In the Long Run One Woman’s Midlife Quest to Run a Marathon on Every Continent Cami Ostman PO Box 29043 Bellingham, WA 98228 (360) 715-9636 [email protected] http://7marathons7continents.blogspot.com 1 Proposal Table of Contents Overview ……………………………………………… 3 Table of Contents ……………………………………… 4 Chapter-by-Chapter Summaries ……………………… 5 Author Biography ……………………………………… 12 Target Audience ……………………………………… 13 Marketing Strategies ……………………………………… 14 Competitive Titles ……………………………………… 16 Length and Delivery ……………………………………… 19 Sample Chapters ……………………………………… 20 2 Overview Sometimes a personal crisis can open the door to a new life. For me, in the midst of a divorce and paralyzing self-doubt, with anxiety making it impossible to get air into my lungs, I had to find a way to breathe. So one morning, I went out into the elements and I took a slow run. It was exactly what I needed: As it turns out, you have to breathe when you run. In the Long Run: One Woman’s Midlife Quest to Run a Marathon on Every Continent is the story of a woman creeping into midlife who is an unlikely athlete and an unlikely hero. The book begins with my divorce and the messy grief I was muddling through when an old friend challenged me to go for a run. That first run gave me the gift of breath and some clarity of thought, so I kept it up. The reader comes with me while I run my way out of sadness and the patriarchal rules around “being a woman” that had held me captive, and into authenticity and self- love. In the Long Run tells of a true vision quest, the one I willingly submitted to as I put myself on every continent of the world for seven 26.2-mile grunts and a chance to change my life. Up hills, through flash floods, past dead kangaroos, and into realistic love for self and others, the reader will follow me into some of the most exotic places in the world and some of the darkest and most enlightened places in the psyche. There are fifteen chapters in this book. Preceding the chapters that chronicle the seven marathons on the seven continents are the chapters that describe the preparations for each of those races and the self-learnings that each particular training period drilled into me. The last chapter is the summary of the gifts this long journey has given me (and the reader) and some thoughts about how readers might integrate the lessons I’ve learned into their own lives. In the Long Run is a memoir, but it is also a model of how anyone can take on a midlife vision quest of her own, with or without the running. Readers of this book will be inspired to take chances, to tell the truth in their lives and to listen to their inner voices in a new way. 3 Table of Contents Introduction Chapter 1. Beginning the Race: The Starting (Over) Line Chapter 2. Europe: The Prague Push, May 2003 Chapter 3. Together and Alone: My Own Vision Quest, September 2003–June 2007 Chapter 4. Australia: The Mudgee Nudge, August 2007 Chapter 5. Back of the Pack: Finding Community Chapter 6. North America: The Whidbey Island Grind, April 2008 Chapter 7. Powerful and Vulnerable: Tales From a Sub-Continental Race Chapter 8. Asia: The Tateyama Trek, January 2009 Chapter 9. Getting Ready for the Long Haul Chapter 10. Africa: Killer Kilimanjaro, June 2009 Chapter 11. A Brief Reprieve Chapter 10. South America: Sao Paulo Celebration, June 2009 Chapter 13. Resting and Recuperating: Preparing for Antarctica Chapter 14. Antarctica: South Pole Shout Out, March 2010 Chapter 15. Reflections: How to Prepare a Midlife Vision Quest Afterword 4 Chapter-by-Chapter Summaries Author’s Note: All chapters through Chapter 7 reflect events that have already occurred. Chapters 8 through 15 have yet to be written because I am still in the process of completing preparations for participation in those marathons. Although it is impossible to know what each race will bring in terms of insights and lessons, it is certain that every marathon brings ample opportunity for self-reflection, as well as plenty of struggles to overcome and learn from. Please note that I have plans to complete three races in 2009 and one (Antarctica) in Spring 2010. Chapters will be completed in a timely manner after the running of each race. Introduction I didn’t become a committed runner until I was ready to run away from my eleven-year marriage and from the rigid rules of my religion. I’d been “born again” when I was thirteen years old. My family was in shambles at the time. My parents had divorced a couple of years earlier, and my mother had quickly remarried. I got a new baby brother just before I started Junior High. I needed some attention and some structure. In walked God and a literalistic view of the Bible with a big load of rules. I took to the rules, as do many people who come out of chaos looking for security, and they gave me a foundation to stand on for many years. Twenty years, an unhappy marriage, and a master’s degree later, however, I was ready to leave the patriarchal structure that had taught me that obedience was more important than happiness. Unfortunately, I didn’t have anything to replace it with. That’s where running would come in. My friend, Bill, first challenged me to take up running, and then invited me to train for a marathon in Prague. I accepted the invitation not knowing that soon enough I would find myself embracing a vision quest that would take me to all seven continents to run a marathon on each, and that the Marathon would teach me everything from how to embrace the chaos I’d always been afraid of to how to be alone—among other lessons. This is the story of seven marathons on seven continents, how the marathon is a metaphor for life, and how it has given me the information I’ve needed for a long-term vision of how to live my life. Chapter 1. Beginning the Race: The Starting (Over) Line I started my new life floundering and afraid. I’d lost my church, my home, my marriage, at least a dozen friends, and all the foundations that had held my life together. I didn’t know how I would rebuild, who my new community would be, or what I would spend my life doing. The roles available to women in my old paradigm were limited, so I had some new ground to cover as I inched my way into a new life. A dinner with my old friend, Bill, put a bug in my ear to take a run one afternoon. He claimed it would help me manage the psychic pain I was in. As I ran, I found it hard to be patient with myself, but it was also oddly meditative. It forced me to focus on my body and breath and my moment-to-moment experience rather than reliving my mistakes or dwelling in the fear I had for my future. I began to wonder if maybe I didn’t need to figure out and measure how I’d gotten myself into this mess, or how I was going to redeem myself. Maybe I needed to live in 5 the now, to accept what life offered right this instant instead of trying to force it into a box the size and shape of a church or a theology, as I had been doing. Being outside in the elements, vulnerable and alone, I ran and breathed and let my tortured heart rest a little. And then, later in the week, I did it again. Over time, Bill cheered me on and ran with me some weekends. We started to spend more time together and became more than friends. For months I just ran a few miles a few times a week and let myself heal. And then on a beautiful August day, while hiking in the Cascade Mountains, Bill popped a question I wasn’t ready for: Would I run a marathon with him next May—in Prague? Since I was in charge of myself now, I could pick up and go to Prague with this man if I wanted to, but I couldn’t run a marathon on free will alone. I would have to train hard for that part. I had to think over Bill’s proposal. But in the end, I decided to do it. My life needed something to organize around. It would turn out to be the beginning of the most significant relationship in my life: the relationship between my aching soul and the truths about self that the Marathon insists we learn. Chapter 2. Europe: The Prague Push, May 2003 As it turned out, training for a marathon had just enough of the devotion and misery in it I had experienced in religion that I felt right at home, even as I was stretched by the physical requirements of the task. Through the hours and hours of training, I began to discover that there was more value in the simple act of engaging in the journey than in whether or not I had a successful run. Unlike with the religious focus on sin and perfection, running was always about the moment, about picking up one leg and then the other, and about remembering to breathe. This was new and revolutionary for me. In the past, every choice in life was about heaven and hell, about the future rather than the present.