Runners Aren't Solitary

The idea of the solitary runner, devoted to the sport like a monk to his order or committed to it like a convict, depending on whether you favor Once a Runner or The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner, runs counter to the actual evidence.

Both stories, one American, one British, involve the isolation of the individual and the starkness of the decisions that they make as runners. That makes for compelling fiction but falls short in expressing the runners as actually exist. Mind you, this is not a complaint against either—fiction writing, by its nature, dramatizes and expands the human experience. These books did both outstandingly well by focusing on a single aspect, the solitariness of their paths and the determination to trod it in their own fashion.

That doesn’t describe the majority of us. For evidence, I point to the large number of running groups that gather weekly to run together, train together, and race together. The truth is that running is a communal activity, one that probably is hard-wired into our genes. In Born to Run, Chris McDougall recounts the stories of the African Bushmen on the hunt, the Tarahumara playing their running games, and the incredible sight of one of the best ultrarunners in the world, Scott Jurek, standing wrapped in a blanket to cheer on the last finisher.

Even Micah True, aka Caballo Blanco, the ultimate loner, jumped in to pace the Tarahumara at Leadville and later organized the races that would become famous in the book, not for himself, but for the villages in the Copper Canyons.

Less extreme examples make an appearance every weekend in a town close to you. If the local running group isn’t out for a training run, they’re out racing or helping organize a fundraiser of a race. After that comes the gathering for coffee, if not a full breakfast.

We don’t always run in packs, the way cyclists do, but we give each other encouragement on the trails, quick smiles or an honest “Great job!” on passing. We wave, and yes, we try to figure out who’s faster. It’s human nature.

This comes to mind because cross country practice has begun, and I have a new generation of kids that I’m coaching. Already I can see them starting to bond. For the returnees, the first day of practice is like stretching a muscle memory, remembering how this team, this community, practices and plays together.

Kids that I’ve heard slam each other with insults in the hallways unabashedly cheer on their teammates during the practices. Soon, they will do the same at the races. They also cheer on the other team, which I think is a unique feature of running. When Duke played Wisconsin for the NCAA Championship, I don’t think anyone cheered for both at the same time, yet I see people and runners do it all the time at local cross country races.

Someone once said, and I have unfortunately forgotten who, that English is a wonderful language because it has words for both alone and solitude. Running, cross country racing, is similar.

It’s a solitary activity that most people do with a group, a race that we want to win and want the other bloke to do well.

Run gently, friends. Give a shout out to the next runner you meet – he or she is part of your tribe, after all.

Racing the Rain is out

My three copies of Racing the Rain, John L. Parker's best book to date, arrived today.

Why three copies?

One for me, obviously. One for the XC team, so I don't lose my copy like I did (twice!) with Once A Runner. To be fair, I lost a copy or two to family members as well. The final one for the school library - that way, I can send the junior high kids down the hall with a recommendation on a book they'll love.

Below, the review I wrote back in May for the advance copy. Next time I see John, I'm getting my copy signed. Hopefully, that will be the Olympic Trials next year in Eugene.

Still envious of that cover . . .

For those that want to order a copy, feel free to use the link to the side. I'm an Amazon affiliate. Not much money is involved, but a latte a year isn't too much to ask, is it?

Run gently, friends - or curl up with a brand new book and head off for an adventure on Florida's Gold Coast.

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Racing the Rain delivers the goods on young Quenton Cassidy with Parker’s flair for inspirational running scenes, an intriguing cast of characters, and a verdant setting above and below the surface of the Florida Gold Coast.

Parker opens the novel with scenes from an American childhood that will seem alien to most of his young readers, but that resonates with authenticity for the age; and, of course, there’s a race.

The boys in the story—Cassidy, his friends Stiggs and Randleman—roamed freely as the story unfolds, the early years touched on at the highlights, until Racing the Rain settles into the early teenage years when Cassidy turns serious about sports even as he searches for his identity.

For Cassidy, identity gets bound by the character of the Florida Gold Coast and by Trapper Nelson. Trapper, who as Cassidy thought of it, “. . . was supposedly bigger and stronger than Paul Bunyan, had more powers than Superman, knew more about animals than Tarzan . . .”  is the first to suggest that Cassidy pursue running, and was wise enough to wait for the seed to germinate. Trapper lives alone in the Everglades and the two form a relationship built on a mutual appreciation of each other and the Glades.

Parker’s ability to write a race scene that leaves your pulse pounding was the backbone of Once a Runner. In Racing the Rain, he adds a graceful skill in describing the natural world of Cassidy, whether describing a foray to capture bait fish amongst the cattails in the tide pools, scuba-diving in coral “so exotic they seemed not the product of the natural world, but of some schizophrenic jeweler,” or the feel of the oppressive summer heat as he works for Trapper maintaining an exotic menagerie. Parker’s affinity for Florida helps him paint the scenes with details that allow the richness of the place and time shine through.

