Mark Matthews's Blog, page 47

My New Friend; Great Minds Think Aloud, and My Dead Friend Sarah

So, when I started this blog, my plan was that after a few posts, Brooks, Asics, and Nike would start a bidding war to sponsor me, and that the New York Times, USA today, and The Onion would fight for the right to own my doman space.  I also expected that every bit of running gear I was ever curious about would show up at my door step: compression shorts, Gu-Chomps, headlamps, Gu-in a can, running-shoe cams, all of it would be graciously showered upon me by companies eager for me to pimp their gear, and ultimately, my novels would be picked up by Random House and be placed on every bookstore shelf possible.

Well, that hasn't happened (yet)  but, I was approached by Great Minds Think Aloud Literary Community through GoodReads to be one of their site book reviewers. This means the chance to pick among a slew of novels, including many not yet released, and to dive in and then post my thoughts pretty much everywhere I can.  So, it has begun!  Look for a book review coming to you soon, and thanks to Great Minds Think Aloud for the opportunity. It also allows me to post some neat news, such as this freebie for your kindle they are offering today and tomorrow: Forgotten, by Doug Lucas

Goodreads is like the local coffee shop were you get to see local authors up close and find books that are amazing and unique that you otherwise would have never known about. I wanted to share my thoughts on one such novel.  The author is a blogger and seems to be a brother by another mother. (Check out his  deliciously twisted post about the danger of running with someone else's Ipod on.)

My thoughts on his novel,  My Dead Friend Sarah: by Peter Rosch

The premise of this novel, the characters, the set up, made me download with grand anticipation, and the novel did not fail to deliver. My Dead Friend Sarah is a smart and unique read that traces the thoughts of a newly recovering alcoholic who is having reoccurring dreams of a woman being kidnapped, and presumably killed.  As it is suggested for any alcoholic, he tries to "do the next right thing" and help this woman,  but in trying to prevent this from occurring, the question becomes, has his sickness been squeezed right back out of him? What do you get when a horse-thief stops drinking? Well, you get a sober horse-thief, as the saying goes, and a sober man out in the world can be way more dangerous than a drunken man holed up in his room with a bunch of empties.

The novel begins with a ping-pong of first-person narrators between Max, the main character, and Sarah, who is the object of his bizarre dreams. The back and forth was fun, but as it went on, it did begin to get a bit tiring, mostly because I feared the whole novel would be this way, but just as it got too much Sarah disappeared and so did her narrative. The reader, like Max, is left wondering where she went, is she alive? held hostage somewhere? and the bigger question, who is to blame?

The novel takes place in the mental topography of Max whose brain is a great place to visit. The more his thought processes began to spiral, the more the reader gets sucked in. It was like reading an Edgar Allan Poe story, trying to figure out if the main character is mad. You sort of think he's mad, yet you find yourself having empathy for his wild self-talk. The more I explored the terrain of his brain, the more I wanted to hear him think.

I kind of have an `in' with the topic, with my personal history of addiction recovery, working in the field of addiction, and writing my own novel of addiction. I'm thinking that if you have never waited for a liquor store to open then you would still love the novel, perhaps subtract a star, but if you are a Chuck Pahalniuk fan, add that star right back.  If  you have ever been "in the rooms"  the authors descriptions of AA in the novel are incredible and worth a read by themselves

Ultimately, the real test of any book for me is my level of enthusiasm in reading. Did I eagerly look forward to those reading moments? Did I make extra time to fit in a page or two in between the rest of my living? Did I make sure to swing by and grab the kindle when nature called? This novel hit all of those. In fact, I dangerously gave my wife a hushing noise as she tried to ask me a question during the last pages. This novel is a great dish of work told by an untrustworthy narrator, and it is fed to the reader in great bite-sized morsels.

**Don't just take my word for it, check out other readers who have given 5 stars.  My Dead Friend Sarah on Amazon:  



The Jade Rabbit; $3.99 on Amazon  Reviews of The Jade Rabbit


STRAY, $3.99 on Amazon
Reviews of STRAY

20 Miler Along 8 Mile

20 miles on the schedule today.  I planned this day off work in advance, so I could fit the long run in and have some veg time afterwards. It comes highly recommended by the author.

Similar to every marathon, with every long run there's always the fear that I wont' make it in the back of my mind. That I will blow up. That something will blow up. My stomach will blow up, my knee will blow up, my calf, my spirit, something.  It remands me of the expression that the idea of death is in every game. The idea that my legs will die is in every major run.  This voice of self-doubt appears to me as a vision of myself walking home with unused Gu in my pockets and my tail between my legs.

My calves had hurt all week, my last two runs of just six slow miles included walking breaks, and I had been icing and taking handfuls of ibuprofen, but still, even as of this morning, the calf hurt to the touch.  I made the mistake of doing the google diagnosis last night, and read all these posts about how if your calf hurts as such, that running on it can make it so much worse.

Instead, I trusted my experience.  Many times I have had this same pain, and as long as I started incredibly slow, let them warm up, that they would release instead of tighten and I could run free. I took Sunday fully off running, and did many Mr. Myagi warm my hands and then massage the hell out of them.

