How I became a writer Part XVIII

Title: How I became a writer

Part XVIII

Meg Rogers was one of the most versatile track athletes I ever had on my team.  She could long jump, triple jump, and she was really good at high jump, almost winning sectionals one year!  Meg did the 400 relay for awhile, was a great 1600 relay runner, helping get a second place finish at sectionals in 2016!  Since she was a flier in cheerleading I asked her to try pole vault and it turned out she was decent at it!  Although she never did it in a meet, she did work at it for awhile, until finally sticking with high jump.  She was an awesome open 400 meter runner with an incredible stride for the first 200 meters followed by a sprint to the finish!  It was amazing to watch!  Although she never really ran distance in track and field (she did do the steeple once for fun), Meg was an excellent cross country runner, so she could have.  I remember earlier in career her practicing the hurdles but we used her in too many other places for that to be a serious pursuit... which was an incredible irony.

What do I mean?  Here is the story of Meg’s hurdle career I wrote back in 2017 for her perspective college coach.  “Meg started her 100 hurdle career on May 8^th and finished it on May 27^th her senior year, which is a little under three weeks.  It all began four weeks out from May 27^th when Meg wanted to go to an invitational but she had prom that night.  We looked through the program and I recommended the open 400.  She pointed out that was close to her hair appointment time but could she do the steeplechase for fun?  Meg had done a lot for me over the years.  I’ve coached her through six cross country seasons and four varsity girls track seasons (she had a mod coach in track before me).  I smiled and said, “Sure.”  She then wanted to know if we should train for it.  I laughed.  “Meg,” I said, “You are a 400 relay and a 400 runner.  We’ll just do this for fun!”  But then I sobered and said, “I should probably work with you on hurdles a little though before you do this.”  So one night Meg and I headed over to the hurdles.  I’m like, “You’re doing steeplechase, so we won’t worry about step count, so just hop this thing and let’s see what you’ve got.”  The last time Meg had done the hurdles was the 55 in seventh grade and I think she did the 400 hurdles once or twice for me in ninth grade, so she had a rough idea what she was doing.  She jumped way over it.  I was surprised and laughed.  I said, “Hey, Meg, just for fun, let’s see you do guy’s high hurdle height,” and jacked up the hurdle.  Boom!  She went right over it with room to spare.  I cranked it up to the fifth notch, guys college height, and asked, “Just for kicks and giggles, can you clear this?”  She did easily.  I joked with her that we should have been training her in the hurdles sooner and told my wife and daughter about it but that was about it.”

            On Monday, the 8^th of May, I was in school when Meg said, “Coach, could I talk to you?”  I’m like, "Sure," wondering what was up.  Meg has a defined tri-meet meet package of 400 and 1600 relay, open 400, and high jump.  Because one of those teams was extremely tough, I dropped her out the open 400 to give Meg more gas in the 1600 relay, so I expected to talk about something along those lines.  She’s asked, “Can I do the 100 hurdles on Tuesday?”  Whatever I expected, that was not it.  The 100 hurdles?  I already had three in that category, one of them my daughter who was ranked in the top 10 of class D AND we were up against a very good team where my only goal was make our loss as respectable as I could.  Throwing away one of my MVPs on a for fun event wasn’t high on the priority list.  Besides I only had one night to train her!!!  Yipe!!  There was a girl who had been dying to get into the 400 relay, Kaitlyn Miles, and she was good off the blocks...but....I didn’t know.  I told Meg I’d think about it. 

