Martin Dugard's Blog, page 14

PROCESS

While driving to Fresno for the California State Cross Country Championships last November, I came to a stunning realization: I enjoy coaching practices but I do not like coaching competitions.

This was not because the drive to Fresno is a tense five hours of lane-changes and stop-and-go traffic, even in the best of circumstances. It's also not because I am disinterested in my runners — if anything, this current training group is near and dear to my heart. And it's not because coaching competitions is a misnomer — if anything, less input from the coach is preferable on meet day.

I just came to the awareness that the previous 154 days of training were magical, an ebb and flow of fitness and communication that slowly made each runner a better version of themselves. I planned each workout, spent hours fussing with details about split times and mileage, and generally made myself miserable each and every day as this act of creation took shape. I worried when runners got sick, stayed out too late at homecoming, didn't replace their shoes every 350 miles, and didn't do the little things like eating, sleeping, and stretching. Judging the success or failure of those twenty-two weeks based on the very last day of the season is ludicrous.

A few years back I heard the saying "the process is the goal." I did not understand it at first, if only because it sounded heretical. How could the daily grind be more important than hoisting the championship trophy? I am fully aware that the journey is more important than the destination. But that's just travel, right?

Then I noticed the same thing in my writing. The daily process of printing out yesterday's pages, editing them out on the back porch with a sharpened pencil, incorporating those edits into the new book, then moving over into my office to write fresh pages makes me far happier than the moment a book is published. I used to wait eagerly for the day when a fresh box of new books landed on my doorstep. It's still wonderful holding that first edition in my hands, but now I save one for my office, a few for friends, and donate the rest to Friends of the Library. At the end of the day, it's just a book. The memories were made in the daily act of putting words on the page. That may sound romantic or creative, but it's grueling. There's no other way to say it.

I don't know what to call this new embrace of process. Not maturity. Not mindfulness. It's a practice, now that I think of it, one of those things that create their own reward through daily repetition. I love the grind and how it makes me feel focused and alive. I love watching the pages pile up, just like I love watching my runners get faster and stronger, day by day. Race day and publishing day are wonderful, but just a byproduct of the practice. The simple act of daily practice in coaching and writing is actually not a grind at all, but a refinement, sanding off the rough edges.

I like being Here. In the Now. Life is better when it's not tomorrows and yesterdays, but right now.

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NYC

Unlike my friend Dan, I am perpetually underdressed.

I try. Sort of. But it seems I'm always a jacket and pair of dress shoes short. As my wife told me last night after we attended a party here in New York, I tend to look like I just left track practice. Dan, on the other hand, is always pressed and shined, no matter the occasion. I have my own system when it comes to packing for travel, something honed over years on the road. But I'd really like to get better at this dressing appropriately thing. So as we shared an Uber on the way back to the hotel, I asked Dan how he packs. I was impressed: always a coat, tie, pressed shirt and three pairs of shoes. Never check luggage. And so on. I know Dan reads this blog, so a shout-out and a thank you, brother.

Allow me to backtrack. Way back in June, when Calene's cancer treatment was just beginning, she mentioned she'd really like to see Billy Joel in Madison Square Garden. So I bought tickets. They're good seats. The show is Tuesday night. Valentine's Day!

But then the weekend grew. The Millrose Games track meet is also this weekend, so we were there in the Armory. The after-party for the USA Track & Field Foundation was held in an art-filled apartment once owned by Alicia Keyes. Today (I'm writing this on Sunday) is a Broadway matinee for Funny Girl followed by the Super Bowl at our favorite NYC watering hole. Tomorrow is lunch with my agent, followed by lunch with my editor on Tuesday.

All in all, this weekend has become a very full and exciting slate. Even better, we got news last week that Calene's cancer is not quite gone, but getting there. After almost a year of worry, fear, prayer, treatment, and everything else that goes with cancer, we can breathe a little. There were many tears of happiness after we left the oncologist's office.

