My 6th July 4th Run

 

On prior Independence Days—2007  2010   2015  2019 2021—I've run twice at the Rose Bowl and thrice at the Independence Day Classic up in Santa Clarita. All have been 5ks. All save 2015 have been formal races offering tee-shirts and—as times changed—bling.

Today I broke with precedent. While I again ran Santa Clarita, this time I chose the 10k. I can't say why. Possibly because I haven't run a formal 10k since 2008 (where I was aced out of an age-group medal.) 6.2 miles has been a jinxed distance ever since. In 2020, two 10ks were cancelled because of COVID. In the run-up to my 2021 marathon, I missed a 10k training race because my wife was ill. Something always seemed to happen.

Except for today. A sunny morning with cool morning temperatures and a small race field. This was my first race since last November's Surfers Point. In May when I signed up, I thought I'd train hard and attempt to break one hour. As it was, working on the marathon book ate up time. I ran and all, but it wasn't specific to the 10k and I ended up light on speed work.

Still and all, like races past, I slept poorly the previous night, didn't want to get up, didn't want to run, but went anyway. At 7:00 AM, off I went on a bike trail, three miles  out and 3.2 miles back. The night before I'd figured out a goal time: 1:07:00. That was two minutes faster then last summer's unofficial 10k. It seemed a reasonable achievable goal.

For the first time in a race I used the running app on my phone. I wanted half-mile splits so I could adjust my pace. It worked fine. By mile two, the race leaders were already passing me, bound for the finish line. I passed a few people, always leaning forward to give it a little gas as I did so. My hips seemed loose and flowed back on passing and downhills. 

At the turn-around, I sped up a bit. The night before, and in my car prior to the race, I'd listened to YouTube meditations for runners. It helped as I noticed myself tensing up in the neck and lower back and was able to release the pressure. 

I played leap-frog with a short woman in her thirties. She had quick loud feet. I always knew when she would pass. I caught up with her on a downhill and shot by. A guy I'd passed earlier, passed me on mile 4. On mile 5 I passed a woman, then tried to catch up with another group of runners, but they were too fast. 

As a seasoned racer, I knew to remove my sunglasses before I reached the end so as not to spoil the finish line photo. 

1:04:46.

Not bad; a 10:24 pace.

Plus there were age group awards, three deep. I finished third in the 65-69 male age group. There are speedy runners up in Santa Clarita in all age groups. I was fortunate to snag a nice little plaque.

I'm thinking of going back to bed now. If I'm planning on training for another marathon this year, I'd better make up my mind soon. But not today.

Aweber: Lead Magnets and Landing Pages

 

Hands on at Home

What to say this time? I don't like marketing? Been said. I don't like building landing pages? Said. I don't like having to write a lead magnet? You've heard it here. 

YouTube is generally good for learning things, but I always need to check a video's published date, especially on software. I find myself watching tutorials that are two years old. My on-screen Aweber software no longer matches the lesson. Most elements are roughly the same, but I'm already struggling uphill with all this and it doesn't take much to throw me off. 

But as I've said of late, success can and will be achieved.

BTW: Aweber seems Okay so far. More as the process unfolds.

Mental Toughness Overcomes The Quits

 

BookSummaryDK

Yesterday was a perfect example. I didn't run Friday. If I wished to maintain my weekly mileage, I'd need to run further than usual on Saturday. I didn't want to. So I busied myself with many tasks as the day wore on, growing hotter by the hour. By late afternoon, I told myself it was too hot to run. 

Somehow, I made it out the door. At Griffith Park, an event was occupying the parking area I usually used. Trivial? When The Quits are upon you, the little things are weaponized. Finally, I set out to run 7 miles. Before I reached 3, I wanted to quit. I considered stopping at 4. Then 5. By 5.5 I was close enough to 7 to finish up. 

I didn't use my usual weapons of positive affirmations and visualizations. But I did say to myself, 'Not just yet.' It proved enough.

