Hells Canyon Tour

I took Sunday off and went up the Snake River on Hells Canyon Tours, a local sightseeing group with a friend, Colin. We slipped away from the dock around eight in the morning and proceeded south under a pretty sky and cool temperatures for a day away from cell phones, computers, and work.

The first stop was at Heller Bar about an hour up the river from Asotin. Time for a cup of coffee and to stretch legs. Stretching felt good. . .

A view north with the tour boat at the refueling dock.

There was plenty of wildlife - an abundance of deer and several herds of big horn sheep.

The sheep were not truly impressed with us, turning their tushes to demonstrate their level of regard.

We continued the journey up the river. The boat handled the rapids easily. One thing that impressed me, even if it didn't the sheep, was the habit the skipper had of slowing the jets and easing past the other folks on the river - rafters, kayakers, and boaters. It seemed that the habit is for the folks on the beach to wave as we went by. The waves were returned by most on the boat, except the one guy who looked a little frustrated at the lack of cell coverage. I don't think he got the same memo I did.

Lunch was at the Kirkland Ranch. The Jordans raised sheep and sons on the ranch. When Lee Jordan decided to try his hand at politics, it eventually led all the way to the State House where he served as Governor. The house has been turned into a museum worth spending some time exploring.

A favorite quote from the Kickland Ranch museum. "The government bet you 160 acres that you couldn't live on it three years without starving to death." Ace Barton

The return trip went much faster as we ran with the current - the skipper said the river flowed at eight mile per hour there. The first part of the run was done at speed to get over the shallows that were present. Along this stretch of the Snake, I saw an otter. There, gone, no time for the picture thought the image is solidly in my head.

I think this little fella was the entire greeting committee for the Copper Creek Lodge while we were there.

An ancient wheelbarrow and gold pan at Copper Creek.

A quick stop at the petroglyphs but not allowed to exit the boat at Buffalo Eddy.

And on to home.

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Down Time

For the first time in recent memory, I have Labor Day off. Normally, this would bother me - I celebrate Labor Day by working as that seems more appropriate than having a barbeque. I know the history of the holiday, so for my union brethren, I am not in need of re-education. I just like to celebrate the holiday with the activity rather than it's absence.

What's different this year?

Well, two new grandbabies within the last week. It's amazing how emotionally draining this is for everyone, grandparents included. Grandparents get to sleep at night, though. I told the newest mom in our family that the tired feeling goes away after 22 years. She thinks I'm joking.

Work has been steady. That's good, as writing, despite early successes, has not yet overtaken the day job. While my daughters inched closer to delivery, I had to get the Rick Riley article done, some 10,000 words in a week.

Coach Cowdrey and I have survived the first two days of junior high cross country. We have a good bunch of kids - Asotin always seems to - but early in the season until the rules get passed down, it's a study in chaotic systems.

So, everyone around our place is a little frazzled. Tomorrow I'm taking a trip up the Snake River on Beamers Tours. I'll get some pictures and put them up when I get back.

And on Labor Day, I think I'll put my feet up. Maybe bounce a grandbaby or two (or six.) After I get a run in, of course.

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ALS Challenge, Asotin Junior High Cross Country Assisting

I got tagged by my brother, Ken, to do the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge a couple of days ago. Unfortunately, I ran into a bit of a time and labor jam - well, time for me, labor for my daughters - so we postposed a couple of days.

The Asotin Junior High Cross Country team willingly stepped in for my girls to splash five gallons of quite cold water on me. Video below . . .

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Cross Country Season is Nearly Here

Two things -

First, I'll be starting to blog over at InlandXC.com next weekend. Hoping to catch as many races as possible.

Second, to celebrate the start of XC season, I'm putting the ebooks on sale for a third off. Right now, you can get both books from Amazon for less than $10. The sale ends the day after Labor Day.

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The Mop Rule

Someone in the last couple of days asked why I've been writing about cross country and track when I won't make any money at it. At least with the books (hint: look in the sidebar-they make wonderful gifts to runners!), I have a chance to make a peso or two.

There are two answers, either completely sufficient.

First, I enjoy the heck out of it. Talking to Rick Riley is about the third biggest highlight of my year on the writing front. I don't think it's hero worship, just a recognition of the man. He did things on the track I will never do, most of us will never do.