The weather was 70 at the start, 75 at the finish, zero clouds, a beautiful but hot day, but alas no emails form race officials offering a deferment.

As it was, I loved it. There is a space in my psyche and in my spirit that only a long run can tap in to. I started slow enough, sped up at times, and my legs felt as they should. Certainly not fresh as a regular taper would eventually provide, but enough that I could work through. I averaged under 8:20 pace with my fastest miles in the 7:50's and my slowest mile in the 8:40's.    That moment when I knew it was going to hurt but I was going to make it, I was good, and my second 20 miler would be behind me. The metamorphis that a long run puts you through was complete.

I have a loop I do, 4 miles to a gas station where I grab big jugs of water and a kit kat, place them under the shade of my own personal evergreen, and then do 4 miles, out and back,along 8 mile road (yes, that 8 mile) and then return to refuel.  Some minor hills are along the way to prepare me for the beasts I'm about to face in the Ann Arbor marathon, but the main goal is to train my body to run that far and fuel itself correctly.

As always, I saw some strange things. I waved to a neighbor at mile .5 and then again a few hours later at mile 19, and they gave me a perplexed look.

I had my hands in the air with a "WTF!: look at at least 3 cars who almost hit me.

And at one point, a hearse drove by, followed slowly by 20 cars with the orange flags on top. It is always a bit odd to see a funeral procession on a life-affirming long run. In my running haze the hearse stopped, a tall, pale man got out of the long black car, opened up the back door, and wheeled the casket my way.  The lid popped open to reveal the casket was empty just before it came to rest at my feet.

Of course, this metaphysical, supernatural, childhood memory fear-driven vision  faded away as quickly as I wiped the salty sweat from my eyes, and I watched as the funeral procession took a left turn to go honor the dead as I ran on. Miles to go before I sleep.

Next up is a 22 miler 2 weeks from now.


The Jade Rabbit; $3.99 on Amazon 
Reviews of The Jade Rabbit

STRAY, $3.99 on Amazon

Reviews of STRAY

Anyone remember this Dude below?  First person to name him wins a little something-something.
Hi, I drive a Hearse, I'm a Virgo, and I like walks on the beach.

Happy Mother's Day

Happy Mother's Day to all!!  
Yes, it easily the most important and challenging role in the world, not to speak in hyperbole or anything.

I saw this interesting passage today, which made me think that the challenges and rewards being a mother mimic those of being a runner;

Pleasure at the root of mommy behavior
Experts believe maternal behavior may be fostered by a pleasure system in the brain that involves areas such as the substantia nigra, which creates dopamine, a chemical messenger that interacts with certain brain cells and causes a "feel-good" high. "These are similar brain regions that are activated when a cocaine addict gets a shot of cocaine," said Strathearn said. "So for moms, it may be like having a natural high."
Or, it may be like taking a long run?

So, for Mother's Day, here's a short passage from The Jade Rabbit; the story of Janice Woodward, adopted from China at ten months old by a marathon-running mother,  and then raised in a Detroit suburb.

THE JADE RABBIT passage:
I remember swarming all over my mom’s lap as a child, almost trying to crawl inside of her, little hands tugging at any bits of flesh that she may have hanging off of her body. This was very difficult since she had nearly no body fat, so what I was left with was the small bit of skin I could pull at on her elbow, and even then only when her arm was straightened.The more I looked at her and touched her skin, the more questions I had. Why couldn’t I have her eyes? Why couldn’t I have her skin? And, ultimately, why couldn’t I have been in her belly? Mom expressed her regret over this as well: “You are loved by two mothers, I know it.” Mom would say this as if pleading to me, kneeling down in order to look at me eye to eye. I can see her now: a face that hypnotized me, a mirror of acceptance that when I looked into I could confirm that I was. Her hair hung at her side and framed a sincere set of brown eyes that were begging me to believe her. I was loved by two mothers, but yet I wasn’t sure I did believe her, because loved things aren’t given up so easy. But I hated to let her down, to make her feel any guilt, so I didn’t speak on this very often and rarely protested out loud. No, it didn’t feel like love from two mothers: it felt more like double love from one mother and one father who gave me their best.So, to try and make her proud, I did what she did. I shadowed her career choices, and emulated her as a runner. I tried to learn how she ran, match her beat, sway my arms just like her, and keep her same facial expressions. I even matched her internal dialogue with self talk-expressions like: “Hills, hills, I love hills,” “Light and fast, to the last,” “I am full of energy, I am energy,” “I am full of power, I am power,” and, “I am full of love, I am love.”But I couldn’t be her no matter how hard I tried. She was smoother than me and had a quicker footstrike that swept over the ground gracefully compared to my pitter-patter of pounding. And my arms always swayed and jerked around, while hers were like well oiled pistons, and pulled at the air in front of her, grabbed a handful, and then dropped it behind. I excelled in track, and loved the way it was a team sport yet individually driven. During races I would make quick glances to Mom from time to time for affirmations but always felt her eyes on me. “That’s her mother,” others had to say since it wasn’t as obvious as my teammates who usually shared the same bridge of a nose or an arch of their brow with their maternal counterparts.


