The blog is coming down, as of now. Starting April 7, look for Mondays with Marty over at the new place. It's been a great ride here at active.com, and working with Luc the Good Egg and Klink and Gordo Selkirk was one of those great professional privileges that stay with you for a very long time. I'm hoping we can all do something together again -- and soon.

Onward. In Coronado today, having driven down the coast for my son's lacrosse tournament. He is my oldest, and a senior, and with the end of the school year looming this time feels more precious than ever. He is determined to go to school back east, and I am hovering a little too much parentally as the inevitable day of his departure draws nearer. Yes, it's still months away, but I'm already getting a little misty. I remember the first day we brought him home from the hospital when he was born, looking at this little creature in his brand new car seat and wondering if I had the stones to properly handle the 18-year commitment between birth and leaving for college. In short, how could I -- a guy who often sees himself as a total ****-up, raise a child? The time has passed in the blink of an eye, and a whirlwind of sports that he has tried and discarded: swimming, little league, the dreaded AYSO phase, club soccer (another painful epoch), and then lacrosse. There was a pit stop in cross-country last fall, where I got to coach him one last time. But this is the last of the tournament travel trips, and I am glad that my wife insisted we drive down for the weekend rather than simply drive to and from Orange County each day. That old saw about them growing up so fast is all too true. ****, I'm going to miss not having him around every day.

I am the sort who feels themes a little too often, so the sense of closure hanging over everything lately may be contrived. But as my son waits to hear from the one school he most wants to get into (he's been accepted at some good ones, wait-listed at some favorites, and turned down by one; but there's one university in particular that has him racing to the mailbox each afternoon, looking for that letter), I long for him to get that closure so he can move onto that next phase of life, because until he gets that letter he is in limbo. It is the limbo I feel as I anticipate the release of The Training Ground, and as track season finally evolves from the wheel-spinning of early conditioning into the heart-pounding fun of championship season. It is the limbo that comes between the dream, the striving, and the outcome; that time when you find yourself falling onto your faith to keep your bearing, because the ability to control the outcome is just not there.

So this feels like a good way to close the blog. Waltzing into limbo... but pushing forward nonetheless. I hope we see each other at the Tour this year.

One last time, with feeling: Keep Pushing... Always.

These missives were the outgrowth of my 2006 Tour de France coverage, and a suggestion by Jim Woodman of active.com to continue the daily writings that had drawn such a nice readership throughout those 23 days. It's been almost two years, and though I think there's been some good stuff in here, I never saw myself writing these for such a long time frame. It's gotten a little tired these past few months, and I think we all know it. I envisioned that it would go out with a whimper, so I was a little happy to see the the spike in comments and feedback (ok, revilement) of the past two weeks.

Yes, this is the final week of The Paper Kenyan. Starting April 7 I'll be doing a regular Monday column over on competitor.com, but the stream-of-consciousness stuff that has defined these writings will be limited to the occasional post on my own website (www.martindugard.com) when I've got something to get off my chest (such as the horse owner whose palatial new stable is being built on nearly pristine public land atop the nearby Chiquita Ridge trail. If ever I was moved to commit environmental sabotage, it came during the recent bulldozing and scraping of that land.. and for what? For horses? Horse owners are easily the most arrogant and proprietary trail users in the world, bar none. To see one build a stable atop a public trail, and then build a fence around it in some sort of eminent domain land grab makes by blood boil).

See... I lapsed back into it, just like that. Anyway, today the Los Angeles Times stopped running Doonesbury, filling its space with some politically correct and totally lame strip. So that seemed like a good cue to write my swan song. I'm done on Friday. Not sure if I'm at the Tour this year, that all depends upon competitor and their new partners at VeloNews. Either way, it's been quite a ride.

Keep pushing... always.

Let's be honest here: I thought Camille was a stalker at first, back when I started writing these pieces during the 2006 Tour de France. But she's not, obviously, and I've come to value her intellect. She has constantly weighed in with balanced, thoughtful comments. There are days when I actually look for a little approval from Camille, as she's often the barometer of whether I've filled this space in the sort of thoughtful or provocative manner that seems to work best.

So thanks, Camille.

