Archive For July 31, 2024
So, anyway, this being the last one hundred days of the campaign to end all campaigns. I will be reprising the occasional seasonal essay. Think of it as my Retribution Tour. Because, as the good Dr. Thompson said, “Revenge is one of the few things in politics that never gets lost in the mail or…
Mind is everything. Muscle, pieces of rubber. All that I am, I am because of my mind. – Paavo Nurmi Chapter Eighteen TRAINING DAY Sarah Herrington flew around the Nurmi Loop at the Arboretum, tearing small holes in the woodchip trail. By training mid-morning, she had the course to herself. The birdwatchers were gone…
Come alone. Do not wear your watch. Do not count your reps – it doesn’t matter. Chapter 17 OLD JOE “This is where you will work on speed,” Coach Benlehr told them. Diana, Chuck, and Chris looked out upon the gently sloping lane. Blanca Peak stood high to their right, the…
You can easily imagine Barker Ajax as a ranch hand, but a farmer? Well, it’s possible. Might’ve been in the early 1990s, the old west of the past century. Turns out he was hired primarily to keep felonious pests and inquisitive varmints away from the cash crop. Wrangle dogs and corral various critters. This he…
“Ten years ago, several Chinese women re-wrote the distance running record books, crediting a diet of turtle soup and caterpillars for the breakthrough.” Chapter Fifteen AUGUST “Good evening, sports fans, and welcome to the Cable Sports Network’s ‘World of Sport.’ I’m H.R. Javitts. “LaDewayne Morris, HIV positive, but still showing no symptoms of…
I don’t want to win unless I know I’ve done my best, and the only way I know to do that is to run out front, flat out, until I have nothing left. Winning any other way is chicken shit. – Steve Prefontaine Waited until the Olympic Trials concluded before telling you about Brad Fawley’s…
The one-hour run is rarely contested. In the 1950s, Emil Zatopek, then the world-record holder over 10,000 meters, competed in two sixty-minute races to chase the world records for fifteen kilometers and ten miles. The Czech legend became the first man to better twelve miles for the hour, a mark that stood for nearly twenty…
This great lady is an Original Gangster Of Running. Sara Mae Berman – street name “The Notorious SMB” – a pioneer so early a trail blazer, the route almost grew back over before other women followed her lead. I never thought of myself as an athlete. I married at nineteen and a half (Larry was…
Hard things take time to do. Impossible things take a little longer. – Percy Cerutty Chapter 12 PORTSEA SIERRA When he read Calvin Benlehr’s ad in Runner’s Gazette, Chris Nikolas Fed-Ex’d him a letter that afternoon. He quit his job in the mailroom at the State Capital in Bismarck that Friday, and next day,…
“The role of the artist is that of the soldier of the revolution.” – Nadya Tolokonnikova DeSantis Vetoes All Arts Grants in Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis gave no explanation for zeroing out $32 million in grants approved by state lawmakers. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/21/arts/ron-desantis-veto-arts-funding-florida.html Saw that headline and I thought, ‘Hold it! Didn’t you protest under that naked…