special book bonus

The mysterious runner comes to Chris’s aid—and then vanishes. Part 3.

Chapter 7

66 pint and a half of Sam Smith’s, please,” Warren Fowles said to the buxom bar

maid who had just smiled a “yes, please?” at him while pulling a porcelainand-brass handle to fill a thin glass with a pint of Brakspear’s Real Ale. During his Highgate School days when he had lived on Hollycroft Avenue in Hampstead, he had learned the Nag’s Head on Heath Street to be one of the few free houses (not owned by a brewery) which served a wide variety of real ales: beers without additives and not artificially pressurized.

The lesson of dressing as a toff was something he had skillfully acquired back in those same school days, and he felt right at home in his cream-coloured, thinlapeled jacket with the back of the collar turned up as if it were an oversight. His narrow loosened-but-knotted, tan tie in combination with the jacket and pleated green surgical trousers provided just the sort of haughty and insouciant appearance demanded of the true public school boy. The one consolation he allowed any proclivity felt for Americana was his pair of tattered Nike Yankees, worn partly out of some sort of blinded reveries of his former days of running in Oregon, but also for just plain comfort.

For nine o’clock it was quite smoky and crowded in the room, the upper walls of which were bedecked with brewing photographs. He wended his way through a cluster of punks back to the table covered with empty glasses, which he was sharing with an English female photographer he had just chatted up. At the next table sat a couple of inanimate bores whose incessant cigarette smoking and vacant starings gave him the decided impression that eavesdropping was their only major pursuit in life. The fucking English! he thought to himself. Everyone smokes like a God-damned chimney here!

Andy Yelenak

“T wish they’d turn up the fucking juke box here.”

“Sorry?” said Jilly Turpin, the 35-year-old lady attired in faded jeans and bush jacket with a carnation pinned to its lapel. The light circles under her eyes gave an otherwise pretty face framed by shoulder-length, straw-coloured hair some character, yet were quite insubstantial compared to the puffy bags which marred Warren’s rugged dark looks.

“T said, I wish they would turn the fucking juke box up in this place!”

Immediately upon having raised his voice at such volume and in sucha negative fashion, he knew from the impassive expression on her face and the quick aversion of her eyes that he had just reconfirmed an attitude stereotyping Americans—and most other foreigners, for that matter—as loud, insensitive halfwits. Accordingly he would get the typically defensive English reaction of assuming one’s entire realm has been criticized. However after only a moment’s reconsideration, he regained an overall smugness in his belief in American-style candour.

“Well, certainly we don’t have the ear-splitting speaker systems here normally found in the singles bars of California, b—”

“T wasn’t personally criticizing the Prince of Wales by my remark: I merely meant that there doesn’t seem to be much purpose in having a juke box in a pub where people have to put in ten pence a pop to play music which is barely audible, that’s all.”

“One must admit that the ‘bigger-and-louder-is-better’ philosophy in America is one which does rear its ugly head from time to time. I can hear what’s being played quite adequately, but then I suppose I haven’t spent the last several years of my life listening to high decibel amplification, either.”

Very clever, very clever, he thought to himself. Nothing like trading a few insults. He was reasonably self-assured by his knowledge of her ascerbic style, and his bag of tricks from a semi-British education, now adequately disguised by his American accent.

“Yes, I do suppose you’re right,” he agreed with partial English intonation. “The British always have been good listeners, and the piercing stridency of such Capitol Radio fare is easily heard: even when perhaps sounding as if it’s coming from the inside of a Coutts bank vault with the door closed.”

“T should think the English do hear somewhat more adequately than Americans, since your countrymen have solicited the stentorian abilities of the former actor, Ronald Reagan, to voice most of their profound proclamations.”

“Alright, alright: we all know that a cowboy-actor is now head of state in the United States, but is that any worse than a government presided over by a pack of Patrician pundits who discuss Brixton over port at the Connaught, and ‘cawnt seem to have a clue as to whaught the prawblum is with those West Indian chaps.’”

Warren quickly reprimanded himself. That was bad. A true Brit never loses his equanimity.

“Well, I do suppose riding in the saddle is better training for running the American ship of state—or perhaps I should say, wagon of state—than reading at Oxbridge. Jimmy Carter combined international diplomacy and peanut farming quite well; and Gerald Ford was very good at the odd clever remark …” she trailed off as if going into deep contemplation.

“Speaking of Oxbridge,” Warren voiced loudly, noticing he had the undivided attention of the two charmers from somewhere in the Midlands, now straining themselves on the bench to his left, “did you go to either of—or if you prefer, read at either of—those institutions?”

“No, my parents did, but photography isn’t one of those subjects that one reads, is it.”