But I have to admit that I let myself go over the course of the last year. Not just in fitness, but in organization, faith, and pretty much everything else. It is a quirky fact of life that when you focus completely on the welfare of someone else it is convenient not to work on yourself. It's not selfless, it's lazy. So as I reveled in the catered party last night, in a room full of the world's greatest track and field athletes (I'm a track geek), watching a serene Calene in animated conversation with new friends, it struck me that it's time to get to work. One glimpse of myself in a large mirror — baggy jeans, knit hoodie, beer weight — was the proof.

Just as I started writing again back in October after a six month break, now I need to restart that daily process of plugging in to fitness, faith, and keeping my office from looking like a shithole. Welcome back to the world of self-discipline. The break has been traumatic in some ways and like coasting in others. I have so many great friends who have lifted me up over the last ten months. But it's time to get my feet back on the ground.

Which is why I asked Dan about his packing methods. I don't want to dress like a slob. There's a lot of hard work ahead. But if Calene's going to beat this thing, I want her to know the best version of me is at her side for years to come.

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INTO AFRICA

My assistant tells me I can't tease a chapter of my life in the newsletter without giving readers a payoff. So, because this story is high on my list of things I never thought would happen when I chose a writing career, allow me to tell you about my time in a Tanzanian prison.

It was August. I was retracing the footsteps of Henry Morton Stanley in his search to find the very lost explorer, Dr. David Livingstone. The book would be titled Into the Great Wide Open, in homage to Tom Petty. My editor wisely chose Into Africa instead.

My buddies Dave and Bill met me in Dar es Salaam. I flew in from Paris, having just spent July covering the Tour de France. The last night had been a long walk along the Left Bank with my sportswriter friend, Austin, putting three bottles of expensive French wine on his Sports Illustrated expense account.

Bill, Dave, and I hired a Land Cruiser from a smooth-talking man named Kennedy. Our driver was Chowa. Interesting guy. Didn't say much. Very mysterious. One day into our journey across Tanzania, after spending the night in a guest house on the wide open savanna, Chowa announced we needed to change our route. Something about bad men on the road. So we detoured south to the Zambian border under a full yellow moon, passing an overturned cattle truck and a herd of crows escaping down the highway. 

Things went bad at dawn, in a town named Tunduma. 

Chowa hit a child crossing the road. 

The little girl's shoes flew off before my eyes as she sailed through the air. Chowa chose not to stop at first. But as we yelled at him to do the right thing, he finally braked to a halt — whereupon a mob descended on our Land Cruiser with clubs and knives. 

So we raced away, past where the pavement turned to red dust, and into a town in the middle of nowhere named Sumbawanga. Up to this point, we were debating whether it was better to seek Justice or flee the country, unsure if we would be thrown in prison without a trial.

We did not need to worry. A police roadblock was waiting outside town. Four men in uniform. AK-47s. Chowa stopped, rolled down his window, and said something in Swahili — which is when the police eyed me with great disgust. They boarded the vehicle, the barrels of their automatic weapons poking up into the fabric roof covering.

For the next three days, Dave, Bill and I were questioned at the local police station. Chowa denied involvement, stating that I was actually the driver. We watched as local prisoners bound hand and foot were thrown aboard a train taking them to the national penitentiary. We wondered if that was also our fate.

Word finally came back that the girl was going to be ok. In fact, the authorities were less concerned about a child with a fractured skull than a hit-and-run which destroyed a car back in Tunduma the same day. Sumbawanga's police chief, a large woman who picked her nostrils with two pinkies as she gave us our freedom, was kind enough to hire a new driver for the next leg to Kigoma. Chowa was being held for further questioning, although he was the first person we ran into upon returning to Dar es Salaam. 

You think a lot of weird thoughts when you're a married father of three young children, held in a faraway jail from which you might never exit. Even now, twenty years later, I remember the whoosh of relief as my flight lifted off from Tanzania for the welcome journey home. Bill, Dave, and I laugh about it now, but that was one hell of a messed up research trip. 

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SIT BY ME

A long while ago, I wrote The Explorers. I sold the idea as a new take on the Burton-Speke expedition to find the source of the Nile. But the Killing series took off after the contract was signed. What was supposed to be one book is now up to thirteen. So in the interests of keeping things fresh (and fulfilling my contract), I spun the Burton-Speke drama into something entirely different.