He's also been around the sport long enough to appreciate how much things have changed - and how little, at the same time. The response from all the readers has been terrific.

The second reason involves the mop rule and is connected to the biggest highlight of my year on the running front. Nope, that highlight wasn't having the book mentioned in Running Times.

It was having a mom stop me on the way to the district meet to tell me how much her son appreciated what I had noticed and wrote about on the blog. If that doesn't humble you . . .

Here's a kid, a good kid, who's also a good athlete. And the only mention that he got was on my blog. I keep apologizing to the kids that they deserve better; a better chronicler, a better website, more meets covered.

What they have is me, for right now, though I'm hoping to grow things.

Because of the mop rule.

Never heard of it? You might have a different name for it but it's a major reason I've been married for better than three decades. The rule is simple. You can't go to another person and say, "Hey, the floor needs mopping."

If it needs mopping, we both know where the mop is. We get off our duffs and we do it. We don't nag the other person to fix our peeves.

The mop rule is why I started writing books for runners. Nobody else was and I thought we deserved books that reflected well on our community.

And when I realized that these kids work darned hard for so little recognition of what they are accomplishing. I mean that about all of them, not just the Lucy Egglestons and Maddie Wards, the Hunter Olsens and Chandler Tiegens, but all the ones that step to the line and run every race with all the guts they have.

Well . . .It's all very well to say it should be done, somebody ought to write the articles. The real question is, do you care enough to actually do it yourself?

Do you care enough to do it yourself.

That's the mop rule.

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Rick Riley, How Champions Build Legacies

The last installment with Rick Riley. Rick discusses the pressures on some of today's young athletes, shares his views on his exemplary career, and how he's creating his legacy, one day and one run at a time.

Corrections

I hope not to have to do this too often -

In the article Thursday on Rick Riley, I made an error in transcription that I caught today. Where Rick is discussing Bill Bowerman, his statement was that "a lot of good men liked him." I had it as "disliked."

I should have recognized my error much sooner as Rick is far too gracious to make such a comment. The error is fully and completely mine.

I'm sorry.

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Rick Riley, On Running as a Profession

Rick Riley, legendary Spokane runner and former National Record Holder, sat down with Paul Duffau and talked about running as a profession - how much money runners make, what it was like to be Pre's roommate, and Rick Riley's view of the current methods of training.

Channeling My 'Inner Girl'

Take a training class, learn a few things, piss off the instructor.

Education, my way.

In this case, the class was on developing character voice. Since I had already completed Finishing Kick and was well into Trail of Second Chances, it might seem odd to take the class after the fact. Wrong. I had a mountain that needed an attitude. My characters already had gobs of 'tude.

The class presented two different means for developing characters that were authentic: first, ask yourself what you would do if you were them, how would you feel?; and, have all the characters be facets of your own personality.

Remember, I'd already written one book and the main character was a teenage girl. A little hard to have that necessarily be a part of my own persona. And asking myself what I would do would have led to many more fistfights in the storyline. Instead, I tried something different.

I worked at getting so deep inside my characters heads (even the secondary characters) that if you pinched one of them, I'd say "ow!"

How does a writer do that? The same way a little kid becomes the hero of whatever drama they're acting out. In the case of one granddaughter, a princess. Who sings. A lot.

The grandson is a swashbuckling hero, saving the day, despite not having a clue on how to swash a buckle. He's also a champion race car driver and general daredevil.

Typical kid stuff - except for them, it's darn near as real as life. Imagination is a wonderfully powerful tool and children make full use of it. Adults, on the other hand, learned not to daydream, stay focused, get to work.

Bah!

I've managed, at least since my late twenties, to find or create jobs that offered plenty of daydream time. It doesn't mean that it wasn't work - sometimes, it was darned hard work and none of it was in the creative sphere.

I spent a lot of years letting my imagination roam around, poking into nooks and crannies of my head. At the same time, I'm an inveterate people watcher. Do I want to go shopping at the mall with my wife? Not particularly, no - but I'll go to watch the people. See the expressions, the gestures, how they talk to each other and themselves.

People watching gives me the raw material. Imagination creates the golem, the inanimate human shape awaiting life. It takes one last ingredient to successfully climb all the way into a character's head, to bring him or her to life.

Empathy.

