copy right this minute on Amazon and other online retailers. Please do. And then let me know. Email me a screenshot of the receipt. in return, I'll send you a few free advance chapters.

We move now from blurbs to presales to looking good on camera. I have the feeling that if I want to go all-in on book promotion I should make the grand gesture of stating I plan to run another marathon sometime soon. But as much as I love running, the trails are my refuge and escape, not another source of accomplishment. I find my jam in coaching others, not coaching myself. Twenty days to State!

The email came this week, one of those wonderful moments when money drops from the sky. My former agency was writing to tell me that I would soon be receiving a royalty check for Into Africa. I wrote the book in 2001. Published in 2003. It was a sudden cash bonus for words I put on the page before my grown children were teenagers. So long ago that the first season of Survivor hadn't been aired. George W. Bush was barely president. 9/11 actually took place on the day I sat down to write the first chapter. I left my office to get a glass of water and the Today Show was projecting images of a plane flying into the first tower.

Yes, it's been awhile. Not a single runner on my cross country teams was five years away from being born. The "Tour de France 2005" messengers bag I carry to cross country meets was four years from being divined, let alone purchased at a merch stand on the Breton coast.

But Into Africa earned out — meaning it sold enough copies to pay back the hefty publisher's advance — a few years ago. Every six months someone in Manhattan wires a few bucks into my account, joining with Farther Than Any Man, the Captain Cook book from a few years earlier that also earned out. If you'd told me back then I would wait a quarter century for royalties I would have been confused. Why bother? But now the checks arrive and I am happy to use this bonus money with a sense of bemused satisfaction.

My heart has never left those two books. Once, a few years back, a prominent museum wanted to do an Into Africa exhibition. I flew to London to meet with curators at the Royal Geographical Society. I am a Fellow of the RGS and assumed they would give me latitude as they produced astonishing artifacts like I had only imagined still existed: the explorer's hats of Stanley and Livingstone, the plumb line Livingstone dangled over the payment edge of Zambezi Falls as it fell more than 100 feet into the pounding spray below. Livingstone's compass borrowed and later returned to the RGS.

I was shown them in a small enclosed room. I knew everything about their importance as I reached out to place my fingertips on these most incredible mementoes.

"Do NOT touch anything," the curator's voice boomed. A moment earlier we'd been friends. But I got it. That's the same reason you have to wear gloves when touching ancient documents in Parliament's archives.

I hold both books dear to my heart. I would have to write them differently now just because exploration isn't seen as swashbuckling anymore. But once you write about a topic, living inside the characters for a year, it means a more emotional connection than just words on the page.

Every six months when these royalties arrive, I recall how hard I worked and how I suffered to get it all just right. Struggled is now sweet. As I sit outside with a book, listening to the gurgle of my fountain whose timer is now fixed, all I can say is thanks for the chance to write those sagas and thanks to all of you who have read them.

"Creativity is contagious. When we spend time with other artistic people we absorb and exchange a way of thinking, a way of looking at the world," writes Rick Rubin in The Creative Act. I'm still tiptoeing through this very patient treatise. It's one of those books you read slowly and thoughtfully, not rushing through each line to better absorb each word.

I'm a blue collar writer. My mortgage is my muse. I don't spend a lot of time of time pondering the nature of creativity. I prefer to create rather than think about what that word means. This doesn't mean I don't bask in the endorphin rush of telling a story in a unique and stylish fashion. I do. But it's an everyday process for me.

Work. It's fun and fulfilling and soul crushing at times. Writing is a very solitary act for me. Even when I collaborate on a project, I labor alone. I wouldn't have it any other way. When Joe Flacco spoke about seeing "guys sitting by themselves eating and I'm like, 'Man, I feel so bad for that guy.' You always want to go join him and now I realize, that dude was in heaven," he was describing me. I love solitude.

So when Rubin writes about spending time with other artistic people, I can't really relate. I've only been to one writing conference in my life. I got so bored I left before lunch. I don't do writers' retreats. On the rare occasion I speak with other writers we don't talk about the Oxford comma or literary influences. Writers compete. We're not the buddy-buddy type. (The lone exception is my Rocky Mountain brother Martin J. Smith, who coached me up on the fiction process. If you're thinking about writing a book, I highly recommend you checking out his Rocky Mountain Word Ranch.)