I had long been fascinated by the commonalities of all great explorers. Many, for instance (Cook, Columbus), were just turning forty when they embarked on their first great expedition. I noted that there were obvious streaks of independence and perseverance. And, of course, they were introverts. For a guy like me, who craves solitude and revels in being alone, that was more than enough reason to dig deeper.

What I came across were seven traits common to not just all great explorers, but any endeavour (sneaking in a Captain Cook reference here): curiosity, hope, passion, independence, courage, self-mastery, and perseverance. It turns out there is something called the "drive theory of motivation" which explains all this. So I wrote The Explorers using the Burton-Speke expedition as the narrative tent pole. Each section also wove in the seven traits, explaining the reasons why we are curious, to select one trait. Lots of stuff about our mental and physical motivations for why we are curious and what it really means to be curious. Each trait got the same treatment, even as I unspooled the fatal journey to the Nile. It is not a self-help book, though it may sound that way, merely an explanation of why people do crazy shit.

The Explorers did not sell as well as I had hoped.

The Killing series has now sold more than 20 million copies. My own Taking series is also finding a large audience. Into Africa, my previous book on African exploration, continues to sell well twenty years after publication. But based on the weekly sales link I receive from my publisher, I can tell you that The Explorers has sold exactly 904 copies since its on sale date ten years ago. A little embarrassing. Not the book I mention when people ask my favorite work.

But while preparing for a speech I was asked to give this past weekend at a resort development outside Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, I reread The Explorers. The point was plugging those seven traits into the talk. Not only was I surprised that the book is nothing to be embarrassed about, but it is actually a great read.

Yes, in answer to your question, buy your copy today. Buy twenty. It's inspirational. Hand them out at work.

There's a caveat: I'm adding an eighth trait.

From beginning to end, a great achievement follows the seven traits in order: curiosity, hope, passion, courage, independence, self-mastery, and perseverance. They build upon one another.

But what I realized while writing my speech is that achievement is not enough. Shocker. Too many explorers got hooked on the process then never got to enjoy the fruits of their effort. Many kept going out again and again, jonesing for that achievement hit, a great many dying in the process: Speke, Livingstone, Shackleton, Columbus.

So the eighth trait is companionship.

The best explorer is the one who lives long enough to share their success — and dies in their own bed in their own time. Hillary, Bannister, Humboldt. Lives long enough to establish a new legacy of a healthy and happy life without the need to prove themselves over and over again. And since companionship is considered one of the primary sources of longevity, I'm adding it to my list.

I know that sounds self-helpish.

I also know that when I brought up companionship during my speech on Thursday, I was shocked to see more than one couple in that room packed full of achievers elbow each other and nod in recognition. So it's a thing.

I'm glad I wrote The Explorers. The seven commonalities were something that intrigued me for years. I would have regretted not writing it. I'm relieved that the book holds up (nothing worse than reading an old piece and being appalled at the word choices, structure, and punctuation), and the writing is crisp and well-ordered.

Yet how is it that, only now, after years of proclaiming myself to be a romantic, am I realizing the reward of exploration is sitting still with the one I love?

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APRIL 12

I'm writing again.

Actually, it's been a few months. But I took half the year off to focus on things here at home. Medical stuff. Things I won't write about for a while, though all is good for now. Writing each day is like the air I breathe, so not writing more than an email for a half-year was an adjustment. I thought it would be jarring but it was not. I'd like to say the time was spent in meditation and mindfulness, or that I ran a little more. None of that. I read a lot of books. Took a lot of solitary saunas, sweating through heat and quiet. Walked in O'Neill like it was the sanctuary I had always hoped it would become. The family of four deer became a touchstone. When a fifth and sixth came along I felt like a proud parent.

My new book, Taking Berlin, came out at the end of my break. I'm thankful people enjoy the stuff I write but am not immune to checking Amazon reviews for a dopamine hit every now and again. Like every writer, for every hundred five-star moment there's that turd in a punchbowl who doesn't read the whole book and takes a break from reviewing hair care products and vacuum cleaners to say how much they disagree with the years of research and focus I spend on every subject, then spew their own gonorrheal take on history.