If you're interested in more, The Jade Rabbit Chapter Nine
Or, buy the whole thing on Kindle for just .99 cents thru Mothers Day. The Jade Rabbit;

Reviews of The Jade Rabbit


STRAY, $3.99 on Amazon


Reviews of STRAY

Never Catch Me Alive

Chuck Wendig is my favorite writing blogger. I love him like a 6 year old boy loves pirates, and he has a flash fiction contest this week to promote his book, Dinocalypse Now.  The only conditions are: it has to be about Dinosaurs, and is has to be under a 1,000 words.  So, I'm a flash fiction rookie, but here's my take about how a Dinosaur who loves to run may have destroyed his species.

Never Catch Me Alive

I would have been eaten first, if I wasn’t so fast. It’s not my fault, I just have a bit of a kick to my legs, so that when the Meat-Eaters came for me, I enjoyed it. I wouldn’t say so, but I loved it when they attacked.  Sure, I didn’t like seeing my friends have their necks dug into with daggers of teeth, and the little noise only our breed can make while being eaten alive, but being chased was a rush. My legs kicking in the dirt, muscles firing away. It was ecstasy, especially first thing in the morning, when I could smell the blood of my brothers on the roaring breath behind me.
Nobody knew I was teasing them, letting them get close to my tail before accelerating ahead. The longer the chase, the better I felt - so free, so alive.
But now all the meat-eaters were either dead or dying.  If we came across any they were too tired to move. The meat is gone, they are gone, and we’ll be gone too, if we don’t find water or forage.
The meteors that showered down upon us seem to have stopped. The earthquakes that swallowed some up and made canyons are gone, but the heat that boils our blood remains.   
We walk with our heads down, maybe 15 of us, moving under a sun that has grown to encompass everything.  Everything is in hues of orange and red like a bloody eyeball on fire.  
Some have sunk in oily tarpits.  I think maybe they are the lucky ones. The rest of us, walk on.
My body is dying and my spirit is crushed since I can’t run. A few fast strides would certainly boil the last bit of water inside me, so instead I step forward, head down, with ten brethren with me now perhaps. The others have fallen behind and will die slow. Something ahead is tugging at my heart, but I make no mention of this.
There have been murmurs of cannibalism, of eating the more sickly who are slowing us down… nobody is thinking straight. None of us have eaten meat and would not be able to.  But I can already tell the two who are going to try.
Mostly we just walk across the scorched earth looking for water. And anything green. Water and green.
My family drops, our herd thins.  Their eyes remain open as they fall to the desert ground, but something pulls me forward despite my hollow stomach. I can feel myself feeding on my own organs, my stomach sucking at my liver, my once powerful legs cannibalizing themselves. It’s just me and one other now, a female, walking two by two.
Up ahead I see what is pulling me. A flying mass with tiny brilliant shining suns. It is like the moon has come down to hover near the ground, and brought with it all the stars of the sky stuck onto its outsides, blinking as the massive vessel floats.  Below it, animals herd to it, summoned there, two of each; elephants, insects, alligators, snakes, and flying creatures circling above.
Hovering on the ship’s bridge a being appears, standing on two legs. Grey hair comes long out of its face, and somehow I can hear him in my brain.
“This is the first of the great floods” his voice rings in my brain, “it is one of fire and will destroy all. I come to take you to safety, where the pastures are green and glisten with rains. Come, come be in peace. In time, you shall return, and multiply, and repopulate this planet once again....”
Weary animals saunter with heavy legs, and out of the big ship I see small balls of orbs floating, flying, and scooping them up with mighty jaws, before returning to bring their captives back. To eat them or save them, it is unclear, but no energy is left to give resistance, so they are eaten by the orbs and taken back inside the floating ship.
Two orbs shoot at us, and I watch as my female brethren gets swallowed. I see her face resigned to capture. 
My pulse quickens. A trap, like a raid on a sleeping herd, a slaughter, the final…
No. No, I will not be caught… and just as the shooting ball comes flying to me I move. I run with legs that feel hollow. I run, with the last bit of my might, my legs kick, my  legs fly, the fear of death commands them and I have faced monsters before and have not lost, but this one is new, moves without legs and has jaws of steel. My feet bound over the scorching ground; I dash and dash but not fast enough. The whooshing noises are closing in behind me.
It’s done, I can’t go on. There’s no fuel left inside me for the run, just tiny particles of the dust in the air shooting in out of my lungs and the electric current in my spine that propels me.  I can sense the jaws opening, ready to eat me, a boulder in front of me, and I run to it, ready to smash open my head against it because I won’t be caught alive.
I pivot before the rock, hear the crashing noise of this round flying beast smashing into its surface, titanic crash noises and shavings flying everywhere.  I collapse, fall to the ground, I’m done but not caught. Never will be caught again.
In the air, I see the giant ship swallow up the last of its captives, and it shoots into the sky. Gone. All of them gone.
It’s never a mistake to run, I tell myself, never a mistake to run.  I will be caught, but not alive.  My eyes close, I feel safe, the tiny streams of running ecstasy remain in my blood. The wind buries me in sand, and I wait for the day someone will dig for me.


The Jade Rabbit; $3.99 on Amazon  (** Now just .99 cents on kindle thru mothers day!!)

