I have a new book coming out next month. It's called The Training Ground and it deals with the great generals of the Civil War back before they got famous and were just new lieutenants in the Mexican War. I say this with tongue in cheek; it's a fascinating book and I urge all of you to buy a copy when it arrives in a store near you on May 14. If you happen to be in the Rancho Santa Margarita area on May 15, drop by Borders for the signing.
Ah, the glories of the shameless plug. Thanks for the platform, Babbitt.

As I count down to this day -- a day for which I have waited three years -- I grow ever more aware that there will be certain publicity requirements. Whether at book signings or speaking engagements or maybe even a TV spot here and there, will be asked to appear in public looking my very best. Problem is, I don't feel like I look my best right now. This happens every track season, when the time demands of coaching my track team cuts into my own training. Steadily over the course of the season I get a little rounder and my jaws get that much less defined. At some point I look at my naked body in the mirror and realize that have no visible signs of abdominal muscles and a certain expansiveness to my waistline. The problem has its roots on my growing up as a runner, and never learning how to properly diet. I always figured I could run off anything I ate, which is fine just so long as you keep running. At this point in track season, with my mileage dwindling severely, that dieting technique is showing its flaws.

So anyway.... one month until the book comes out, in search of a little discipline, I turned to my good friend Terry Sedgewick to kick my ass. I don't like to call Terry my trainer, because I am an elitist and like to imagine that trainers are just for people on Biggest Loser or some other such individual who doesn't know his way around the gym (but truth be told, I'm headed straight for BL is I keep this up). But the truth is that Terry is a trainer, he is my trainer, and he has been kicking my ass for the last few weeks to get me into book shape.

He calls his airless gym the House of Pain, and the only standing rule is that you have to fart and vomit outside. Terry is hulking and bald, a former pro duathlete who looks like Mr. Clean. I am making the drive three times a week, in the hopes that I might become lean and photogenic. It used to be that races dictated my training schedule, dangling out in front of me like a promise waiting to be kept. But now I find that I'm much happier if I am fit enough at all times tojust jump in and do a race. This works for almost anything, so long as you take care of yourself. It got me through L'Etape du Tour last July, the New York Marathon last November, and Tough Guy in January. I wasn't competitive, but had fun in all that suffering. Running my best times doesn't matter to me right now. I am loathe to be that most tiresome of all athletes -- the overzealous age-grouper who came to racing late in life and approaches it with evangelical fervor, deriving meaning and social status from their races, neglecting their families and focusing every last bit of energy on their training, always losing sight of the fact that they're "not going to win the car" in the words of my friend Karrie Ferguson, referring to the prize sometimes accorded to overall race winners.

As odious as those souls may be, I do admire their pursuit of excellence. And while they may not win the car -- nor sprint to victory at Paris-Roubaix a la Tom Boonen, or shoot par golf at the Master's -- they are striving to be their best.

That's why I'm off to see Terry in about thirty minutes. I want to be better. It is my personal belief that mankind is designed to pursue excellence. We abhor mediocrity, even as we embrace it on a daily basis. How we approach the daily struggle to be our best on a mental, physical, and spiritual level defines us like nothing else. So as my new book comes out, and I hope it becomes a best-seller, I find myself asking if I'm truly striving to be my best, or if I'm just happy to muddle painfully through L'Etape du Tour (11.5 hours to finish), New York (a wallowing 3:45), and Tough Guy (well, nothing did could have made it easier, let's just leave it at that).

The answer is that, until very recently, I wasn't doing much to push myself towards excellence. I was muddling. It's a process, this push. But I don't want to look back on my deathbed and mourn a life wasted in halfhearted efforts and near success. Rather, I want to know that I lived to the fullest, doing my best in all things, even if part of being better means seeking out a place where they ask you to step outside to throw up.