I'm writing Taking London right now. Third book in the Taking series. There's going to be a fourth. I would have started with this one if I'd known there'd be four. At the very least, it would make my many trips to London more streamlined. Or perhaps I am looking for more excuses to make the trip, if only for a haircut at Jack the Clipper and some quality time in Parliament's research rooms.

I also think this is the year I write historical fiction. Wouldn't it be great to write a sentence and add exposition existing only in my head?

I mention all this because I've got a great team around me as I move forward: Nikki, Brent, Mike, Eric, Mike, and the wondrous Callie. TGBC. Coaches text group. The past year has been a time of realizing I am not alone. Writers write in solitude and sweatpants (me, at least) but I now have confidants who have called to ask me out for a beer and used those dreaded phrases about bringing meals and telling me they're here to do anything they need.

I use "dreaded" because it means "thankful." These friends have scooped me up. Carried me. The one lesson I have learned most since April 12 is that we're all doing the best we can.

Time to get back in the game. Pay attention to this space because I'm going to land a blog every Monday. Keep me accountable! My newsletter will be in your inbox the first of every month. I am thankful for longtime friends like Susie B. and those of you I don't know. For all of you who asked for a signed bookplate and haven't received one yet, it's coming. I procrastinate.

Religiously.

But I am writing again. Breathing again. Finding hope. It's time for a new honesty in my writing. The mystery of my downtime has to remain so for awhile but I'll share it in due time. Too close. I can't write about it yet.

You are my tribe. Thanks for the love. Couldn't do this without you.

Party on.

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1997

This year marks the twenty-fifth anniversary of one of my forgotten works: Inline Skating Made Easy. When people ask me to name my first book, I usually talk about Surviving the Toughest Race on Earth, my memoir about covering and competing in the legendary Raid Gauloises adventure race. But Surviving wasn't the first. Actually, Inline wasn't either. That would be On the Edge, a Sports Illustrated for Kids collection of adventures written for a small but decent amount of money back when I wondered if I had the chops to write something longer than a 1500-word magazine piece. But Inline Skating Made Easy came next, bursting into the world a quarter-century ago, notable for the pictures of my wife and our two sons (the third wasn't born yet) as models for the various poses necessary to demonstrate proper skating technique (part of my contract was to provide all the photos).

Also notable was that my knowledge of inline skating was at a very beginner level. My sons could skate much better than me. But when you write to pay the mortgage and someone dangles $4,000 to cobble together a how-to about inline skating, "no" is the last word on your mind.

I had been a working writer for about six years; full-time less than three. It wasn't that many years ago, but when I started my freelance career there was no such thing as email — or even fax. I would actually write a story, print it out, then mail it to the magazine. This made it very easy to fudge a deadline by phoning the editor to say the story was in the mail.

Then came something mysterious called the modem, referred to by Hunter S. Thompson as the “mojo wire,” which still allowed a slight delay in delivery because the technology was haphazard.

But then came the fax machine, which promised immediate delivery.

Then email, which was even more instant. I remember pitching a story to Wired and having the editor ask if I had an email address. They were something from the future back in the early 90s. I told her I planned on getting one soon, which pretty much told her everything she needed to know about my ability to write for a cutting-edge magazine.

I didn't go to journalism school in college. I never worked on the staff of a major magazine or newspaper. I was the guy with big dreams who worked a dull corporate job, squeezing out freelance magazine stories on the side in the early, early morning before work. And sometimes at lunch. And sometimes in my cubicle at an hour not even close to lunch. But then I left the corporate world and made a go of being a full-time writer. The date was February 24, 1994. I will never forget it.

So it was that I blithely plunged into the world of full-time writing, with vague dreams of what success looked like. I wanted to be Thompson. I wanted to be Hemingway. But most of all, I just wanted to write for the rest of my life.

I did not know it at the time, but I squeezed into writing through a portal that no longer exists. There are few print magazines for a freelancer to turn a buck, let alone a place like the late great Competitor which let me fail in print three or four times an issue.

So, when SI for Kids asked me to write for children I saw it as climbing another rung on the ladder. A book seemed like a wonderful thing to have written. And then came Inline Skating Made Easy, which was not high literature but was certainly a second book. I was on my way.