Reviews of The Jade Rabbit

STRAY, $3.99 on Amazon

Reviews of STRAY

The Avengers

Yes, along with the rest of the population, I saw The Avengers this week.  It is basically Iron man 3, Thor 2, and Captain America 2, plus another remake of the Hulk, so why not?  I am not a major comic book fan, but I am a big fan of comic book mythology and love their origin stores.
The Avengers was fun, but certainly flawed in ways movies such as The Dark Knight was not, but with all the mish-mash  coming together, I thought it was done very well. If the movie were a puddle, it would not be a deep one but it would still be a blast to jump in.  If The Avengers were a Budweiser, than the Dark Knight is a Heineken.
Their conversations and spats due to contrasting personalities were the coolest, and it was in their quietest moments that they steal the show.  Of course the action was cool. There is an Iron Man-Thor fight, and then the Hulk gets in the fray, which is fun. It was like you put them all in a glass Jar and shook it, just to make them all angry and fight each other.  But in the words of The Wonderpets, “What’s gonna work? Teamwork!”
Some thoughts about the Motley Crue:
Character you would most want to marry your daughter: Captain America:   Loyalty, black and white thinking, dedication to higher causes, safe and conservative, he was the engineer in college who got nervous when someone lit up a joint. 
Character I would most want to be for a day: The Hulk : He really stole the show for me. The vulnerable Mark Ruffalo was brilliant, and like the character, you felt his concern ‘can the hulk ever be controlled’ to focus his rage?. Dr. Bruce Banner is the intellect, the hulk is the savage, and damn I wish I had the two in me as magnificent as he did.
Character most likely to be wearing a Black Sabbath t-shirt: Iron Man: Why? Well, because he was!  I love Iron Man. “I Am Iron Man” (um, which is sung by Black Sabbath, by the way).  Iron man is my favorite, suave and confident with all the electronic gadgetry that makes my man-cave look pre-prehistoric.  If the Avengers were the Beatles, he would be Ringo.  This movie offered not much new from Iron Man, more of the enjoyable same, except perhaps a bit more selfless heroics.
Character most likely to have had some angst ridden teenage years: Black Widow: There was a ton of lingering questions under the surface, which at times she fabricated just to get information from others, and deceptiveness is part of her game, so what’s real and what isn’t?  But its clear she has some superhero love for Hawkeye (both of them are orphans) and her inner psyche seemed to have the most hidden and swirling turbulence. If the Black Widow were a singer, she would be a Fiona Apple and Alanis Morissette mix.
Character you most want making your family scrap album. Thor: Always Regal and Kingly. Family and cultural heritage seems primary, he’s fighting another fight, started long ago, in a galaxy far, far away…    (I am sensitive to the issue, but I didn't appreciate his "Loki was adopted" comment.)
Character who you think, "if I just train really hard, maybe I can be him:" Hawkeye : I think it would be harder for me to get his biceps than his wicked bow skills, and his sweet variety of arrows that would make Bo and Luke Duke trip over Daisy.

There you have it, my take on the crew of The Avengers, and thank god we live in an age were Geeks dreams can come true.

(If the post were a potato chip, it would have bubbles in it, and you would have first stared at it, admired it, wondered how that little potato chip bubble had made it all the way through the factory, into the crinkly bag, traveled on the truck over miles, and onto the shelf, without being popped. And you would have popped it and eaten it by now.)

The Jade Rabbit; $3.99 on Amazon  (** Now just .99 cents on kindle thru mothers day!!)

Reviews of The Jade Rabbit

STRAY, $3.99 on Amazon

Reviews of STRAY

"How Was My Weekend?" You Ask.

It’s Monday morning, 8:32 am, and I plop my laptop bag on my cubicle. You’re sitting next to me, and give me a 'late again' look that I never seem to notice.  “How was your weekend?” you ask, not looking away from your keyboard.”
I know you don't really care, but I decide to give details anyways.
“On Friday, I watched The Descendants. It was either that or Mission Impossible 3: Ghost Protocol,  and since my wife was watching with me, George Clooney won over Tom Cruise.  I really liked it, except that Mr. Clooney seemed a bit too put together for a man who was being tested and about to crack.  I never got the sense he wouldn’t handle it all reasonably well, and in fact, expected him to grab a dozen folks and rob a bank at the end or something.”
“Satuday morning, I took a sweet run with 40 minutes of hills and then four mile intervals at the track. I’m starting to feel intimidated by the hills at the Ann Arbor Marathon, so have started to personify them, to talk to the Hills, to call them names and think out loud 'you got nothing, you got nothing! Bring it, bring it on' and I beg them to hit me like Rocky to Apollo Creed.  I didn’t want the run to end, since I knew once my legs were cooled down the tendons at my knees would swell and the bones about to crack.   