But I revel in the company of another group of artistic people: distance running coaches. This might not be a group that first comes to mind when talk turns to creativity, but coaching runners is an art form. I chuckle when I see websites talking about the perfect workout or the perfect amount of mileage to run your optimal race. There are no such things. It's mileage, speed, rest, intensity, and hills. Throw in heat, cold, rain, dust, wildfire smoke, rest, nutrition, and sleep.

With all those variables, it takes a true artist to know how to combine it all — not just for a day, but through the weeks and months of a June-December training evolution. And even when it's all planned right down to the work to rest ratio, there might be a scheduling conflict with the track, so everything changes on the fly. It's a lot.

It takes a truly creative soul to blend all those variables and make a championship team, so when I see my coaching friends at meets or hang out afterward to talk workouts, it's an amazing sensation of camaraderie. There are times when I have more fun talking coaching than actually watching the race itself. We compete against one another, so much so that there are times I put aside my longtime friendships to focus on winning. But I'm also the first guy to send a text congratulating their success — just as they do the same for me. Those are easy texts to write, believe me. But in some strange way, it makes us closer.

I can't imagine being an online coach, just churning out workouts and parsing results. Unlike writing, I need the human connection, hanging out with my runners and talking the merits of threshold versus VO2 max with my fellow coaches. That's my creative act.

I am trying to give up doom scrolling. The algorithm knows me well, sucking me in and holding my attention. I don't usually pay attention until the evening, when Callie and I are hanging out and I'm not too interested in another episode of SVU.

Doom scrolling doesn't feel toxic in the moment, but in the four nights I have avoided looking at my phone I've slept better. No anxious 3 am wakeup, no need to take deep calming breaths in the darkness. I often lie there and wonder what I'm worried about and have absolutely no answer. Either that or I obsess about something of no consequence. For instance, the timer on my backyard fountain is acting up. It's supposed to run from dawn to dusk but instead runs from dusk to dawn. In the light of day, it's just an annoyance to be researched and corrected. At 3 am, it's the apocalypse.

Me and my roommate, Sean Railton

So no more doom scrolling, but I'm not done with X. I like checking scores and reading odd bits of interesting minutiae. Steve Magness weighs in daily on his theories about how to do hard things. The Naval Institute posts fascinate me. All those Charlie Kirk conspiracy theories can go hang.

After a magical weekend break for my college reunion last week, hanging out in Marquette with my college buddies, I came back wanting to do more than just stop doom scrolling. My X account doesn't really have an identity beyond sharing Springsteen quotes. What it needs is a sense of purpose. I have settled, perhaps temporarily, on kindness. I've got a running book coming out but there are any number of self-styled running enthusiasts. No one wants to read my training strategies (hint: rest is the magic ingredient at this point in the season). And while I've written 30 books of American history, I prefer to read other people's takes on history (Alex Kershaw is amazing).

I used to be the angry young man. Last weekend, my college buddies told me I was a little "punk rock" back in the day, which is a kind word for emotionally labile. This came as a surprise. Now, I'm increasingly drawn to just being nice to people. Costs nothing. Doesn't take away my edge. I think it might even help me sleep better. Rage festers and grow like cancer. There's no strength in rage but kindness is the opposite of weakness.

Coaching Rules:
Fly Your Flag
Be On Time
Show Up Every Day
Listen
Work Hard and Recover Easy
Be Kind

Winning Doesn't Get Much Easier Than That@SteveFryer @PrepCalTrack @SeanZeitler1 @SMCHS_XC @latsondheimer

— Martin Dugard (@martinjdugard) October 16, 2025

After a big meet yesterday, in which my teams ran fast and without fear, a journalist paid me an enormous compliment, stating that the runners "ran with grit and passion, like a typical Dugard team." Wow. Mind blowing. So in the name of kindness and coaching, here's the coaching philosophy I posted on X last week. It applies quite well to every day life: 1) Fly Your Flag, 2) Be On Time, 3) Show Up Every Day, 4) Listen, 5) Work Hard, 5) Recover Easy, and, 6) Be Kind.