And The Quits lurk in every facet of my life. The rationalizations, the excuses. But they are vulnerable to persistence. Yesterday was a victory. Today, the board is cleared and it begins again: me vs. me.

Super Summer Book Sale 3

More ebooks obtained thanks to the above-mentioned sale. Another mech/military sci-fi called Cartwright's Cavaliers, supernatural horror Chalk, and military sci-fi Titan. Some fine fiction ahead for me. These ebooks are 99 cents or free. All I need now is more time to read.

Aether Czar

Super Summer Book Sale

Super Summer Book Sale 2

Super Summer Book Sale 2

Aether Czar 

Day two dawns upon the super summer sale. Last night, I returned home and shopped. One of my purchases included tales of mecha, or giant robots. Think Pacific Rim. These limbed machines "are usually—but not always—large, humanoid vehicles controlled by a pilot. Mecha are commonly bipedal, although they come in a dizzying variety of shapes and sizes. There is some debate as to what qualifies as mecha and what doesn't. Much like art or pornography, one knows it when one sees it."

I don't read much mecha, but for free or 99 cents, I'm inclined to give it a try. One of my ebook selections last night was Adam S. Furman's Collateral Damage: A Kaiju Thriller. I'm familiar with kaiju. According to the Urban Dictionary, they are a "type of creature exceedingly common in Japan. Usually over 200 feet tall, they are known to frequently wander into cities and cause massive real estate damage."

The story is described thusly: Destructive Battles Rage Between Hellish Kaiju and Giant Mech Protectors. 

The sides and the stakes are set. I'll review the tale in due course. But right now, I'm awash in ebooks—the sale is all ebooks—and six more shopping days remain.

Visit the sale. Explore new genres. Sample the wares of hard-working authors. More tomorrow.

Super Summer Book Sale

Super Summer Book Sale

It's Super!

It's Summer!

It's Now!

Sci Fi, fantasy, horror, short-story collections—including my very own Death Honk—military sci fi, dystopian sagas. All waiting at bargain prices such as 99 cents or free. I'm fired up to begin collecting my summer reading material. Thanks to author/scientist Hans G. Schantz for organizing this awesome sale. Deals galore until Wednesday, June 22. Go now!

Aether Czar 

Beta Readers Report in on New Non-Fiction Book

 

thestoryofreadingape

More have reported in with their opinions. Quite a long blog title, yes? That's my nod to SEO. Right now, I'm dealing with an email service and hope to start fixing—or hiring someone to fix—my Squarespace website. And I need to come up with a premium for signing up on the forthcoming email list. I thought I'd prepare something animation-related for non-fiction and a short story for fiction. That means writing things for free. But that's what I mostly do anyway, so why complain?

How to Run a Marathon in 13 Years Races to Publication

NewsPostInsider

I'd like to show the fine cover, but won't until I set up an email service and fix my Squarespace website. The first email service I tried—Mailer Lite—was a bust that wouldn't allow me to complete the sign-in process. I'm learning toward Mail Chimp or Adwebber. More on that soon.

As for my JP Mac author website, it's an unfinished hash. Lots of great opportunities for SEO and I squander them. I'm thinking of hiring someone on Fivrr to tidy it up.  It shouldn't take that long. I want everything appearing fresh and professional before I launch the next book in September.

Funny how a website with the name Write Enough! is mostly comprised of short comedy videos. Another mystery in this great life. 

Memorial Day Memories

 Note: Orginally published January 23, 2012.

Reposted: May 26, 2014.

United States Flag Wallpaper

 

Ever in Transit

There was a time when I burned through military history books by the gross. I read famous authors like Band of Brothers' Stephen Ambrose and not-so-famous guys like Keith William Nolan. My history book reading has fallen off lately and so I just learned Nolan died three years ago from cancer. His specialty was the Vietnam War and his works relied heavily on interviews with American veterans who fought there.

Ten years ago, I had vague plans of producing a film based on Nolan's book about Operation Buffalo, which centered around the ambush of a Marine company in 1967. As I was returning to Cambodia for a project with State Dept./USAID and Warner Bros.—a story in itself—I made plans to visit the battlefields in neighboring Vietnam.