I have since heard podcasts by authors who once wrote for hallowed magazines and newspapers, telling of the rules that guided their own writing journey. That's what happens when you write for a corporation: rules. But I didn't know any better.

I made my own rules: Never miss a deadline. Double check all facts. Keep regular office hours. Be a stickler for spelling and punctuation. Read each sentence aloud to make sure the words have rhythm.

I blundered from magazines into books as the boys got older and traveling two months out of the year became irresponsible. I got an agent, a wonderful young woman named Elise Proulx who is no longer in the business but made me a published author for the third time when she insisted I rewrite Surviving the Toughest Race on Earth to give it a happy ending. Then I began writing history, of all things — a forgotten childhood passion. You couldn't get me into the library when I was in college. Now you can't get me out.

My dumb luck continued. A season working on Survivor. Cold-calling the agent I have to this day, nervously sticking a quarter in a South Dakota pay phone while on a family vacation to pitch the vaunted New York professional, Eric Simonoff. Nobody does that. That call led to Into Africa, Chasing Lance, work with James Patterson, the Killing series as a co-author, and now my own Taking series.

But twenty-five years ago, as my most significant writing accomplishment was bs'ing Inline Skating Made Easy, and I punctuated my writing day by downloading Napster Springsteen bootlegs and my email address ended in aol.com, there was a day when all of this was just a fantasy. I remember Calene sitting down on my lap, wrapping her arms around my shoulders, and asking me to reassure her that our gamble on the writing life would pay off.

This wasn't idle curiosity. We had bills that seemed to fall due too early. A cramped two-bedroom condo, three boys, a golden retriever..

"I don't know how," I reassured her. "But I know in my gut that great things will happen."

It would have blown our minds if you'd told us back then of all the amazing adventures we would celebrate in the next twenty-five years. But that's the way of adventures: they reveal themselves one at a time, just like hopes and dreams. To know in advance takes away the magic.

So here's to Inline Skating Made Easy. And to paying dues.

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THE OFFICE

I just finished writing two books at the same time. Taking Berlin and another untitled Killing book overlapped for a couple months, making for double writing sessions (morning and afternoon, a departure from my usual morning-only strategy) seven days a week. The motivation was to hit the deadlines but the caveat was that the quality couldn't suffer. By the time both books were delivered a few months ago, I thought my head would explode.

In a strange way, metaphorically speaking, it did.

A few weeks back my office flooded. I walked in barefoot one Sunday morning and the carpet was a puddle. I blamed Sadie, our young Lab, at first. But after trying to soak up the liquid with numerous bath towels it became clear that the size of the puddle was only increasing.

Sadie was not the culprit.

If you have ever had a flood you know what comes next: plumbers, restoration companies, insurance claims. The entire contents of my office were removed by a company specializing in such things, then stored in a large metal container that now takes up an enormous amount of space on my driveway. Only yesterday, some miscreant from my homeowners association was observed stopping his car to take photos of the beast. A stern letter is surely forthcoming.

Now, let me tell you about my office. After attempts to set up shop inside our house when the boys were still young, it became clear that a simple spare bedroom would not do the trick, so I cleared out a corner of the garage, built myself a small desk, found a small office chair, and began writing.

That was 1999.

Twenty-three years and just as many books later, my little corner of the garage was transformed. A contractor framed up walls, built shelves, put down carpet, added air condition, heat, and canned lighting. I painted the walls yellow because it is said to inspire creativity — and I believe that is true. A world map takes up two walls, bookshelves a third, and my favorite framed photos another. A vinyl and turntable fills one corner. My desk — a gorgeous piece of wood purchased from one of those places that make exceptional overpriced furniture — faces the door. There is no window. It is a room that was once featured on 60 Minutes. It is my stronghold when the words are flowing and when they are not. Every now and then I celebrated the end of a good writing day with a cold beer and some very loud Springsteen. More often, I just closed my laptop and turned out the lights, ready to rejoin the world after six hours of sensory deprivation and hyper-focus.