Onward. Got an email from Janet Clark at Xterra, wondering if I'd come out and be a part of their Nevada Passage competition on May 4-10. They're tying it in with the Land Rover G4 Challenge qualifying rounds, with the winner moving on to the European Championships in England, and possibly the World's in Malaysia. Two thoughts here: I would do just about anything to go hang with Janet and the Trey and all the rest of the Xterra Planet inhabitants, especially in Las Vegas. I've been covering their events since 1991 (which is a long time and makes me sound old, so I will refrain from stating that year ever again), when they were staging lifeguard competitions on Waikiki Beach. I've been to Saipan for their Xterra competition, and Maui for their Xterra World's. In between I wrote about their mountain bike stage race and a host of other events. So we have a relationship. Glad to do it. Put me on a plane and I'm there.

Second, I love Land Rovers. I don't actually own one, but I've always liked that mystique about them, that "we're traveling through the African savanna" sensibility. I know, I know: it's odd. But if they let me drive around the desert in a 4-wheel Land Rover for a couple days, I'm totally down with that.

Frankly, I could use a little getaway. In addition to the fires here on the site, which have made me weary, the bureaucratic hassles of coaching my track team are enough to make me pull my hair out. I don't do bureaucracy well, particularly because it often involves dealing with petty intolerant people who spend hours fretting about how to protect their corner of the sand box. I like the bigger picture, and the belief that coaching is more about molding champions and teaching young men and women how to be individuals who push themselves and work hard each day, and find reward in that process. The in-fighting I can do without. An acquaintance who once worked as an Athletic Director once told me that walk-on coaches don't tend to quit because they get bored with coaching, but because they get beaten down with the bureaucracy. I know what he's talking about. This is the time every track season where I want to quit, even though it would break my heart. I won't, of course. And two weeks after the season's over I'll miss it, and immerse myself in cross-country. But right now I'm a little tired of the nitpicking.

Alright. That's all I got. My son just walked in. Turns out it's senior ditch day. It's too cold to go to the beach and no one else has a Disneyland pass, so he's just going to play the piano and sleep.

Sounds like fun.

Keep pushing... always.

"Never complain, never explain," said Benjamin Disraeili. It is a maxim I like to follow, but today I will make an exception.

Let's talk about the Floyd Landis story that has made me the whipping boy of those quasi-cycling fans who follow the sport but seem to exist in some bubble of suspended reality in which doping is committed by riders from every country but America. I wrote a piece in Orange Coast Magazine in which I answered the question that has been nagging at me since day it was announced that Landis was accused of doping: Did I think he did it? Call it water cooler conversation taken to a different forum, but you've all asked yourself that question. In my case, I've gone back and forth on the Landis question since the story first broke, alternately believing and disbelieving his innocence. My conclusion came down to this: reports showed synthetic testosterone in his system. I can't get past that. Elevated levels of natural testosterone/epitestosterone I can understand. But the synthetic's presence is a deal breaker. So that's what I wrote.

Let's backtrack. Here's how it works: I get a call from an editor, asking me to write my take on the Floyd Landis situation, knowing that the appeal will occur at the same time the piece will come out. Obviously, the question of guilt or innocence is vital. It was to be a story about me, not Floyd, the story of the Landis case told through the prism of my personal experiences. I didn't know how it was going to end, and when I got to the last few sentences, I had to go with what was in my gut. My opinion would hold no more weight than any other cycling fan's if I didn't have a forum to put it out there. Floyd called after the story broke, and left a voicemail asking if he had anything to be concerned about. I called back and told him no, that I came to my own conclusions, that the piece was complimentary in many ways, but the ending wasn't going to be to his liking. I'm not the first to jump to such a conclusion, nor the first writer to put his thoughts in print. I'm just the latest. Pro or con, for or against, next week it will be someone else, and someone else the week after that.

If the Court of Arbitration for Sport overturns his conviction, and Floyd Landis is found innocent, my next phone call to him will be to apologize for doubting him so openly. If they uphold the conviction, I'll let the rest of the journalistic world sort it out. But for me this story is over. I've had my say, written what I thought was a balanced and honest piece, and I am looking forward to moving on.

Keep pushing... always.

I get regular press releases from ASO, the company that owns the Tour de France and Paris-Nice, among many others. But they're always in French, which means I have to got to Velonews to read about what's happening. They've got a great site, and I like being able to access all the results quickly. It's sort of like reading the agate in the Sports section -- not something I do for heavy reading, but a speedy and productive form of content that gives me what I need instantly.