The grammar nerds among you will note that I should have separated that sentence by commas instead of semicolons. That is intentional. I was feeling lazy. Anyway, you'll note in those traits that there's nothing about being agro or pushing limits. In what may come as a shocker, my longtime "keep pushing... always" mojo doesn't really vibe anymore. If the daily process is the goal, as it should be, much better to have a runner fly their flag in their own unique way instead of feeling some absurd — and perhaps artificial — need to relentlessly keep their foot on the gas just because their coach demands it.

I have no idea where all this acceptance is coming from. Well, I do, but I've talked about that in this space often enough that you can guess. So Fly Your Flag. I'll fly mine.

Most of you know what a blurb is. Maybe you don't recognize the word, but I'm sure you recognize the quotes on the back cover or just after the title page. Someone famous or influential saying how remarkable a book is. That's my marketing focus right now.

Getting blurbs is a little awesome and a little humbling all at the same time. I've made a list of all the people who might blurb The Long Run. Some are friends but most are strangers I admire. One by one, I've reached out and asked if they will read my book. If they like it enough, I am also hoping they will consent to write a blurb. Almost everyone says yes, but there have been a few no's. I learned a long time ago that you can't let a no hurt your feelings.

My list is a mixture of my favorite writers, runners, and coaches. I have written a few blurbs for other people and know that I'm asking for a significant time commitment. It's easy to make something up without reading the book but the best blurbs are written by people who've actually taken the time to work their way through all 300 pages. I have refrained from requesting a blurb from someone interviewed for the book. That's gratuitous.

So the people I've reached out to basically received an email from someone they barely know, about a book they've never heard of, asking them to take time away from their busy lives to read every last word. It never crosses my mind that they'll hate it or lose interest. I'm confident about what I've written. If I was going to blurb my own book, I'd have to say that The Long Run is pretty awesome.

One amazing thing in my favor is that I know a ton of people in the running world. And if I don't know a specific person, I know a person who knows that person, allowing me to get in touch. It's six degrees of separation. I didn't have these sort of connections in all my years writing any other history book.

The next step is following up in about five weeks. That's delicate. I don't want to put someone on my publishing timetable but I also need to know whether or not we should clear cover space for their blurb. I hate to be a nag.

The irony is that no one knows if blurbs actually sell books. I've had some pretty prominent people blurb previous works and I have no reason to believe they were responsible for a single sale. I don't write the sort of books that make Oprah's Club.

So why am I busting my butt to get blurbs? Because sometimes it's nice to place something I've written into the hands of someone I admire and whose body of work I cherish, and who I specifically hope will get enjoyment from my words. To have them say something nice on top of all that is pretty special.

You'd think I would know the difference between marketing and publicity after all these years writing books. This is probably why I've never excelled at marketing, something I'm going to correct with The Long Run. My publisher's marketing team has already put together some great images to promote the book. I'll be putting them up on my socials and in this space very soon so you can have a look.

But what else must be done? Specifically, what can I do to become a better marketeer? I'm told by friends with their fingers on the pulse of how things are sold these days that there must be TikTok videos. So these will happen. It's also important to reach out to influencers, which seems like fun. I've been doing preliminary research into the most popular running influencers. To my surprise, they're not gold medalists or record holders for the most part (marathoner Jess McClain seems a notable exception. I feel like she's putting on a master class with her socials).

That's the nut of this marketing issue. Writing a book about running is a far cry from writing traditional history. Running is personal and immediate. World War II, to pick a topic, lends itself to a more staid demographic and promotional appearances: coat and tie, museums and learned institutions, a frankly older readership. This is the way I would typically market a book (though without the coat and tie). It's easy to hide your true self in this traditional setting, which is why I have followed this pattern for a long time. I'm here to market a book, not market myself. Shoe up, do a speech, a few jokes during the Q&A, sign books, then thank the bookstore staff on my way out.

I like anonymity. I can express very personal emotions with the written word (very often in this space) but I barely speak when I leave the house. I make my way around town in running shoes, shorts and a battered hoodie, all too happy to avoid the appearance of being someone who has a book to sell. I have an old friend who is not much of a writer but is an incredible self-promoter. He has long rolled his eyes at my fondness for being left alone. The money is in marketing, he likes to say.

So things need to change. I can reach far more potential readers on socials than in a whole month of bookstore signings. I'm shaving more often, which is a nice start. Combing my hair. Not getting rid of the hoodie yet, but definitely opting for more form-fitting garments rather than something one size too big.