But it's gone for now. I am rebuilding, of course. In a few years I'll forget this speed bump. But for now my laptop and accouterments are inside, spread out on the dining room table. I edited Taking Berlin in the shade of the back porch, taking care to use a heavy rock as paperweight so the pages didn't blow away — although many times I forgot, and away they flew.

I'm a thinker but not a philosopher. I don't need a mountain top, just a quiet place to close the door and let my mind go walkabout. But it seems that my thoughts have sharpened by not having that place to close the door. I've been thrown out of my normal routine, forcing me to recalibrate my hopes and dreams, if only because not having a place to hide feels very much like starting over.

I prayed for this. Not for a flood, nor the destruction of my precious space. But for a creative rebirth that will make the next few decades of my career the best ever. I normally take a break between books but this one's not coming to an end anytime soon. I'm researching my next book in a slow and patient fashion, which is very new to a guy who sometimes writes three books a year. Feels calming. Makes me want to spread my wings.

There is a small part of me that doesn't want my office back.

ON THE ROAD AGAIN

I'm riding the Eurostar as I write this, halfway between Paris and London. It has been a wild two weeks for Callie and myself, our first time back in Europe since Covid. It was also my first time in Paris since Taking Paris was released. Seeing the book for sale in a Rue de Rivoli bookstore was a tender moment, a grown man standing in the crowded aisles, marveling at the final results of a book written in my garage office then edited each morning at dawn on my back porch — hot coffee, sunrise, Django and Sadie wrestling over a chew toy, and a pencil I sharpened the instant it lost its point because there's nothing worse than a dull pencil.

There have been many highlights in these last couple weeks and we have seen a lot. I prefer the train while making my way across most countries, time permitting. The scenery constantly changes and I can read, sleep, and just look out the window — three of my favorite things. There has also been a great collection of daily runs on this trip, memorable miles through Hyde Park, along the Danube waterfront, and through the fragrant gardens aromas of the Tuileries this morning. There's a marathon and a new book project waiting for me at home. Even in the midst of this research trip, that search for balance is the order of the day.

But as we all know, these aren't normal travel times. Europe is very much open but you've got to pay attention. If you're planning a trip to Europe any time soon be prepared to brandish your proof of a Covid test the way you once flashed a passport. You can't get on a plane, train or taxicab without proof of vaccination. And plan on making PCR tests a part of your itinerary. We got vaccinated before leaving Los Angeles (paperwork checked before boarding), after arriving in London, and two days ago in preparation for the flight home. There was also something known as the Day 2 test in London, a mandatory Covid test that has to be taken on the second day in-country just to be sure no Covid was picked up en route (go to gov.uk for details). And just to make sure the test actually happens, Day 2 has to be prepaid before leaving America.

And that's pretty much it. Europe is wide open. You'll be asked to wear a mask indoors in most places, particularly in stores and on trains. But as long as you have your paperwork in order you can go anywhere and do anything. If there was on stressor before this great adventure, it had everything to do with the fear that Covid would spontaneously halt our travel, leaving us stranded and quarantined while life back home went on without out us. That didn't happen.

London is not empty but it is not full, the tourists still largely staying away. Budapest seems like an island without illness. Germany is manic about their Covid regulations. The French wear their masks with aplomb, not a single person complaining about the inconvenience. Prices are low, restaurants aren't manic with world travelers, and sites like the Pantheon crypt in Paris are quiet for the lack of crowds. And hotels are so happy for the occupancy that we got upgraded twice, both times to amazing rooms worth far more than our original reservation.

So if you are of a mind to travel to Europe, go now. Just bring your proof of Covid vaccination.

THE ARCHIVIST

A little secret here: I have forever harbored the quiet notion that my body of work would one day be important enough to require a scholarly archive. So ever since 1993 and the Sports Illustrated for Kids book Over the Edge, I have saved every hard copy revision of every manuscript I've ever written (with the exception of In-line Skating Made Easy, which I knew would one day require a great deal of explanation).

I stored each set of manuscripts, including all ten revisions of Into Africa, in covered plastic bins on shelves in my garage, right outside my office door. When the director of the Martin Dugard Library eventually called, they would be waiting.

