I have finally begun the process of putting together the book.
This will be my ‘Race To The Stones’ book.
A couple of years ago I wrote about my journey, huffing and puffing my way from one lampost to the next, all the way to staggering 26.2 miles in the London Marathon (From Parkrun To London Marathon). It was a marvellous experience and I dearly enjoyed writing about it. When I began training for Race To The Stones I immediately came to the decision that I would write my second book, revelling in the process and experience. I came to this decision for 2 and a half reasons:
- I very much enjoy writing and delight in the act of creation, so producing an artefact such as a book would bring me a great deal of joy.
- I have an astoundingly bad memory and very much want to hold on to this one. Even really significant events can often be lost in the fog of time (the time can sometimes be just a few minutes).
2 and a half – some people have let me know that they got a considerable amount of pleasure from reading my first book and asked if I might consider doing another.
I’ve only put the last one as a half as it is entirely possible that these people were just being nice and are secretly hoping that I won’t write another.
The reason that I have begun the project now is that I have finally, possibly, maybe decided upon a title for the book. It will be:
“If I wanted to travel 100km I would just hop in a car”.
This was the sort of response I received when I told non-runners that I was intending to spend 2 days in July, running and walking 100km. They were completely baffled and most of these comments were masking the real question, “Why would you do this?” In the book I will tell the narrative of my attempt on the Race To The Stones 100km and while doing so try to answer the question of why.
I’ve begun by trawling through all these blog posts for the ones connected with my Race To The Stones training and put them in some sort of order. I have also made some notes regarding questions I need to ask and spotted several glaring omissions that will need chapters to explain what is happening. I have also started to write the narrative. It’s going to be a big job, but I am already having tremendous fun trawling through these memories and trying to bash them into some sort of bookish shape.
It’s writing time.