Who Said this Would be Easy?

My watch read 2hours and 52 minutes. This meant that, by my own volition, I had been running through the woods on my own two feet for a very long time. Even more surprising than the fact that my legs hadn't crumpled yet was the realization that I was fairly perky and still smiling at hikers and bikers I passed along the way. After three hours of hard continuous exercise and elements, it's an annoying discovery about oneself.

After greeting a group of cyclists with a hearty "Good morning!" while my heart monitor beeped rapidly, I admitted inwardly that I had become that person--the one whose cheeriness agitates others. For me, that person, the one whose enjoyment of arduous long distance events never faltered, was a well-groomed gentleman named Steve Rojek. In recent years, this decorated equestrian has represented the U.S. in international endurance racing. I first encountered Mr. Rojek competing in competitive trail rides around central Vermont in my adolescence. He had a reputation for remaining so upbeat during rainstorms, fatigue, bee stings, and other trail maladies that it irritated the rest of us mortals. Primarily, his bionic good nature highlighted the fact that the rest of us were...well, not very good natured after mile 20. Our spirits sagged, our energy failed, and our smiles turned to crabby exchanges, leaving us just plain puzzled by guys like Mr. Rojek. I've used the plural "guys" there, but I should clarify that there was only one rider as invincible as Mr. Steve Rojek.

In one event so predictably difficult that we called it the Hartford Heartbreak 40 miler, we hit rain, snow, mud, and ice all in one morning. At mile 12 my mare refused to cross a river that swelled overnight to frightening heights for a pony, so I dismounted and entered the water to reassure her. For the next several miles, my cold wet breeches chafed my calves raw. The overnight rain also knocked down trail markers between miles 16 and 22, which meant most of us added an unnecessary loop to climb Heartbreak Hill TWICE.

After the second 800-foot ascent, my tired mare's pulse and respiration inverted. Veterinarians put us on mandatory hold while she puffed and puffed and finally recovered. It was about this time that Mr. Rojek crested Heartbreak Hill on his dappled grey Arabian gelding. His tailored pale blue shirt now bore a swath of blood across one sleeve and his neatly trimmed mustache showed a clump of mud. The visor of his helmet, too, was cracked and muddy, the evidence I heard later of his horse bolting across the river and scrambling madly up a bank into oncoming traffic on Route 12A. En route, the horse launched Mr. Rojek into a rock-strewn stretch of trail and galloped two miles towards the nearest town before someone caught him.

Nonetheless, Mr. Rojek was smiling. His was a genuine smile, too, I should add, not an act he feigned for the rest of us. Something about the gnarly mishaps of the day agreed with him. He loped past the vet station where I stood pouting and flashed an open-palm wave. "Lovely day, isn't it?" he called out on his way to tackle more miles, the pursuit that brought this man so much solace.

I looked at a fellow competitor who withdrew from the ride mid-way due to knee pain. We puzzled over the complete lack of sarcasm in Mr. Rojek's salutation. What on earth could be so lovely about this? For years I pondered over that as I encountered Mr. Rojek out on the trail. Always-- at mile 18, mile 47, mile 92-- his face came through the fog and downpours and snow with a grin. When you're on the other side of that grin, mired in the difficulty of your endeavor, you start to wonder if the person might be alien. When you are aching, tired, and hungry, how can the person next to you still be smiling?

Then I became an adult myself and took up sports like marathoning, bike touring, and yes- still long distance trail riding. These long miles out in Mother Nature agree with me on every level and, while I hate to admit it, I have become a version of Mr. Rojek. Finally, I understand the man who puzzled me for ages. Now, I too annoy others with a hearty wave and toothy grin. As others grunt and gasp up hills, I waste extra energy reflecting on the sweet smell of eucalyptus in the woods at this time of year. I incite annoyed looks from others on the trail.

Let me be clear. It's not that I don't feel the suffering or the sheer effort or overwhelming fatigue to get to the next mile. I do. When my watch approached 3 hours last Sunday, though, the small details of my discomfort paled beside my solace and satisfaction of long distance in the woods. The larger joys far outweighed my flaming ankle, crampy calves, and thirst. I ached and fatigued just as much as anyone on the trail that day, don't be fooled by the grin and don't start wondering if I am alien.

For some of us, long distance nourishes our souls. Tired legs and sore knees aside, it is the antidote to our busy minds, the peace inside us. Our smile despite the discomfort.

So, Mr. Rojek, I raise my electrolyte filled glass to you. Thank you for being an early inspiration and please forgive any annoyance I sent your way. Ride on!

Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous

Someone I hadn't met before bought my two books yesterday and when she handed me her check, she said something that made me snort with laughter.

After a reverent pause of holding the books I labored five years to write and publish in her outstretched arms, she remarked, "Wow, you must be, like, really famous."

Famous by whose calculation?, I wanted to know. First of all, unless you're Stephen King or Joyce Carol Oates, writing a book doesn't instantly land you amongst the glittering rich and famous. You can count on this being especially true when you write a book for a microscopic niche industry like horses.

Sure, my books have sold far and wide within the horse world, but I'm not sure that qualifies for fame. I can tell you that Oprah has not called yet. Nor has Ellen, Letterman, or the Today Show. That's the reality of being at the pinnacle of an activity that attracts only a few other folks, gets zero media coverage, and rarely makes the conversation list at parties and dinner tables nationwide.

