Embrace the Race: October 21, 2012

Today I ran in the Embrace the Race 5K in Highland Park. This is the second year of the event, which was committed to raising funds for Breast and Ovarian Cancer research.


While it was a little cold to start the race (about 41 degrees) it was a beautiful fall day, great colors and a fun race. They even had hills.

I have been training with a group of runners coached by Heather Collins. Two of the women in that group also ran in this race, Heather Bublick (on the left) and Nikki Kopelson (center). I think they both ran personal bests.

I had hoped to run under 22 minutes, but my official goal was 22:30 and I ended up running 22:25, a 7:14 pace. My mile splits were 6:52, 7:06, 7:46 (but that last mile had all the hills.)

I finished first in my age group of 60 to Infinity (there weren’t too many in that cohort) and I finished 20th overall out of 150.

The Novel So Far - Quitting Time

This is the third (and final) report on my novel progress. My first post was in October 2009. At that time I had been at work on the novel, “American Jukebox,” for three years. It was always an “accidental” novel. I took a course on novel writing at the Graham School and since I didn’t have a novel I borrowed a short story I had written and just kept expanding it.


“American Jukebox,” is the story of a minor-league pitcher, who hurls a perfect game and loses everything. Since 2009 I’ve rewritten it at least three times. With each rewrite it got better, more novel-like, more focused. I had a lot of professional help over the years. I hired an impressive lineup of successful novelists to read and critique my work: Barbara Croft (“Moon’s Crossing”), Patrick Somerville (“The Cradle”), Whitney Otto (“How to Build an American Quilt”), Sands Hall, (“Catching Heaven”), Marita Golden (“After”) and finally this spring, Pamela Erens (“The Understory”). I also had friends like Ania Vesenny, Laura Krause, Joel Altschul and Joyce Armstrong and my novel workshop group (Anny, Jill and Ben) who read all of the versions and offered invaluable feedback and encouragement. They all helped me to become a better writer. I look at them as sort of my ad hoc MFA program.

When I finished American Jukebox again this spring, I knew it was truly finished. It was as good as I could make it. I’m proud of the work and in my heart I believe it “deserves” to be published. But that’s not my call. I’ve queried one hundred literary agents and also submitted the manuscript to a dozen small independent presses. Agents are overwhelmed with submissions and it’s hard to get noticed. Two agents asked to see my manuscript based on my query letter and one publisher who had looked at the earlier version agreed to reconsider the newest version. But it’s been weeks and I’ve haven’t heard from them and that’s usually a pretty good sign they are not interested.

I had planned to self-publish, but I’ve changed my mind. There are a lot of good self-published novels out there (also a lot of not-so-good ones). With Amazon and other programs I could have American Jukebox on the market in a couple of weeks. I like selling and if a publisher had bought my book I would have sold the hell out of it. It would have been fun. But without a seal of approval, I just don’t have the confidence to trump the decisions of the gatekeepers. Hawking my self-published book would take all my time and I need to get back to writing again. Something new. Something better.

It’s not a total loss. I have had four of my chapters published as short stories and one of them one won an Honorable Mention in a writing contest last year. And next month the prologue and opening chapter will be published as a novel excerpt in another online literary magazine (maybe it will be discovered).

I plan to have a couple dozen copies of American Jukebox printed. I want to have one on my shelf to show my grandkids someday. Also I figure it will make a great Christmas gift for all those family friends who read all the earlier versions.

Finger Lakes Triathlon - September 9, 2012

Canandaigua Lake

Today I competed in the Finger Lakes Triathlon in Canandaigua, New York. I grew up in Canandaigua and graduated from Canandaigua Academy in 1969. I didn’t spot any of my old classmates on the course. Finger Lakes runs both a sprint and an intermediate distance (.9 mile swim, 25 mile bike, 6.25 mile run) triathlon simultaneously. I ran in the intermediate distance event. It was another perfect day of weather, with light winds and temperatures in the 60s.

This was the best intermediate distance race I have run. I finished in a time of 2 hours 50 minutes and 1 lousy second. I would have broke 2:50 but there was another runner who was finishing her sprint triathlon just ahead of me and I slowed down instead of racing past her at the finish line.

I was certain I would finish in the top 3. Last year that time would have beaten the 2nd place finisher by ten minutes, but this year there were 3 really good athletes ahead of me. I finished fourth, but I ran a good race so I’m satisfied.

I had a few sighting problems on the swim (they need more buoys!) and that slowed me somewhat. I had a strong bike segment finishing with an average speed of 19.5 miles per hour. There were no mileage markers on the run, so I didn’t know how fast I was running, but I tried to keep up a strong, steady pace and I finished the 5K in 50:32, an 8:08 minutes/mile pace.

This was probably my last race of the season. This year I competed in the 70.3 Ironman in Galveston in April, a half-marathon in Wisconsin in May, the Ironman in Coeur d’Alene in June, the 70.3 Ironman in Benton Harbor, Michigan in August and then last week the sprint triathlon in Skaneateles and now this intermediate distance race in Canandaigua.

With the exception of Galveston, where I suffered from the heat and humidity, I would consider all the races to be successful. I didn’t have top finishes in any except for the Wisconsin Half, but there is a lot of good competitors in my age group, so I just have to get faster (or out last them).