            I finally decided, one, I was going to lose anyway, two, Meg had been with me a long time, and three, she had done a lot for our program...why not?  Monday night she went down with the hurdle unit and went through hurdle drills with them.  My daughter wasn’t down there because she was pole vaulting but the girls that were there knew what they were doing and took care of Meg.  I came down after they ran through the basics and gave Meg my speech about steps.  I told her four step was good but if she could three step that was even better.  “Maybe you’ll be my first hurdle girl to three step,” I told her glibly.  By the end of practice she was three stepping!!!!  I couldn’t believe it!  So the next night, without using blocks (because I was afraid of messing up her rhythm) Meg was in the fast heat of the 100 hurdles.  To get her in that heat I set up six hurdle lanes (unusual for a small school tri-meet)!  She got her butt kicked BUT she didn’t do bad...no blocks, experience, form, or leg snap she got a 20.4 hand time (20.64 officially).  Could we get her into the sectional meet?  It would be a miracle.  I prayed to God and got to work.  The invitational that weekend (where she was entered to do the steeple) I put her in the 100 hurdles too.  Now in practice we added the blocks and used a device called the form finder to work on getting her head down.  She ran Saturday and got 20.1 FAT.  (a half-second improvement!)  In that race she leaped away from her heat in the first few hurdles but couldn’t maintain it barely winning the heat.  The county divisional meet was three days later and she went 18.8 hand time!  (a drop another second!!  Unheard of!!)  That week we began to work on leg snap.  I told her, “Meg you’re floating over the hurdles, losing time!  We have to fix that!”  It was so unfair to throw so many concepts at her so fast, but Meg dutifully worked hard to master the leg snap drill.  At the county meet she and the other hurdlers struggled (weather was colder) and she was still floating but she managed a 19.3 hand time.  I was disappointed, not in Meg, but in knowing she would now be in the slow heat at sectionals.  Sectional week we worked very hard on leg snap and getting low.  I told her to even have a chance she’d have to bury her heat.  Meg did.  She scored a 18.93 FAT in the slow heat with no one to push her!  I was very proud of that run.  Meg got a ribbon, placing in the fast heat from the slow heat with no one in her zip code!!”

What I did not tell that coach is that sectional week the pain got so bad for Meg we had to ice bath her shins.  Meg would do her short distance sprint workout, go over to high jump, and then check in with me at hurdles.  I would then run inside and fill a large bucket with ice and water.  She would sit next to me on the scoring bleacher with both legs in the frigid water, while I read her a children’s story.  Yes, I realize Meg was a senior but there are many incredible fairy tales out there drawn by amazing artists like Trina Schart Hyman or profound books like “Oh, the Places You’ll Go!” by the good doctor.  Meg was very brave!  How do I know?  As a coach I ice bath when I’m in heavy training.  It is very painful and the amount of ice Meg was dealing with was extremely painful!  The ice regiment kept her on the firing line...that and PRO KT tape.

What did the college coach think about Meg?  She allowed Meg to join her DI track team and Meg won MIP last year!  I am very proud of her!!  I’ve often asked myself how I could have missed that level of potential in Meg and have come to the conclusion that earlier in her career her skill level hadn’t developed enough to make it obvious.  It should have occurred to me later with Meg’s fast long stride and strong high jumping skills but it did not.  Now if I have a girl doing those two things well I’m going to try them in the hurdles immediately...live and learn I guess.

My writing was at the same point.  I was ready to write my first novel but unfortunately I picked a very complex concept that I wasn’t ready to write at the time.  Asylum was too complicated for me at that time and was far beyond my skill level.  My mom loved it and thought it had great potential but I wasn’t so sure.  The first half read like a political thriller and the second half an action adventure story.  There were also a lot of plot holes and things I wasn’t sure how to work in.  Even though I had written over two hundred pages and liked some of it very much, I did not have the skill to actually write it at that moment.  Like Meg early in her track career, I did not yet possess the writing ability to handle such a complex plot line.  I would write ten books before I went back to that early concept and it was still a struggle to write it!  I wrote all five Asylum books at the same time and brought them out together!  I will NEVER do that again:)  Maybe:)  How complex is the series?  Check this out.  The recommended reading order is 1, 2, 3, 4, and then zero book.  BUT you can read the story Zero, 1, 2, 3, 4 or zero, 2, 1, 3, 4 or 4, 1, 2, 3, zero or, well, you get the idea:)  The only good thing that came out of the abortive attempt at my first novel was the confidence I could actually write one now.  I had many different ideas for my first novel but which one should I choose?