In terms of mass market appeal, I might as well have written The Guide for Cartographers Under 30. Even if every single U.S. equestrian bought my book, the royalties wouldn't add up to owning a fancy address here in California, that's for sure. In fact, they wouldn't even add up to buy a mobile home in a nice park. Since the release of my second book, I'm still sitting here in my cottage listening to the termites chew apart its sagging roof. I still shop at Goodwill. I still drive a second-hand economy car. In other words, being a two-time author in the equine industry hasn't changed my life or bank account one iota.

Before I sound like a curmudgeon, though, let me admit that there has been some notoriety to come my way. It may be the type you measure in your own diary rather than the New York Times, but it's a small dose of acknowledgement nonetheless. Among my friends, I'm a celebrity, bless their souls. To them, a published book is unfathomably impressive. It doesn't matter if the book contains the Great American Novel, knock-knock jokes, or your mother's recipes. A book is a book ad to friends, it makes me as credible as Gatsby or Nabokov. Frankly, my pals can't figure out why Oprah hasn't called yet. One volunteered to make sure she had my phone number. I assured him that failing to have my number wasn't the reason that Oprah hasn't planned a show for authors of horse training manuals. Unless she intended to cut her interested viewers to a teeny fraction of its current size, I doubt I'll hear from her soon. But my friends don't understand this. A book is a book, right?

Notoriety also came from my hometown where the newspaper ran a feature story about me and my books. The front page story included a flattering photograph and no shortage of words. In fact, the article sought to make me a celebrity in more ways than one. It dug up every minor accomplishment from my life to date. It mentioned poetry contests, basketball championships, bike races, college honors awards. Basically, it provided the fanfare and retrospective my friends were hoping for from Oprah.

**I should mention that my Vermont hometown has a population around 5,000 and the weekly newspaper that featured me comes in the form of six pages of pancake breakfast announcements and fundraisers for the fire station.

It might not count as actual fame, but I plan to take it wherever I can get it. The adage of being a big fish in a little pond doesn't bother me. I will take big fish status any day because, let's face it, the horse world will always be a tiny pond. Heck, I may not be able to afford a Rolls Royce just yet, but you better believe I'm laminating that front page story from the Randolph Herald and hanging it on my wall unless the termites chew it down beforehand.

Move Over, Hank Williams

This might negate any chances I have of being hip, but let me confess that I love country music. It’s a secret indulgence of mine, warming me from top to bottom and soothing me no matter if my mood is up or down.

I’ve kept this secret because nobody else on the planet seems to like Country anymore, even horse people. And that baffles me, because where I grew up, horse folks were the only ones who actually did like country music. Nowadays, every horse person I know turns the dial when Randy Travis or Waylon Jennings comes on a radio. If cowboys of all people don’t listen to Country, then who does? Besides me, of course.

I’m worried that Country is going to disappear and this bums me out.

Maybe the problem is that we’ve become too urban, so tunes about ridiculously simple things just don’t pull any weight now. Who relates anymore to twangy songs about dogs or yodels praising pick-up trucks? A whiney guitar and a ditty about old men sitting around talking about the weather just don’t move people.

Fortunately for now, though, Country radio stations continue to exist. I can still hear Dolly Parton sing about her coat of many colors or Johnny Cash croon the Folsom Prison blues. For me, these melodies are somewhat synonymous with life with horses. Much of this has to do with the hole-in-the-wall Country station in my off-the-beaten-path childhood town in Vermont. Back before things like automated programming or satellite radio, this tiny station—WCVR—ran from a four-room clapboard shack, manned round the clock by deejays that were employable for no other capacity than what WCVR required of them: drink lots of stale coffee and burble into the microphone.

In the early days of getting our farm operating, my mother sold ads part-time for WCVR. Her ‘colleagues’ included one drunk and one parolee. She sometimes brought us along with her and let us peruse the stacks of tunes while she hawked air time to livestock feed companies, lumber yards, and tractor dealerships. All these establishments, the backbone of any rural economy, piped WCVR into their shops.

This meant that anyone with livestock had a steady daily diet of Country music. No matter what errands you ran, you would hear Hank Williams, guaranteed. Then, if you happened to be a single guy, you’d inevitably develop a crush on the afternoon deejay, “Rena,” and keep all your radios (truck, home, barn) tuned to WCVR so you didn’t miss an instant of her sultry voice. Rena’s smooth on-air persona defied her real-life stats. In person, she was neither smooth nor sultry. Rena was an exceptionally large woman, prone to sleeping in her clothes and forgetting to wash her hair. She told jokes without punch lines and then cackled and snorted at her own humor, sometimes stopping mid-joke to pop zits on her cheek. But if you only knew her on-air voice, you’d assume Rena was a real sex kitten. Thus the dozens of stalkers sending flowers to WCVR.

Then there was “Wild Willy,” the deejay that took over from 6pm to midnight, and gave painstaking monologues about his latest heartaches. Wild Willy refused to play “new school” Country and held instead to a playlist of strictly “old school” music, though no one else could tell the difference. Crooning, swaggering vocals all sounded the same to us.

We baled hay to Country, fed and trained horses to it. Like all farm families, our lives unfolded to a soundtrack of Country music. But now, apparently, the horse world has shucked off some of the attributes that always made it less cool than normal society (things like canvas clothes, chapped hands, maintenance-free haircuts—to name just a few).

Tunes about dogs and blue jeans and the weather have disappeared. It’s not that they’ve been replaced by anything. It’s more a matter of the horse world becoming more… well, maybe sophisticated is the right word. Nowadays, folks are busy with ipods and cell phones, email and digital cameras. There’s no room for a twangy soundtrack in the background of one’s life. Instead, we’re more modern now and arguably more hip. Minus me, of course, because I’ve replaced WCVR with a station here in California at 95.5 on the FM dial that plays old school and new school, whatever that means.