"Later it was off to Macy’s to buy a new suit for my wifes foster care agency 50th Charity ball.  I loved the first suit I saw, and as I walked around Macy’s with it on looking for a suitable tie, a strange thing happened. People started treating me differently. It was clear and easy to see.  They were moving out of my way, giving me space, saying excuse me, all because I had a $500 dollar suit on rather than the usual $1.75 pair of jeans bought with a half-off coupon at Value World (the local thrift store)
You look at the jeans I’m wearing, and wonder if they are the $1.75 variety.  You start to itch.
"Later that day," I keep blabbing, "we all went to the high school football field and had relay races with the kids, and played a mean game of  freeze tag. I went barefoot, and pretended me to be a minimalist .  You and me both know I’m not," I whisper. 

"And then Saturday night I watched a  Bill Moyers interview with  Luis Urrea an incredible man, who grew up near the Mexican/US border, and who’s latest book is about the garbage pickers in Tijuana.  It was perfect research for a novel I’ve started about a family who travels to the San Diego marathon.  The plot is taking shape, and who knows it may go in the DNF pile (did not finish) but the characters are cool.  She was a self-mutilator as a teen, lost her first child, but starts a new life when her child dies, and gets her old scars covered up by a plethora of Tattoos and ramps up her exercise and starts marathoning.  She of course falls in love with her tattoo artist, who fathers her second child on the first day they meet, but fearful of another lose she won’t fully commit to him, and it’s only by allowing himself to be trained by her to run a marathon can he prove himself.  Of course, they never make it there, but the real test will come during the short, day before training run when they encounter a strange group of homeless people living amongst the Tijuana/San Diego drug tunnels. Inspired by true events.

It should be a lot of fun and a different tone.  I think I told you that The Jade Rabbit was written to the song “A hard Rain is gonna Fall” by Bob Dylan,  and that Stray was written to the Tune “Heroin”  by Velvet Underground. Well this novel is being written to the tune "Icky Thump" by The White Stripes.
'Icky Thump', your face shows fear,  since you downloaded the sample of Stray, thought it odd and pulsating and that I should perhaps be drug tested more often.  Of course, you read the first pages of The Jade Rabbit which seemed sweet, but any man who writes pretending to be a woman is just not right. And then there’s that Dwight Schrute bobblehead doll on my desk.
"Sunday it was a 6 mile recovery run, followed by some trampoline bouncing with the kids which is a great way to loosen up the legs some more.  Then it was off to the zoo.  Check it out:"
You glance up with courtesy at my cell phone and see:


 "Sunday night is perhaps the greatest night on Television,” I then explain.

You brace yourself, ready to hear me explain  how Sunday night Soprano’s on HBO is the birthplace of modern tv dramas.
"Game of Thrones was the best episode yet." I explain instead, "And Veep is simply tolerable, but who wouldn’t want to see Elaine from Seinfield be a cussing politician. But the show 'Girls' is simply incredible.  Cutting edge, so modern that it happens five minutes from now, and the best 28 minutes on television. In fact, last night….."
“ Sounds nice,”  you say, finally cutting me off and  moving your body signaling you have had enough. You pull out a Microsoft excel database that tracks how many times the customer service rep goes to the bathroom every hour,  number of days the tall woman wears those ungodly high heels, and the number of times I have come in late and annoyed you.  Your data updated, you go on with your day.


The Jade Rabbit; $3.99 on Amazon
Reviews of The Jade Rabbit

STRAY, $3.99 on Amazon

Reviews of STRAY

Running and The Drive-By Screamers

So, the other day I was moving along on a pretty good clip during a run on the sidewalk.  My brain was dissociating, thinking about nothing and everything at the same time, my gait was strong, my spirit joyful, my outlook bright, and I was cherishing one of those running moments that is like gathering tiny bits of sparkling diamond bliss on my grand lake of life.

Suddenly a monster attacked, an evil monster, which shrieked in my ear and made my backbone shrug. My spine stuck itself deep into the base of my brain, shock waves flew through me, and I lurched to dodge the onslaught that I was sure would rip me in half. And next to me, a SUV full of teenagers drove by, one blonde haired pimply-faced kid laughing hysterically with his head halfway out the window.

Yes, I had become a victim of the drive by 'screamer,' an aggressive, guerrilla like attack victimizing many runners moving along sidewalks when fast moving car riders decide to yell in their ear upon their approach.

All the wonderful Zen like molecules had dispersed from my body and were now hiding deep in a dark corner. Rage boiled in my blood.  My veins, in fact, couldn't contain the boiling blood and they exploded, making my whole face and skin turn blood red. My legs fueled with hulk-like energy. I’d had enough. This had to stop. They had to pay, and I began my chase at the white SUV.

Their laughing faces mocked me from the back window as I gave chase, getting smaller as the car drove off, but still I ran on, my pace firing away and my lungs loving the burn.  6:30 mile pace, 6:15 pace,  5:42, 4:48, and at a near sprint to a 3:59 mile, causing other drivers to turn their heads, running gods to have secret conversations, and potential sponsors to take notes.  Motivation wasn’t the problem.  I would destroy every fragment of their being, make them beg for their mothers, teach them a lesson from every single runner's bliss destroyed by their evil screams.

Still, they were going to get away, it was hopeless. The car moved at 45 miles per hour, and I watched helpless as their faces got smaller and smaller and drove into the distance.

