BioLife Plasma Services

19 that began those 11 years ago. The spark that started the fire was inspired by two men. My co- worker Gil Heren encouraged me to take up running as a way to stay healthy, and Bill Butler, through his artistic prose, encouraged me to write about my adventures and submit them to the magazine.

I guess I was never really asked to write anything. I just kept submitting articles month after month, which, to my amazement, appeared in the magazine. At some point, I became a “regular contributor.” I’ve now written over 100 stories with the “Lone Runner” Moniker, a name I playfully added to my first article as a spoof on the name of the “Lone Ranger,” a storied legacy from 1950s old Western TV lore. The name was also a testament to the ever-changing work schedule that made training with other runners nearly impossible. Generally, I run alone (unless you count my dog. Maybe I should have named her “Silver,” after the Lone Ranger’s loyal horse.)

My stories were always told from a first-person perspective. My goal was to have the reader share the ride inside my head as I did these crazy things. I wanted to paint a picture of the peculiar world of distance running as told by an apostle of the sport, and also shine a spotlight on the equally insane cast of characters I’ve met in these adventures. My obsessions and running journeys have always made sense, at least to me, and if the reader could just let go of the madness of it all, they might be able appreciate the greater purpose behind the story. There were things more substantial than just me running in a particular crazy race. There was a second, deeper meaning to everything. There ran themes like the hopeless struggle, the unlikely victory, the unexpected defeat, the conquest of self-doubt, the value of doing something much bigger than yourself, and the growth that comes from hard-won experience earned over countless miles.

I faced my fears, opened my eyes to a wider world, and learned to accept myself for who I am, even if it isn’t always who I want to be.

All that, and so much more of my soul have been poured out into my various tales.

Yet something was missing from all that. You see, there is this award … OK, OK… I know it’s shallow. But before you condemn me for being a superficial hack interested only in the most public of validations for my work, know that I have suppressed that urge for 11 years. Every year during the MRTC’s annual awards banquet, where the award for that year’s best stories get announced, I’ve sat in the shadows trying to be supportive. I tried to be encouraging of some of the very best pieces of art submitted to the magazine by numerous talented writers. Truth be told, all of them deserved the awards more than I did. Still, a small part of me had to wonder. “Why can’t I write like that? Maybe next year I’ll finally be good enough to be included on the list.”

Yet my stories were never included. Some years I served as a judge for the contest and was not eligible to win. Other years I was simply passed up. Truth is, no one ever tells you why some articles are judged better than others. You’re simply not listed in the top three names (or some years the top five.) You can’t help but wonder why, especially if it happens year after year. I have contributed up to 10 separate articles in one year. Not one of them was deemed worthy – for 10 years in a row. I wondered if my articles were really that terrible. Should I continue to write them knowing that they were not really being enjoyed or appreciated? Why waste my time if the best I could do was force the readers to endure another work of uninspired drudgery?

Yet some readers did respond to my work. Every so often, someone would recognize me and comment on my most recent article. It didn’t happen every month, for sure, but when it did, it was so rewarding to hear that some other runner found something relatable in one of my articles. It made me feel like maybe this endeavor was worthwhile after all.

After a while, I stopped hoping to win. The editor kept asking for another article, and I seem to have a unique talent to come up with some sort of new subject matter to write about month after month. Things sort of settled into a familiar cadence.

Then one day, Christina, my wife, said something that shook me out of my complacency. She always reads my articles before I send them in for publication. We’ve always had a policy of total honesty when it comes to my writing. She never pulls any punches. “You know, many of your articles are starting to sound very similar these days,” she gently criticized. “Maybe you should try something different.”

That threw me for a loop. It’s true that most of my stories are about running adventures, or about running challenges. It’s also true that my writing style is easily recognizable, although, to be fair, it has evolved a lot I just kept submitting articles month after month ...