Weakly Run, The Long Run, and Run

I'm at 29 miles for the week so far. The past several runs, however, have felt clunky. My legs have been heavy. My pace has been off. Breathing a bit gaspy.  But I've put in the miles without much difficulty by slowing down . . . a lot. Slowing down doesn't bother me too much as long as it is for a short period of time - a week or so. What concerns me is that the 7 month hamstring injury may have decreased my speed more than I had realized by affecting my stride length. I have been shortening my stride to avoid pain and continuing to run with the injury. So now I'm taking steps (no pun intended) to pulse-stretch the hamstring and re-lengthen my stride.  The process will be ongoing. The results, I hope, will be a return to a faster pace and diminished pain.

Before moving on to news of my own book, I thought I'd take a moment to plug a novel I finished this week. The Long Run, by Leo Furey, follows a year inside a Catholic boys' orphanage in Canada. It is a bit what you think it would be, in that there is an overriding sadness to the story, with some instances of humor thrown in (much like most of our own lives, I suppose). The boys in the novel (set in 1960) secretly train for a marathon. As the event approaches, the boys become both increasingly independent and interdependent in order to achieve their personal and collective goals.

The descriptions of running and training are a bit lite, but the story and the writing is not. I was drawn in and went through the range of emotions - rage, hilarity, and sadness - as I read the book.  If you like running and coming-of-age stories, The Long Run is a good choice for a Spring or Summer read.

A quick note: If you do buy running books, whenever possible, buy them through sites like RunFanShop.com. Your purchase helps top  runners who train and compete with limited sources of funding (when compared to other top athletes).

My new novel, Run, is now available in paperback. It will be up on Amazon and Amazon Kindle within the next week. It can be purchased now at  https://www.createspace.com/4729496 . 


I've experienced a bit of trepidation in publishing the book, mainly centered around the intended readership. I have been encouraged to market the book as YA (young adult) and also general and sports fiction. But in order to be true to my main characters, all older teenagers, I had to write what is real. And that group doesn't speak or act in a G-Rated manner. Instead, the lives of a lot of younger Americans seem to be lived in a world that is more NC-17, with language, actions, music, videos, and other entertainment outlets reflecting this sensibility.

The full synopsis can also be found on the CreateSpace site listed above.

I hope you have a chance to read Run. If you have time to comment on it, please feel free to do so on Amazon (once it is on their website), on RunTheNovel FB page, my Twitter account, or right here. I love to hear from friends new and old.