August 12, 1979 (Sunday)

From running log:
Ran about 3.5 miles at 8:00 pace (nice and easy) on a rainy, cool evening. It was supposed to be a CC run, but not one person showed up except me. I'm really having my doubts about having any team at all. Still no coach. With my knee hurting, I've been taking it easy, but my legs are still stiff. I'm tired and frustrated. I find it very hard to relax. Maybe it's because I have no girlfriend! I need more rest and more confidence, but not cockiness. I want to get back into enjoying my running, stop worrying. Total weekly miles = 21.5

30 years later:
It was mid-August, and things weren't looking too good.
- The team was still without a coach. The previous year, the women's coach had taken on the boy's team as well, but that hadn't worked out. The school district was still searching for a coach who would take on boy's cross country, and with the season kick-off only a couple weeks away, none had been found.
- On top of that, I had been trying to organize "CC runs" all summer long, hoping that my teammates would join me at least weekly for a brisk workout, and just to spend some time together bonding as a group. However, most of the CC runs had been very sparsely-attended, and this one was the worst, because I was the only person who showed up. I thought that all of us had set a goal to come back strong after such a disappointing season in 1978, to win the conference meet and re-establish Baraboo as the distance running king of the area. We weren't starting off very strongly.
- In addition, my knee pain was worsening, and while I wanted to deny it and just keep pushing myself, I knew deep down that I really should take some time off before the season, or risk being injured and missing significant time yet again.
- So the way it was looking, we'd have barely enough runners to form a varsity unit (and they'd mostly be out of shape and frankly I was not certain that all of them would actually show up or stick it out for the season), and we'd have no coach to lead us. I was feeling pretty gloomy about our prospects.

I knew I had to pull out of it, but to do so effectively I would have to regain confidence, not just start acting cocky. That's a fine line for a teenage boy. My general level of confidence wasn't helped by the fact that I really couldn't find anyone to date. Well, let's be honest, I was a bit hung up on one girl who clearly wasn't interested. That's a common and stupid mistake in high school. If I could go back in time, I would have encouraged the younger me to loosen up, open my mind, and not to try so hard to impress every girl I liked (typically by showing off loudly -yeesh, I must have been a comical sight, no wonder some girls just rolled their eyes at me). Of course, no guarantee my younger self would listen to any of that advice!