Saturday's Apology

Eventually you find you can't keep up the pace you set originally. I ran in the University City 5K on Memorial Day 1995 and of course, I was in the front cluster when the starting gun went off. Now, of the meager number of races that I've run, this race had the most insane beginning. The first half-mile was a satanic incline that took out your legs. Nonetheless, I swiftly shot near the front of the pack, hoping for the inevitable leveling off of Delmar Boulevard. I was still among the front-runners at the first mile marker (no small feat for a Clydesdale of my size) and one of the timekeepers called out, "Five minutes, twenty seconds!"

To which my soul said to me, "Five-twenty? What the devil are you doing up there?"

At which point I promptly hit the wall. Mentally and physically, I seized up, and it took until the third and final mile of the race before I could muster a comeback down the stretch. Although I finished with my best time ever for a 5K (20 minutes, 53 seconds for the record), I knew I had committed a cardinal error at the race's start. I had outstripped my common sense and gone at a faster pace than I should.

And now, eighteen years later, I have to confess to doing it again.

It was ridiculous to expect I could put out a high volume of blog posts every day. I was approaching today, remembering that Saturday is my book review day, when I grimly realized I would not have completed my reading of Peter Tremayne's Behold A Pale Horse in time to comment on it. I had become exhausted trying to average a blog post a day. Now I worry if even three posts a week is too much. Hard to say, although that pace is much more do-able.

I was encouraged recently by a tweet from Donald Miller (of Blue Like Jazz fame) when he asked if our aim was to have more Twitter followers or better content when we tweet. I drew this wisdom parallel to Sacred Chaos and firmly believe that what truly matters is not the volume on my blog but the quality of what goes on it.

So...the reading reviews will continue, but they might not be every Saturday. The number of posts will range per week, but I at least am thankful for this wake-up call, one to be a more effective writer over an insanely consistent one.

In the meantime, keep looking out for what winds up here.