It often seems to me that this shows a neat divide in how many of us like our results presented. Some people like the "just the facts, ma'am" approach, while others like something with a little more prose. And then there are some people who write about stuff from a far remove, trying to see an event or an individual from a non-niche perspective. This is how I've always like to cover cycling, and pretty much everything else I write about. I don't want to be that guy who focuses on gear ratios or average speed. I like the romance of athletics, and try to write from the point of view of someone who has seen a number of events in the course of two decades covering endurance sports. My writing isn't for everyone, particularly when it comes to the Tour. Some folks want to read my daily riffs on travel, wine, history, and bike racing. Some people think I'm a moron who doesn't know squat about the Tour de France. I'm OK either way. One of the first things I learned when I became a writer is that there's always a person standing over your shoulder, reading your work as you write, critiquing your stuff. It's not a real person, but someone like a mom or wife or editor whose opinion you respect. When you can finally succeed in getting that person to not exist while you write -- in other words, pour words straight from the heart to the screen without self-editing -- then your best and most pure stuff tends to come forth. In other words, I can't write about the Tour any other way than I already do. I call it as I see it, because if I covered the Tour any other way I would be: a) bored; 2) unfulfilled, and, c) not true to whatever meandering path my career is taking.

This is me out loud, by the way. I'm having one of those days where I feel like I'm writing well, but I'm not sure that the direction my meanderings will take. Not that I think it will suck, but I just don't know if it will be popular. I'm headed back to France for the Tour this summer. I feel like I've covered it enough that the layers have been peeled back and I can write about it more honestly than ever. Thing is, I'm not sure people want to read that. We'll see. Each year I try to do it better. This year I hope that you'll all buy the ticket and take the ride along with me -- wherever that may lead.

Keep pushing... always.

No particular reason for that title. I was just thinking about the Who song by the same name, which is remarkably catchy and very hard to get out of my head, thus the title.

Thanks to those who've written how the track weekend went. Very well, thank you very much. The uniform guy showed up (late, but he showed), the invitational went off with a minimum of glitches, and my runners got used to racing around a track again. Track is different than cross-country, favoring runners with a good sense of pacing and can endure the demanding rigor of running in large packs in a narrow space (lane 1). I like that moment that occurs this time every year, when the sprinters and distance runners and vaulters and jumpers -- all of whom barely speak during practice, as they break into their disparate groups and do their specialized workouts -- all put on the same uniform and come together as teammates. They cheer for each other, exhort one another, and generally just behave like people getting happy about being part of something larger than themselves.

By the way, I'm a fashion nightmare, constantly being dressed by my wife (otherwise I tend to adopt what is known around here as "the uniform": running shoes, a baggy pullover sweatshirt, and floppy cargo shorts. The various mothers on my teams are deeply nervous when I make it clear that I am more than capable of selecting the team uniforms, fearing quite rightly that I will dress their daughters in the track and field equivalent of the brown burlap sack. And right up to the time the uniform guy showed up, I was sure if I had done good or not. I handpicked the uniforms out of the ASICS catalog, hoping against hope that they would fit as well and look as good on my athletes as in the Spring 2008 Apparel catalog (tip: If you go to the ASICS website, read the descriptions of the various items of apparel and footwear. I wrote them. It's my way of making sure I have a New York Marathon entry every year if I need one).

Where was I? Oh, yeah. Uniforms. They look awesome. Boys and girls. My son calls the men's singlet the most comfortable garment he's ever worn, and the team mothers tell me I've done a fine job matching colors and styles. Some of them aren't too pleased about the form fit, but the days of the baggy singlet are slipping further and further into the rearview mirror. Sleek means aero means speed.

OK. A couple other things worth noting. I've been getting a number of press releases about the upcoming Ironman China, so I thought I'd mention it (Google for dates and location), if only as a means of saying, is it just me, or is China having some sort of coming out party just in time for the Beijing Olympics?

Also, despite Luc the Good Egg's endless fascination with the Mahre brothers, Bode Miller is quietly shredding this season. The man is dominating the skiing world, as his downhill win this weekend and overall World lead shows. Some folks don't like Bode (I keep trying to spell it with an "i" like the ghost town north of Mammoth) because he's a little off in his own planet. Me, I think that's a good thing.

Buy the ticket, take the ride.

Keep pushing... always.

