By Barry McNamara

College students handle the stress of final exams in different ways. Fueled by caffeine, some simply stay up all night, poring over their texts, while others seek escape with a quick trip to the gym or a local pizza place.

For Monmouth College junior Matt Peharda, writing a book wound up being his outlet of choice.

The project he began in the wee hours of one of Monmouth’s exam periods has turned into “Running with a Vengeance: An Inspirational Tale of Pride, Determination and Destiny.” Published by PublishAmerica, the book is available at Running Central in Peoria, as well as through online booksellers such as Barnes & Noble and Amazon.

The novel’s central figure, Todd Holmes, attends fictitious Richmond High School, which is not a far cry in name or characteristics from Peharda’s Peoria high school, Richwoods. Holmes’ character is based on former Class AA state champion Nick Holmes, a graduate of Limestone High School in Bartonville. He and Peharda are good friends and are co-workers at Running Central.

“It’s basically Matt Peharda’s journey and the things he had to deal with, with Nick Holmes’ accomplishments,” Richwoods’ cross country coach Todd Hursey told the Peoria Journal-Star.

“When I came to Richwoods, I was dead-on that I was definitely going to do basketball,” Peharda said. “My math teacher (Hursey) kept telling me that I’d be a really good runner. After my freshman year, I decided to stick with cross country.”

Peharda was a fixture on the varsity for all four years, moving from the edge of the scoring line between the No. 5 and No. 6 slots to the team’s No. 2 runner later in his Knight career. Not coincidentally, his training was also on the rise, as he logged some summer work prior to his junior year and even more before his final season.

But, Peharda told the Journal-Star, “I didn’t care too much about it until it was too late. After cross country awards night my senior year, I thought, ‘Man, I really, really, really miss running.’ I took it so much for granted.”

Peharda’s college experience began at the University of Illinois. Though not quite in the class to be a varsity runner for the Illini, he did enjoy his time as a participant on a club team that finished second in the nation.

His friendship with Peoria-area runner Clay Staley (now a junior at MC) led to an informal visit to Monmouth, and after meeting the members of the team and going on a run with them, Peharda looked seriously at transferring. Thanks to an academic scholarship, Monmouth turned out to be less expensive than Illinois, and Peharda could also complete his degrees in mathematics and secondary education in four years. Combine the opportunity to compete as an NCAA runner, and Peharda’s choice was made.

As a high school student, Peharda never dreamed he would author a novel, but he did participate in the International Baccalaureate program, an advanced placement curriculum with a major focus on English and writing. Though not asked to write anything of book length, he did recall an assignment to write a 10,000-word essay. He remembers choosing to focus on the correlation between skateboarders and their grades.

The former “skater boy” is now slammin’ on his keyboard, and Peharda knows he already has at least 57 sales, as he signed that many books at an event held at Running Central earlier this month. A sequel to his novel, covering his main character’s college years, is also in the works, and Peharda estimates 10 percent of it is written.

“I won’t know about my total sales until Sept. 1,” he said. “I don’t know what to expect. The book’s being discussed on some running Web sites, and if I can get on the main running site (letsrun.com), it could really take off.”

Peharda said that the enormity of his accomplishment didn’t really sink in until a friend showed him the receipt from a purchase of his book.

“It didn’t really hit me until then,” he said. “I thought, ‘What on earth did I just do?’”

After graduating in 2009, Peharda hopes to be a high school teacher and a coach – ideally at Richwoods – and he said his book contains some of the philosophies he hopes to pass on to his athletes.

“All the big improvements are made during the off-season,” he said. “You’ve got the rest of your life to mess around. Don’t take your time on the team for granted, because you only have four years. Do all the little things, and do what you think the other runners aren’t doing.”

Peharda meant training, of course, but he could have meant something else. After all, not many guys on the other teams wrote novels in the off-season.

For more information on "Running with a Vengeance," go to http://publishedauthors.net/runhard/.