Thirty years and more than two dozen books later, that's a lot of bins.

My manuscripts needed more and more garage space. They took over room set aside for Christmas decorations, children's photos and school awards, and the stack of 1980's LP's awaiting their chance to be lifted from the dusty shelf and placed next to the turntable in my office — space permitting.

But a few months back Callie and I took a look at our garage and realized it has become an utter shithole. The lone saving grace is the pool table with the beer-stained green felt. Otherwise, chaos. So we decided to remodel. In one month, a demo crew will rip my handmade pine shelves from the wall and replace them with sleek organizers and new flooring. My sanctum sanctorum garage office will remain untouched. Everything else is going to change.

The garage renovation is the perfect time to throw away the stuff we don't need or have forgotten we owned. In preparation for the big day, Callie and I ordered a large dumpster. It is now parked outside our house. We have begun the slow process of what is staying and what must go.

I got around to the manuscript bins within an hour. Took a few down to have a look inside. Each had a strip of duct tape on the outside with the book's name written in Sharpie. So it was that I took a walk down memory lane, from the box entitled "Chasing Lance" to "Killing Jesus" to "Surviving the Toughest Race on Earth," in no particular order. Old maps and photos, handwritten notes from editors, contracts, airplane tickets, Underground stubs — opening each bin was a walk into the past. I traced the arc of my career. Every successive bin brought forth a unique memory.

I was surprised to realize that I did not feel elation, but instead the awareness that I was hanging by a thread those many years, hustling to finish a book so I could begin another and keep a roof over our heads. I walked away from the corporate world in my early thirties and was determined never to go back. This meant taking whatever writing jobs came my way. I remember the jealousy of seeing other writers forge bigger careers, the despair of paychecks arriving long overdue, and the struggle to go from a guy with absolutely no training — no MFA, journalism degree, newspaper experience — into someone determined to make a full-time living as a writer. In-line Skating Made Easy was written in three weeks for a $4,000 payday. Survivor was written in forty days on an island off the coast of Borneo for not much more, at the exact same time I was finishing Farther Than Any Man. To Be A Runner was written on spec, meaning I wrote it for free, desperate to find a publisher. There were magazine assignments, works for hire, bad screenplays.

And on. These were contained in those clear plastic bins. Surely, this archive would dazzle any future biographer.

I threw it away.

All of it.

The archive was a fable. I told it to myself as inspiration and oxygen, fueling my hopes and dreams. I didn't work in a job with promotions or other indications of achievement, so I invented my own. Those manuscripts were solid evidence that I had done something to be proud of — took a risk, asked Callie to come along for the ride, and put books out into the world. But more important, they paid the mortgage, bought the baseball gloves, paid the tuitions.

But manuscripts are just pieces of paper scrawled with red pencil. It was nice to have one last glimpse and so cleansing to hurl them into the dumpster.

Yet I'm not throwing away everything in those bins. I also had a habit of tossing odds and ends of daily life in with the manuscripts, almost all having to do with our family. I thought writing was my life, but it turns out those third grade report cards, expired Disneyland passes, and Father's Day messages are much more important. Pictures of me and Callie, Little League game balls, playbills from the Arroyo Vista Children's Theater production of Hansel and Gretel. I'm saving those.

I always thought I became a writer so I could see the world and write books. I'm living that dream. Calene now travels along with me. But becoming a writer also means that I was working from home in this cluttered garage, strengthening my marital vows in the many hard and simple ways a relationship grows. I watched my boys become men. I loved just being with them, watching them, laughing with them, driving them to and from school until that horrible day when they got their driver's licenses and that thirty minutes in the morning and evening of listening to their hopes and dreams was no longer required. Those memories will never go away.

Who needs an archive?

LUCKY MAN

Photo: Martin Dugard

Taking Paris hits stores four weeks from today. I write this because it suddenly feels close and I want to remind myself that it's not tomorrow. Be patient. Twenty-eight days is a long time to wait for anything, including a Christmas-like event landing the first week in September. So I must remain calm, knowing that four Tuesdays from now will come when it comes. As I've written before, I don't know how other writers manage the long wait between completion of the manuscript and the publication date. I normally choose to ignore it.