As an author, Parker also added some misdirection to his repertoire as he gently builds a training program for young runners under the guise of telling the story. Gone are the sixty quarter miles, replaced by the guiding wisdom of Archie San Romani through Trapper, and later, from his coaches, especially Mr. Kamrad. The running is interspersed with basketball. It’s on the court that Cassidy first stars, learning the lessons of diligent practice and focus to reach beyond the barriers that had been applied to him.

Parker does a smooth job of bringing the previous book’s characters back to round out the scenes. Readers of Once a Runner will recognize many of the characters, not the least Mizner and a young Jack Nubbins and the race finale takes place at Southeastern University, the setting for Once a Runner.

Parker continues to blend in the science of training with his racing, but does so subtly. He sets basketball as the prestige sport, with cross country and track distant also-rans in the school hierarchy of popularity, not so different from the reality for most runners. As the plot develops, so does Cassidy’s character. The reader watches the writer deftly molding young Cassidy into the man that he will be in Once a Runner, the athlete with an almost visceral rejection of stupidity masquerading as authority. The tension builds through the second third of the novel as Cassidy is forced, by a combination of his own talents and decisions as well as the internal pressures of the sports programs with the prestige to decide on his future.

The result is less a one dimensional running book like Once a Runner and more a coming of age story for Quenton Cassidy, teenager. As such, it should have wider appeal to more readers. And yet, there’s that Parker touch, and the runners will recognize the magic that Parker brings to running fiction, that makes it special to all of us that once dreamed of being that runner.

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Paul Duffau writes novels about running and works with junior high cross country runners part-time. His first novel, Finishing Kick, was recognized by Running Times in their Summer Reading list July, 2014. His newest novel, a high-octane adventure set in the mountains of Montana, is Trail of Second Chances. He blogs on the running life, running book, and interviews people that he finds interesting at www.paulduffau.com .

Why are there so few novels about running?

I was muddling along thinking while sleeping - I do that a lot - when it occurred to me that there was a reason there were so few novels about running. You could spend the next ten years reading books and manuals on every aspect of running from foot strike to hat attire for winter weather and still not exhaust the material available. New books on how to run, how to avoid injury, which shoes (if any) are best, VO2 Max, and the Daniel's Running Formula, which I consider to be the running 'bible' for performance. For us old school runners, Dr. George Sheehan is the runner's philosopher.

The common thread on all those books is an interest in running faster, better, longer, stronger. It's about the act of running rather than runners and, even when we move into biographical territory, as Christopher McDougall did with Born to Run, we tend to follow the running exploits of the runner instead of looking at the whole runner. Mostly, though, people want to run better, so the technical books sell and nobody tries to write novels around running or running themes.

Even John L. Parker's classic Once a Runner is focused on the training and racing aspects. The hero of the story, Quentin Cassidy, stays a one-dimensional character throughout. What Parker does nicely is show the inevitable blowing off of steam by the track team through the goofiness of their indoor Olympics, showing the touch of humanity that the book needed to stay interesting between the bits of running.

Parker originally had to self-publish Once a Runner, long before it was fashionable to do so. For all the success he's had with the novel and the follow-up, Again to Carthage, they've never been blockbuster hits. They're cult favorites for a self-selecting tribe of people that would rather run in the rain than veg on the couch. Or, at least, run first, then veg.

Novels about running are never going to be blockbusters like the Harry Potter series or Twilight. Those are about escapism, slipping into a mythical world. Running is grittier and more real in the sense that they reflect a different choice in this world, instead of offering a different world altogether. (Though I'm open to arguments that our feet can take us to places so pristine and pretty that it feels surrealistic.)

And publishers know that fantasy (not the genre, the concept) sells. Want to take on the Mob as a young lawyer? Read Grisham's The Firm. Want to play Quidditch? Off to Hogwarts you go. Want to know what it's like to love a vampire? Stephanie Meyers has an answer.

All those books were best sellers and made millions of dollars for the publisher. Novels about running would be lucky to break even in the traditional world of publishing.

Fortunately for us, that world is turning upside down right now and all the loose change from the pockets is dropping to the ground. And by loose change, I mean all those ideas and stories that are cool and inspiring and un-mass-marketable that still have an appeal to a core group of people, what Seth Godin calls a 'tribe.'

The barriers to self-publishing are gone and the stigmatism that accompanies it is fading. John L. Parker hand sold his books to running shoe stores and at meets, one book at a time. Today, we have Amazon and Smashwords and a dozen other ways of getting our stories  out to the public.

So, why are there so few novels about running? Because until now, there was no money to be made and, like it or not, that determines what got published. But it's early in a new age of publishing and storytellers have more options.

A some of those storytellers will see their tribe and want to tell its story, all the little facets of it.

And, now they can.