I have no fear of standing in front of hundreds to give a speech. But I need to get over the fear of speaking into the camera for an insta video. Feels like a bridge too far. Same with Tik Tok. I am reminded that the greatest truth any writer can learn is that writing the book is only half the job. Selling the book is just as important.

So I apologize in advance for the socials soon to appear as I go through the learning curve. I am about to get insanely promotional, though even writing those words feels terrifying. The bottom line is that The Long Run is an amazing book, written for runners and historians and anyone who loves a great story with big characters who change the world. Seen in that light, a Tik-Tok video or twelve is the least I can do.

I left the meet at 11 p.m. Long, solitary walk to the farthest realm of the parking lot. Footsore from 17,000 steps. Hungry. Thirsty. Satisfied.

Woodbridge is the biggest high school cross country meet in the country — some 16,000 runners strong. Fifty-two races spread over two nights. The best runners in America. Flood lights, drum lines loud as beating hearts, pure unmitigated speed. Food trucks, hundred thousand spectators, subdivision of team canopies lining the course. Woodbridge is Disneyland, the happiest place on earth for runners who've trained in solitude through a long hot summer. It's raw and loud and exciting and way too crowded. Concrete and flat grass. The hills and dust of real cross country are coming soon, but the phenomenon that is Woodbridge owns these two nights in September.

My boys team competed Friday night and won their race. They ran with the certainty of men on a mission. I love these guys.

The girls raced in the Sweepstakes race on Saturday. Start time: 9:45 p.m. I didn't leave the house until almost 6, delaying the inevitable traffic jams and overflow parking. None of the girls had arrived when I got to the team canopy, so I went on walkabout. Wove my way through the throngs of spectators, trying to soak in the emotions and sounds.

I'm told I've been cranky and checked-out lately, always lost in thought, so I did my best to be mindful. Not much coaching to do on race day. It's all up to the runners. I walked to calm my worries about things that could go wrong. I'm reading Rick Rubin's excellent The Creative Act right now. I took his advice as I walked, soaking up a night of Woodbridge in hopes it would work its way into my subconscious, there to be summoned during some future writing day.

The girls were all under the canopy by the time I got back. They lazed on the ground, a vision of anxious boredom. When a freshman runner joins the team for their first year of competition, they need to be told everything on race day: what to eat, when to warm up, when to switch from training shoes to racing flats, when to go to the line. By the time they run varsity, my girls know all that by heart. So it was like I wasn't there.

I said a few perfunctory things, the usual words about getting out fast and ABP (Always Be Passing). They nodded, then got down to the business of preparing to race. Quiet chit-chat. Laces. Hair ties. One last trip to the porta potty. So professional in their demeanor.

I left and walked to the line to select a start box. They arrived shortly afterward. We had another short conversation, a reminder to stay wide on the first turn.

Then it was time to get out of their grills and let them race because I could see them tuning me out. I looked down the length of the line as I walked away. Almost 300 girls awaited the start, bouncing in place and slapping their thighs to activate quads and hamstrings. Then everything went quiet as the starter in his red sports coat raised the gun.

It's easy to be mindful when coaching a cross country race. Every sensation is heightened. I yell louder, think quicker, ride the roller coaster as runners race faster or slower than I had hoped. I never want to see film of the maniac I become. I run the course with them, taking shortcuts to see my athletes in three or four different places between start and finish. Artificial lights line the route. Darkness bathes everything in between. Bedlam and exhortation. Moms and dads and coaches and grandparents cheering for their runner. Adrenaline buoys me. It's exhilarating. I'm wrung out the instant it ends.

The girls ran out of their minds. I can always tell if they're happy with their race. They just look so jubilant once it's done. It was that way Saturday night.

I told them I was proud of them, then told them to cool down with three easy miles before someone turns the lights off. Said I'd see them Monday morning for practice but to take Sunday off. Then I broke down the team area, folded the canopy, made the long walk to the parking lot and threw it in the back of my car, began the ten-mile drive home. I stopped for a late snack, sitting with a beer as I broke down results on my phone. Calene was asleep when I got home, so I spent a couple more hours looking at split times and finish times of my runners and other teams from every different angle.

I went to bed around two, the creative act of coaching having filled me to overflowing.