But there was a stop light up ahead, which had just turned green. Lucky for me, at the young age of 8 I had been visited by a magic genie, and I still had one wish remaining and I decided now was the perfect time to use it.”Genie, light turn Red!” I said with force, and in a quick blink of an eye, it went from green to red, (skipping yellow), cars screeched to a halt, and the white SUV was stuck, five cars deep, behind a red light. Now my super human legs were sure to catch the passengers inside.

 Quickly I was on them.  Their surprised faces bumbled in horror. I ripped off my shirt, covered up my fist, and with a bellowing roar busted through the windshield with one punch. I reached in and grabbed the screaming, startled, blonde haired teen as he wet himself, and lifted him by the neck, through the windshield, and tossed him on the ground.  Before he could move, I ripped a stop sign off of the ground, held it in the air, ready to smash the red octagon down on the man when I looked into the eyes of the victim and paused. 

His eyes were a crazy swirl, his brain waves shot at me with force and I could hear him think. I could hear his thoughts, but it wasn't just him I could hear, it was the entire collective voice of drive by screamers who have taunted runners for years.  Our eyes were transfixed, me listening with the ears of the community of runners who we have longed to trap this elusive perpetrator.

 "I have no outlet, I have no way to feel like you do,” he said,  “and running mocks me, threatens me, and therefore I need to project my angst on to you. It gives me power in my otherwise powerless existence to frighten you, to try to shatter your inner peace and chip away at your running strength that I fear I can never have.  It is my mental vandalism, and only evidence of my immaturity and envy towards your power. Please pity me.”

I paused. Time stopped.  A lifetime of runs with screaming drivers passing by flashed through my eyes, and I heard the same from all of them. It all made sense.

So, instead of smashing the man, I turned the sign flat, held it right into his face before his eyes and said, “STOP, Stop doing this, leave us alone, we won't put up with it anymore.”

The message soaked into his consciousness, I could feel it, the car full of his friends could feel it, the red stop light could feel it, and all the perps of the running world could feel it.  At that moment, the genie appeared behind me, and with his finger pointed in a thug-like manner added "because, if you ever do it again, you will be cursed, your children will be cursed, and your children’s children will be cursed. All of them. And all of them will suffer from spontaneous bloody nipples, chronic dehydration, leg cramps, illitibal band syndrome, Plantar fasciitis,  untimely diarrhea, and other marathoning ailments unlike any distance runner has ever seen. You’ll wish you’d never been born. Hear me?"

“Okay, okay dude," said the blonde haired fifteen year old, who scurried off the grass, into the SUV, and they drove off as the light turned green.

I only felt bad for the broken glass.

The Jade Rabbit; $3.99 on Amazon
Reviews of The Jade Rabbit

STRAY, $3.99 on Amazon

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"Okay, So Now What?"

 
Turned in the first of my three twenty mile runs on Sunday, training for the Ann Arbor Marathon.  I get pretty high maintenance about these runs and treat them like the pinnacle of my training. They are mapped out and circled on the calendar long before they happen. I do a mini-taper and get rested before the event. I have my shoes out the night before, fav socks and shorts washed. In fact, if I am running early, I often sleep in the very same shorts I will be running in. It just eliminates one step.  My  little 'run refreshments' are ready to go the night before, meaning gu chomps, gu gels, s-caps, and money tucked into my shorts, and I put my breakfast out so I can eat right upon waking and wash it down with fresh coffee. Unlike some others who don’t eat a thing, I eat about 800 calories before these runs.   An ipod playing list has been hand chosen and ipod is fully charged. And of course I check the weather about sixteen thousand times, including details of each hour and winds, and map in motion.
As it is, flexibility is needed and you can't control everything, and a fever hit one of my children. This certainly brings out the eternal nurse in my wife,  but as I didn’t want to leave her alone in the house, I hit the treadmill in the basement to stay nearby just in case. Now I need shows ready, DVR set up,  blu-rays on hand, and the remotes lined up along the treadmill. By the way, my gears consist of a pair of Nike Pegasus shoes, I run on A Nordic Track Commercial 1500 treadmill, and watch a Samsung 32 inch HD with a Blue-Ray player, Netflix streaming as well as DVR.
And to think, somewhere out there a minimalist running dude is putting in these miles barefoot on some Colorado mountain trail.
The  treadmill was  a good idea anyway, since my legs are tore up and my knees constantly sore since from two major hill runs I did this week. After finally looking at the Ann Arbor course map which is twice as hilly (literally, twice as much elevation gain) as Boston, I went a little spastic. I was hoping that the soft surface of the treadmill would be more kind on my legs, and maybe I can put in these 20 miles with my knees not even noticing.
50/50.. with these odds, you'd be the favorite game in Vegas.
I’ve  always known that a long-run puts me into a strange emotional space. That's part of why I do it.  It basically makes me “long-run drunk”, and this was once again confirmed when I watched the movie, 50/50, and once again found myself sweating and crying and feeling the whole spectrum of emotional mucus.   50/50 is a great Bromance cancer treatment movie.  There was the unneeded elements of Wedding Crasher sprinkled in the film, but this may have been the best route to let Seth Rogen work his great comedic genius where he gets away with a crude playfulness. The movie was at times irreverent but also ultra-realistic and a touching look at how the world treats cancer patients, as well as a reminder of our mortality. It's a disease that has struck close to home, and motivated me to run the Chicago marathon raising funds for the American Cancer Society.  So, yes, in at least two scenes, I found my face filled with a mix of sweat and tears, and I had some good laughs and a wonderful time. Thirteen miles of the run passed like nothing and I was better off for it.
The movie ended with the great line, “Okay, so now what?” before fading to black.  Any good story should end with a new beginning playing in your mind long after the shades are drawn, the books is closed, or the credits roll. It didn’t hurt to have a Pearl Jam song playing as the credits rolled in 50/50.
My run  outlasted the movie, so I put in the last hour of Warrior to rewatch and all my major aches and pains of the run went away. It’s impossible to watch that movie and feel physical pain, and it was as great as the first time I watched in my 'Long-run drunkenness.'  I cruised through the end of the 20 miles, my pace clipping along in a satisfactory manner just 45 seconds slower than hoped for marathon pace.  I think part of how you measure a long run is if you can keep the same pace and gait at the end, with maybe tiny bits of reserve of energy left, as well as how you feel the next few days and how long it takes to recover. Nailed the first part, and the damage from the 20 miles will show up soon enough. Better than 50/50 my knee did notice, and I'll be skipping at least one run this week.
Okay, so now what? Rest up for a day, ice all the sore tendons with a bag of frozen peas, and then slowly build up to do a couple of ten milers = either marathon pace runs or a nice hill run, before my next 20 miler two weeks away, which I will definitely have to do on the road, and then a final 22 miler on Memorial day weekend three weeks out from marathon day.
Unless, of course, I get diagnosed with a tumor.
"The Jade Rabbit" - $3.99 on Amazon
Reviews of The Jade Rabbit