And so I contacted Keith William Nolan and asked for an option to develop a project based around his 1991 book Operation Buffalo: USMC Fight for the DMZ. I mentioned I was a former Marine who had served during the Vietnam era.

He let me have the option free.

That is simply not done in these parts.

By email, I thanked him for his generosity. In time, I toured the landscape of Operation Buffalo, a dangerous patch of ground still peppered with Viet Cong mines and booby traps as well as unexploded American and North Vietnamese artillery shells. I walked the narrow, red dirt lanes on which B Company was ambushed in an action that grew into the bloodiest day for the Marines in Vietnam.

I drew a crowd of Vietnamese, hardly any who had lived there back in the day. (Most had been relocated in 1966, the year prior to the fight.) At one point, I was invited into a hut and asked to tell a few elders what I knew of the event. With kids and dogs yelling outside, I spoke in bursts of English which my interpreter translated into Vietnamese, explaining how a battalion of North Vietnamese lured an understrength Marine company into an trap that wiped out two platoons and shot to pieces a second company that came to help. Some enemy units dressed in captured Marine uniforms to move in close and backed their assault with flamethrowers and heavy artillery—based in nearby North Vietnam.

We drank tea and smoked cigarettes as the sky grew darker outside. Reciting Nolan's book from memory as best I could, I told how the Marines returned the next day to retrieve the bodies of their dead and that turned into another fight. More reinforcements poured in on both sides, culminating in a massive North Vietnamese attack preceded by an artillery barrage. The Marines cut down the charging troops, sealed off breaches in their lines and held. The enemy withdraw back to safety in North Vietnam. Marine patrols from the hill base at Con Thien set out once more to sweep the area and the pattern of Operation Buffalo would be repeated in minor and major keys for the next several years.

Outside the kids gathered around as I reemerged from the hut. There was a huge freaking spider the size of a catcher's mitt hanging in a web attached to a nearby pole. I refused to look at the monster for fear the kids would knock the hulking arachnid down with a stick and chase it toward me to see what the tall foreigner would do.

I came home and the option expired and my movie idea eventually migrated into a rather large folder of unfinished products. Nolan wrote ten books on the Vietnam War, but never made a pile of money. His publisher wanted him to write about "popular wars" because Vietnam didn't sell. But Nolan felt he had an obligation to veterans who were treated quite shabbily. He felt someone had to tell their story.

He stayed true to that calling.

A non-smoker, 44-year-old Keith William Nolan died of lung cancer. He left behind a little girl.

Nolan's books are more than just the story of battles, interesting to history buffs like myself. They are our heritage, our nation's story, told by those present, their deeds preserved for kids like Anna Britt Nolan.

One hot August night, I was at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C. Little gifts, flowers and tokens are often left at its base by families, friends, and old comrades come to visit the names of the dead. Apparently a grade school class had passed through earlier and left various letters on lined paper in huge kid scrawl. One in part read: "Dear Grandpa, We saw the Vietnam Wall. I'm sorry you could not tell your stories."

Keith William Nolan could.

(And while many of us are short of money, I'm including trust fund info for Nolan's daughter. If you can, please donate.)

Anna Britt Nolan Trust
c/o First Bank
6211 Midriver Mall Drive
St. Charles, MO 63304

Images: Two-Seven Tooter

Comic Eleanor Morton Short Bit

 This video's been around a bit, but Scottish comic Eleanor Morton does a lot with a little in her Bob Newhart-style take on a woman's first day at work during the French Revolution.

Eleanor Morton

Seven Miles in May

Health and Well-Being

 

 

A perfect morning for running with the temperate in the low 60s and a nice marine layer. I focused on staying relaxed and hydrated. Now I'm done with the seven miles and working to finish the third draft on my running book. Two coaches are standing by to review the manuscript so I'm hurrying it up. (Pausing only to blog.)

And while the book is readable by strangers, more drafts await. I still don't like the last chapter. Anyway, I can start getting feedback now.