Riverside State Park, Spokane

In what is becoming a personal tradition, I am in Spokane today to visit the creative writing class taught by Dori Whitford at Mead High School. Dori, who doubles as the women's cross country coach, became a fan when Finishing Kick first came out in Running Times. She sent an email to let me know what she thought of the novel, one thing led to the next, and now I come up on a regular basis to talk to the students.

As always, they, the kids, are interesting. They had some questions pre-written for me to work with and some were really interesting. One, what is my favorite thing to write about, actually put me on the spot, mostly because I told them the truth. I like writing about teenagers. I think they were expecting me to say 'about running.' Understandable.  I think the age is fascinating - NOT that I want to go back and repeat it. I told them that, too.

About half of the class would like to write in the future and, to a person, would like to write fiction. My kind of kids. They did split on whether they prefer pen and paper or typing right into the computer. Advantages to both but it was interesting to see how they broke down. It seemed most of the pen and paper kids also liked plotting out the stories. Most are into fantasy with a smattering of thriller and mystery readers, too.

Afterwards, I went traipsing around Riverside State Park, taking off on a five mile run from the Carlson Road Trailhead. Absolutely gorgeous.

The day was a little crisper than I had prepped for - 42 degrees and I had geared out for about ten degrees warmer. Oops. Ran with what I had and figured it was good for triggering my brown fat. Not too bad once I got moving.

I had a choice of dropping down and running by the Spokane River or hill-running. Being a glutton for work, I ground my way up. There's a whole network of trails, mostly well marked. All the ones I hit had good footing though a couple of stretches had enough rock that I paid attention, lest I land in the emergency room. The pictures are from today's run.

Mother Nature's way of taking out over-tall, and inattentive, runners.

Sharing Update

If you've read my books, you already know that I share a portion of the proceeds for both running books with local (defined loosely - we're rural, so local can be a hundred miles away or more) high school cross country programs.

The first check went to Clarkston High School. The kids there are awesome and the folks that run the program help out everyone else in the area.

I wasn't sure how often I would be doing the donations. It seems that a semi-annual basis will work nicely. There was a little push at Christmas, plus I had two different cross country teams buy directly from me (which saves them money.)

I've already decided which team gets the donation, though I'm moving a bit further out and sending the check to the Tri-cities area.

As with the first check, I wish it was bigger.

To those of you who have purchased my books-especially to a certain young lady and her mother who drove into Clarkston from Pomeroy to get copies- thank you for reading my books and, by extension, helping some kids running at the high school level.

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New Job at the Seaport Invite

Traipsing over to Clarkston for the Seaport Invite today. Coach Denton always sets up and runs a nice race and I like the course, but this meet will be a bit sad.

For the first time in nearly a decade, I won't be working as a volunteer at the Invite. I've acted as timer - apparently my right thumb is useful to cross country  - for nearly a decade. Last year at this race, I watched the immortal Les McDowell starting, and thought that when he laid down the gun for the last time, I might try to fill his shoes.

Les does a great job of starting, and gets less appreciation than he should. I've never seen a bad race start, cross country or track, for any age group, when he ran the show. I asked him at last year's meet if he would mind training me.

He agreed. And at a track meet this past year, I had to apologize and guit on the idea.

I had a new one, a new role I wanted to fill. Being somewhat an overachiever (when the mood strikes,) I get to create something both new - and old, at the same time.

We used to have reporting on the races that happened around the country. Local newspapers carried the results of road races, and the seasons at the local schools. School newspapers did, too.

Somewhere, that disappeared. Costs, not just for materials, but for labor was a part of it. A larger part was the growing dependence of local papers on the AP. There is little real reporting in most newspapers, just regurgitations of the national line.

That's the old.

The new relies on two simple ideas - pixels are free, and writers like to write (and like to see their name on a byline.)

A community of young writers learning their trade (and yes, it's a trade. Once upon a time, newspapermen had high school educations and worked their way up to reporter) can do so for next to no cost, maybe a couple of hundred dollars for the website. I front the cost on that (folks that buy my books help because ten percent of the profits head back to local teams.)

Why the newspapers, who already have the infrastructure, don't run with this is beyond me except perhaps they've forgotten that they serve communities of readers.

So today, instead of timing, I'll be looking for story ideas, pictures to highlight the athletes, and keeping my sense of joy while I watch it all.

I find it very exciting, even if it's also hard work. I think I'm going to miss timing. It was a small job, but I knew I was helping. Now I hope that I'm helping and I won't know either way for years to come.

Sharing the Fun!

I've had a tremendous amount of fun writing the books and one of the promises I made was that I would share some of the proceeds.

It makes sense to do it quarterly, at least from an accounting standpoint. I closed out the books last night and wrote the first check. Since I wrote the books and am donating the money, I get to be the decider. I'm pushy that way . . .

I wrote the check for the Clarkston Bantams. It's not as much as I would like, but it's is a start. Ideally, I'd write a dozen checks that are ten times bigger.

We're going to have to sell a lot more books to do that.

For those not in our region, the coach at Clarkston, Brian Denton, bends over backwards to help out all the local teams with meets, lending flags, timers, putting up the results. The rest of the time, he's coaching some great kids.

If you bought Finishing Kick or Trail of Second Chances, you've contributed to the Bantam squad. I want you to know just how much I appreciate it.

Please consider referring the books to your friends and running buddies. And I could always use more reviews on Amazon if you have a few minutes and you'd like to share.

I'm hoping that the next quarter sees me writing more than one check.

Run gently, friends!

PS. Family asked about contributing to the Asotin squad, our home town team. I donate to them annually all ready and plan to do so again and again, as long as I am able. Poor coach Gundy is pretty well stuck with me but he's a great guy and takes it in stride.