"STRAY", by Mark Matthews,- $3.99 on Amazon

 Reviews of "STRAY"

Wrapping Ourselves In The Space Blanket: "Unwasted," in Review

To train for, run, and finish a marathon takes incredible motivation, and the spark to light this fire comes from all sorts of sources.  For one five year old girl, the inspiration came from wanting to wrap herself in the tin foil 'space blanket' - You know, those tin foil things supposed to keep you warm when your sweaty, slimy, mucus-filled body hits the cold air at the finish line.
As a child Sacha Scoblic volunteered in the New York City marathon, holding out water, and describes how “thousands roamed the park that day, but the special ones – the runners, the day’s heroes – all stood out, wrapped as they were in silver foil space blankets like gods amongst us.”  She slept that night, plotting to run a marathon, thinking “I would get a space blanket of my own.”   These snippets took place at the end of a hilarious, touching, and poignant memoir about recovery from addiction called Unwasted: My Lush Sobriety
I first got a chance to chat a bit with the author on a site called Goodreads. If you are interested in reading and haven’t checked out the site, stop reading right now and go there.  Goodreads is a community where the lines between reader and writer are slowly getting erased, many of us are bits of both, maybe more one than the other, but it feels like a hippie writer commune at times. As a writer, I am able to communicate with those who have reviewed my books (either praising them or slamming the snot out of them) and have spoken with many writers who otherwise would have been off limits.  Unlike other social media demons, the site does not demand to be updated and is much less intrusive.  (See Ten Reasons Why I Love Goodreads)
But back to Unwasted.The author is a contributing editor at The New Republic and formerly a senior editor at Reader’s Digest. Unwasted is an entertaining, and illuminating book that simply made me 'happy' to have read it. It reads like a witty conversation, with amazing perceptions, and hidden truths revealed about the freshly sober thoughts of a great and fun writer.




As a recovering individual, I was constantly thinking "I did that!" or "Oh my gosh, someone else thinks that too?" So many experiences mirrored my own as well as others I know in recovery, and the way they are presented is fresh, clever, and with a near dark humor where the author never takes herself too seriously, yet never lets the stakes of sobriety be dismissed.  The novel didn’t have the oozing sentimentality most writers treat their addiction, and with just the right dash of AA program to make it a sweet, fun reflection on sobriety.
It was with less than a year sober and her last cigarette ash still hot in the ashtray, that the author taps into her adventurous spirit and begins her marathon training.  The regiment is pretty simple; two 45 minute runs with one weekend long run (hey, um that is exactly my training these days) and as is the case with marathons, it  squeezes and squeezes until it sucks everything out of you were looking for. Self-doubt fights the strong self-will during her training, like two dogs fighting, and as the old recovery adage goes, the dog you feed the most is the dog who will win the fight. The author uses the spirit of Marathoning support groups as a reflection of how she gains support from others in addiction recovery.
The marathon section of the book is just the dessert after a great main course, but it is fitting, because when she triumphs and  the tears comes at mile 25, when she conquers the marathon, it’s a final nail her sobriety hammers in the coffin of her addiction. The addiction carcass inside, however, is still alive and clawing to get out if given the chance, yet having fulfilled the dreams of her five year old self and earning a space blanket of her own, there's now nothing to fear.
Okay, that last bizarre analogy was mine, but don't we all wrap ourselves in the space blanket for so many reason, the cold is just one.  Like the author of Unwasted, it reminds us of our personal power.  Running becomes the physical expression of a spiritual battle.
My only fear when reading Unwasted was that the author would die at the end, because if she did, I should surely fear for my own life, since it was like I was reading about a version of myself in some alternate universe (a female, more talented version, sure) where before running our first marathons, we drank enough booze to fill the cups of 26 miles worth of aid stations and staggered through the city streets for many miles before deciding to run through them. 