Once every few months Ken the Cook sends me a few mix CD's and an admonition to get down to Anguilla if I want to see what paradise looks like. Got the latest batch the other day -- a nice selection of Springsteen, Graham Parker, Stones, and others -- along with a photograph that was obviously taken from a beach chair. The image shows a turquoise ocean, white sand, no waves, and an overwhelming feeling of bliss. All in all, I am beginning to think that Anguilla has a place in my future.

I used to travel out of curiosity, and then I traveled to escape myself (problem with that is that I always went along for the trip), and now I travel mostly when the assignment beckons, but just as often out of curiosity. It is an interesting fact about travel is that the daily process of being thrust of your routine and element is scary and life-affirming at the same time. Travel forces you to make decisions and solve problems in places that are far from home, and does so throughout the entire journey. My wife has pointed out that this is the reason many people enjoy cruises or package tours -- there is no risk of making a wrong turn or otherwise getting sideways. One of these days, when my boys are all in college, I want to do a travel show. I'm actually not much on writing a travel book (though I have done one, and it was great fun to write), but the idea of heading off to someplace and filming a TV show about the adventure strikes me as a nice personal challenge a whole lot of fun. I've been working with some folks behind the scenes on a new adventure show, and it's been a fun process to be a part of.

Onward. I am slowly warming up to my track team. Cross-country is easy. Everyone runs the same event and there's a definite team vibe that permeates the workouts and races. Track is different. Track is personnel management, coach management (sprint, jump, vault, throws -- each with their own style and event-specific personality), and an all around pain in the derriere. Having said that, it's a challenge. If I'm going to coach a team I want it to win, and so I have begun investing myself in the process learning ways to win as a track coach.

It's not easy. I am not happy with some of my coaches. I am not happy with the attendance philosophy of many of my athletes. And I am the head coach of a very small and new school that competes in one of the most competitive leagues in Southern California. We didn't win a single meet last year. Not even close. Things will be different this season, or so I hope.

The distance runners are working well, and I'm employing a more speed-centric philosophy in years past, simply because I feel like we never had the rapid leg turnover you need to be great on the track. So the practices are invariably faster than they're used to (although shorter) and the girls' squad is a bunch of little diva's that all want to kick each other's butt (this is a good thing; competition is life), but we muddle on. My goal is to make them all champions this season, whether they want to or not. Seriously, right now we're in that pre-competition phase where their goals seem oh so elusive, and my job is to keep them focused on what they cannot see. What's that Paul said about faith: being certain of what we cannot see.

Stay tuned.

Have fun, Kenny. Thanks for the CD's.

Keep pushing... always.

I just wrote a rather eloquent and lengthy piece in this space on Solvang and the Tour de California, talking about how Solvang is the epicenter of California cycling thanks to its annual century and rolling terrain. I compared the landscape with Ireland because it's green right now (and Californians are so accustomed to the sunburned brown of our hillsides that we get all goo-goo eyed about anything sort of green vegetation that survives into the last week of February). I made a passing reference to the way Anne Lammott so perfectly describes the shape of California's soft hillsides as being like lion's paws (or cat's paws, I can't remember which, but you get the point).

All in all, it was a rather nice piece of writing. But in the computer version of the dog ate my homework, a technical glitch ate my missive. So I'm writing again, though with the same zeal or sense of initiative. Let's just say that I've been to the well and it's feeling sort of empty right now.

But let me see if I can reconstruct. I think I mentioned something about the horrendous weather that is buffeting the Tour right now. "Horrendous" means nothing to most of you, for your blizzards and sub-zeros make our horrendous look like a trip to Disneyland. BUt there is rain, and a certain chill in the air, and yesterday 18 people dropped out of the bike race because they didn't want to catch cold or get blown off a cliff into the Pacific by some briny gust. This is not Paris-Roubaix weather. More like Perris-Murrietta. But it's cold and wet nonetheless, and I can see why those guys dropped out. No sense crashing in February, potentially wrecking a season that doesn't get serious for another six weeks. As evocative as the Tour of California might be, it's still the Tour of Qatar when it comes to relative significance in the cycling world.

Let's see... what did I write next? I wrote about the Leipheimer/Cancellara showdown in the time trial today, and how everyone's saying that it's going to decide the bike race. That may be, but it's only fifteen miles long and there's just one climb. That's the sort of time trial that's going to keep everyone close, all the way into Pasadena.

What else? I can't remember. I have to add that it's cool to see Super Mario riding again. There is an air of royalty to him, and bike racing could use a little glamor in these hardscrabble Roger Clemens times.

Keep pushing... always.