Thinking like a character only gets you to the start line. Until you feel what the character feels - pain, anger, mortification, joy - you're just putting your words in their mouths. Every story involves emotion whether it's a horror novel by Stephen King, sci-fi by Heinlein, or anything that Nora Roberts ever wrote.

It's the writer's job to articulate how the character feels at a deep and visceral level. Writers owe that to readers, to feel for the characters and with them.

My eldest daughter, who was one of my early readers, commented early on that I did a great job of channeling my 'inner girl'. One of the moms of my beta readers made a similar comment, saying that the dialogue sounded like her girls.

It wasn't by accident.

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Rick Riley, High School Running, Then and Now

In 1966, Rick Riley set the high school boy’s 2-mile outdoor record with a stunning 8:48 with Gerry Lindgren on the side of the track cheering him on. In the next few years, he would race—and beat—some of the greatest runners of the era, including his future roommate, Steve Prefontaine.

Rick Riley, The Questions

Over the next week or so, I will get the entire Rick Riley interview up on the blog. The first part, called Rick Riley, High School Running, Then and Now, will be available tomorrow morning.

The questions I sent to Rick jumped started our conversation and that's the way I'll present it - a conversation between the two of us, and an invitation for you to eavesdrop. If you want to add your own points, you can do that by email or in the comments section.

Below are the questions.

.1 Compared to kids today, you started running comparatively late – 9th grade, I think. Did you play other sports as a youth or was running your first foray into athletics?

2. You were a high school phenom in the 60’s, chasing Gerry Lindgren, another Spokane great, when the area was producing some of the finest distance runners in the country. How is the region different now than then?

3. You were running at the end of the amateur era when athletes who needed to make a living on their running had to take money under the table to maintain their amateur status or work to survive. We now live in an era of professional runners but a huge number of them still can’t make a living at the sport and still set training around jobs. First, what it like in that late 60’s/early 70’s period for you as an athlete?

4. And second, what kinds of changes would you like to see to allow more athletes treat running – in all the events, not just the sexy ones like the marathon – as a true profession?

5. You returned to coaching five or six years ago after more than twenty years away. The world changed a lot in that time. How has that affected the way that you coach?

6. You ran against – and beat! – Steve Prefontaine. Since his death, no one has stepped onto the American running scene and generated as much enthusiasm as Pre. What was it about Pre that made him special to the fans, caused them to chant his name? Was it a product of the time, the first great American Running Boom?

7. Do you see anyone on the horizon that can pick up the mantle from Pre?

8. Every runner has those special moments that become favorite memories, whether from a race, a training run, or an interaction with another runner. Do you have one that you feel comfortable sharing? (Rick, this one is pretty personal – if you don’t want to answer it, I’ll drop it from the article.)

9. If you had a magic wand and could change a few rules for xc and track, how would you rearrange things?

10. Lastly, you’re at an age where people begin to consider their legacy. I’ve watched as you have shared your knowledge with athletes generations removed from your years as a competitor. From your perspective as someone who reached the pinnacles of running, what one thing above all else would you like to impart to the young athletes?

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Rick Riley, The Questions

Over the next week or so, I will get the entire Rick Riley interview up on the blog. The first part, called Rick Riley, High School Running, Then and Now, will be available tomorrow morning.

Below are the questions.

.1 Compared to kids today, you started running comparatively late – 9th grade, I think. Did you play other sports as a youth or was running your first foray into athletics?

4. And second, what kinds of changes would you like to see to allow more athletes treat running – in all the events, not just the sexy ones like the marathon – as a true profession?

5. You returned to coaching five or six years ago after more than twenty years away. The world changed a lot in that time. How has that affected the way that you coach?

7. Do you see anyone on the horizon that can pick up the mantle from Pre?

9. If you had a magic wand and could change a few rules for xc and track, how would you rearrange things?

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Waiting for the Kids . . .

Blogging might be a little light over the next couple of weeks. We have two grandbabies due in four days. That's pretty much a priority.

I do plan on having an interview up that I did with Rick Riley. Don't recall the name? You should - how many high schoolers set national records? A WSU grad, Rick coaches now at St. George's Academy. Hoping to have that up on Tuesday.

For those that caught the article on Emma Kraft, a blogging update - that's now the most popular article ever on the site. Glad you liked it and thanks for stopping by!

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