But this time is different.

Right now, on the desk in front of me, I've got a very large Michelin map of Europe to help plan an upcoming adventure with Callie. Key cities are circled in pen, along with the minor burgs I've seen before and would like to visit again (Cherbourg, anyone?). But the map is a minor distraction, just like the continuing inability of the Angels to find starting pitching, and the endless stream of books I've been reading these past two months without really paying attention.

At the end of the day, writing is a solitary game. Calene supports me completely, always has, but she can only watch as my thoughts continuously return to Taking Paris and its upcoming release, whereupon the reviewers will weigh in with their critiques and the general public will vote with their dollars. I console myself now by re-reading some of the kind reviews that have already been published, but those are false prophets. Placebos. The true comfort in publishing a book comes with the knowledge that the writing was the best I've ever done ⁠— and a spot on The New York Times bestseller list. Good writing may be its own reward, but good writing and good sales pay the mortgage.

This may sound odd for those who know me well, with my independent streak and fondness for the Irish exit, but there are times when I long for a writing community. Covering the Tour de France all those years was more the merrier for the hours in the car with fellow writer Austin Murphy and the post-stage press room, stringing together a few thousand words on deadline surrounded by a cadre of international journalists bent on the same task.

And I am thankful for good friends in the writing business who email from time to time, or simply pick up the phone ⁠— guys like Martin Smith and Brian Sobel. Without them I would be wandering in a desert of my own making, just like when I transferred colleges in my junior year and lost my tribe. At the time, I didn't think of them as my tribe. I thought of them as the guys I drank beer with and stayed up late talking about records and girls; one Terry Sheridan drinking a Budweiser and flipping The River to Side Four while smoking a Marlboro. So I didn't think it would matter if I returned home to California for my last year of school. But it did.

While driving home from Mammoth, I was listening to swimmer Missy Franklin on Julie Foudy's podcast explain how alone she felt after graduating from college and returning home to train for the 2016 Olympics without the familiar faces of her university teammates. Her discussion of mental health was taped one year ago, a prescient commentary on the issues taking center stage in sports. I look at the solitude and lofty expectations that crushed a few notable athletes, all because they suddenly felt alone on the world stage with absolutely no one that could relate to the pressure they carried.

I certainly don't feel that sort of pressure. I don't fly through the air, twisting and somersaulting, suddenly lost as I can't locate my altitude, a very good chance of breaking my neck on landing. But on these days when the new book is four weeks out and I fervently pray that Taking Paris is the book that will finally land me on the NYT list on my own merits rather than piggybacking on the big names of my co-authors, it would be nice to have a small tribe to call bullshit and tell me to get off my high horse. It's just a book, they would say. Have a beer. Turn up the volume. Debate whether or not “Wreck on the Highway” really happened.

I do have such a tribe.

Two, in fact.

Actually, three.

My friends in the Tough Guy Book Club bust balls all the time. They've already read Taking Paris as part of our discussion and offered their opinions. Our weekend in Eugene at the Trials was epic, the latest in the series of adventures we've enjoyed around the world over the last decade.

My village of coaching friends has an insufferable group text that woke me up at 4 a.m. all last week to break down Olympic track and field events, to the point of predicting relay splits just for the hell of it in the wee hours. They're mostly sprint coaches and like to have a laugh at the expense of us distance guys, but I love them like brothers.

And then there's that original tribe from Northern Michigan University (I mention the name of the school because I recently discovered that the all-knowing Google has no response to the question typed in by some anonymous reader: "Where did Martin Dugard go to college?"), a group of buddies from Gant Hall with whom I reconnected years ago ⁠— although the precise location of one Terry Sheridan is still a mystery.

I started writing this blog without a plan, other than to say my book comes out in four weeks and I'm a little scared no one is going to read the pages I bled on every single day. Then the words to this missive wrote themselves, and I realized I am not enduring this alone. This fan of the Irish exit and deep introverted solitude actually has tribes ⁠— plural ⁠— ready to crack a beer, turn up the volume, and debate long into the night.

No matter what happens on September 7.

Lucky man.