As it was the author lived, and then moved on to more difficult things, like staying sober in a wasted world, and trying to dance to the beat of Led Zeppelin.  Check it out on Amazon. Unwasted: My Lush Sobriety


The Jade Rabbit; $3.99 on Amazon

Reviews of The Jade Rabbit

STRAY, $3.99 on Amazon

Reviews of "STRAY"

**Three 20 milers before the Ann Arbor Marathon Taper begins, about a million more dollars to raise until I can run New York in November.   ...and miles to go before I sleep.



 

Win The Lottery By Being Born

 
If you are in the New York City Marathon Lottery, you recently got an email that looks like this: Mark Matthews
Application Number: 915817The ING New York City Marathon application is closing on April 23, and you can't wait to hear if you've been accepted. We've received your application, so you're off to a good start. To make sure that everything goes smoothly if your name is chosen in our non-guaranteed entry drawing, please review your application and your credit card information by April 23.  
Well, on Wednesday, April 25th, the lottery will be drawn for who is eligible to run in the 2012 New York City Marathon.  Unless you can run extra fast times, for example a sub 2:55 to qualify rather than the sub 3:10 for Boston, the ability to run in the New York Marathon is more likely to be by chance, where Boston is more likely to be due to running a fast enough Marathon.

But here's my question: is the ability to run in either marathon by chance?

Are both Boston and NYCM 'lotteries' in their own right?

Is it just chance that one is born with the genetic material to qualify for Boston, or for New York?  How much of running success is based on genetics, and how much is the internal drive to train?  

It seems clear the results on the clock aren't solely a direct reflection of our training. All you have to do is look around you, and you will see people who you train just as hard as who will always be faster. And on the other hand, no matter how hard others train, there are always those we can just naturally outrun. Certain muscle types, ways our bodies process carbohydrates and burn fuel, stride length and a zillion other factors come to play.

On the other hand, if someone dismissed my ten years of training it took to finally run a BQ worthy race as 'genetics', I would jump on a soapbox and lecture through a megaphone at passerby's about my long odyssey and hardwork. I can imagine those who are really fast and train for a lifetime to qualify for the Olympics would yell much louder. Most of training seems to be tapping into something much deeper than genetics. To say we were just born with a runners body would be dismissive of the rigorous training, hours of sweat, running through pain, and blasting ourselves through hurdles by summoning spiritual, emotional, and psychological strength time and time again.

But is there a marathoning genetic threshold we reach, that even if we are training at our hardest we will still bump our head against a BQ or NYCM-Q ceiling that is impossible to bust through?  I can't believe that a certain percentage isn't what we start with, and  that only by tapping into an iron will, discipline, work ethic, and insatiable drive can we push our genetics to their potential.  Then again, maybe genetics are plastic and malleable. Look at a caterpillar and a butterfly: They've got the same genes. One flies, and one can barely crawl.

There are tons of articles and research regarding this topic, much revolving around the Kenyans, and if it is their diet, lifestyle, and culture, that contributes tot heir success, or is it genetic, and can you really separate the two like that.  One interesting point I've read is that almost none of the top Kenyan runners have sons or daughters who are excelling at running.. Why? Because their father or mother becomes a world champion, has incredible resources, and the child never has to run to school again.

A deeper question is if the motivation to excel is partially genetics as well.  That when we say genetics, it is not as much the makeup of our biology but that which drives us to perform, the will to train and push our bodies to manipulate them into the best and fastest vehicle possible. Is the desire to train, and the ability to feel the 'high' and rewards of running also hard-wired into us?

"Maybe it wasn't talent the Lord gave me, maybe it was the passion." was what Wayne Gretzky, the 'great one' once said.

Each of us is an experiment of one, and all we can do is train our hardest and hope we find the right mix.


The luck of the draw
I've heard a scenario described by Warren Buffeet where it’s 24 hours before your birth, and a genie appears to you. Before you enter the world, you will pick one ball from a barrel of  7 billion. That ball will determine your gender, race, nationality, natural abilities, and health — whether you are born rich or poor, sick or able-bodied, brilliant or below average, American or Kenyan.

Buffett calls it the ovarian lottery and explains, “You’re going to get one ball out of there, and that is the most important thing that’s ever going to happen to you in your life.”

Well, in order to help those how have fared much less than I in the 'ovarian lottery,'  I am running the NYCM through the Charity Run option by supporting  Covenant House , who's work I have seen first hand. They serve those who were born into circumstances much worse than I, which always makes me grateful, since if I am picked tomorrow or not, I already won the Lottery By Being Born.

"The Jade Rabbit" - $3.99 on Amazon

Reviews of The Jade Rabbit


"STRAY", by Mark Matthews,- $3.99 on Amazon

 Reviews of "STRAY"