O.K. He would give her the win now. Warren knew English women were known for being uncooperative, but in reality they were always testing the mettles of prospective males. They had to see if you were bright enough to respond, and to respond indirectly, and with composure. Indirectness was often more important than content. /f, he thought, the allusion being to Kipling. /f. If you can keep your head about you when . . . He also knew that part of the “composure-indirectnessindifference game” was that both English men and women could turn a corner fast and skillfully: one minute pejoratively trading verbal barbs with smiles, while the next forgetting the petty oneupsmanship for a return to civility. They often took

the mickey out of foreigners because the latter sods so hopelessly rose to the bait with rising temperatures and direct answers. The English treated it as sport; for them it was like taking candy from a baby. His comparison of the Iron Lady to Ronnie Ray-gun had been a brief slipup, but apart from that he thought he had done quite well.

“Would you mind if I looked at some of your work?” he asked, glancing rather than pointing at the black folio on the seat between them.

That was a “no-no”: talking with one’s hands. It was also considered too direct for one to talk to strangers, even in pubs, unless you could make it appear almost accidental, and with an appropriately feigned lack of interest. Warren had struck up the conversation with this artfully caustic master, after sitting with what he hoped projected an image of “blasé ennui” alternated with calculated pensiveness, merely by remarking upon observing a philistine of some sort pounding on the public telephone of the wall, “Patient fellow, isn’t he?” She, having impassively noticed the same non-British form of behavior, simply replied: “One has to be with British Telephone Company.” Thus arose the beginning of their indeterminate relationship.

She picked up the portfolio and handed it to him. “I shouldn’t set that on the table,” she warned, referring to the wet beer circles overlapping one another here and there.

“T shall handle them like the Magna Carta,” he assured her before carefully opening the zippered edge.

Immediately it became apparent to him that she had a very vivid imagination and an excellent eye for composure, two talents often seeming to him mutually exclusive of each other in the visual arts. The Hampstead Heaths seemed to be a central theme of the photos. One was a wide angle, black-and-white shot of a gnarled old man in tattered woolens and his kite atop Parliament Hill. Another was a colour shot depicting two ten-year-old boys kneeling on a bench with their backs to the camera: their outstretched arms contained dangling wooden swords, and they were gazing through a circular iron fence at the heath’s tree-covered tumulus.

Then he came upon a photo taken from the top of the heath toward Highgate. A high-contrast, black-and-white shot showing a solitary runner careening through a snowstorm across a sloping grassy hill punctuated by one barren tree with twisted branches. He was hurling himself into wind and snow, lashing almost parallel to the ground, his hair flying behind. An unused hood attached to the back of his dark sweatshirt formed an inverted cone below the windblown locks, the figure running in what appeared to be nylon shorts, his bare legs powering through the elements.

“T liked that runner because of the fierce determination he displayed in being out on a day like that,” she said, noticing that Warren was spending some time looking at the photo. “I only wish I had that sort of dedication to fitness.”

“You look as though you do have a certain commitment.”

“Not really. I watch what I eat, and I do jog two or three miles several times a week, but I’m afraid I do smoke the odd cigarette from time to time . . . I really should do more,” she added reflectively. “Do you run? You seem quite fascinated with that photograph.”

“Oh, I probably run about as much as you do, but this photo makes me feel a bit of nostalgia for my cross-country days at Highgate School. I used to run round the heaths quite often then. One of my plans while here is to try to return to some semblance of fitness, though not at the expense of the drink,” he laughed before adding in mock seriousness: “One can’t take this whole fitness business too seriously.” Enough sophistries, he thought while he again began to page through the remaining photographs with a vacant stare.

“So that explains it, then,” she said.

“What’s that?”

“T couldn’t work out why you don’t sound like a typical American. It’s because you went to Highgate School. How come you went to school there?”

After pausing briefly to reflect upon the ultimate English compliment, that he didn’t sound as disgusting as his countrymen, he answered:

“My father was English, and we lived here until I was fifteen. So occasionally, if in the right mood, I undertake to rid myself of my quaint colonial customs, as it were, or as the Bishop said to the Actress.”

By the 11:00 p.m. closing time he had, notwithstanding the one-quarter pint nestling cozily in the fibres of his trousers and in the nylon of his Yankees, downed four pints of real ale and was feeling no pain. Mashing English women in pubs just wasn’t done, but he was beginning to think he should give it a go.

“Do you need a lift home?” she asked as she removed her car keys from inside one of her bush jacket pockets.

“T just live in Well Walk, unless you…”

“It’s no trouble. I’m going that way anyway. I live just down near South End Green.”

He knew a more direct route to her flat would be merely to drive down the High Street. Was she just being polite? Probably. From holidays during his university days spent visiting friends in England he was aware English women liked to feel emancipated, and accordingly often took an initiative leading nowhere.

“Would you like to come in for a coffee?” he asked when she pulled up beside a parked car just in front of his flat. This dimly lit brick edifice, overgrown with patches of ivy, was located not a stone’s throw from the wells which once had drawn London’s fashionable intelligence during the Seventeenth Century.

“I do have to be at an assignment early tomorrow morning out in Kew Gardens, but perhaps just a quick cup…” she trailed off, decisively putting the car into reverse to park.

Eo * *

While Warren put the electric kettle on, the photographer quietly walked the perimeter of his high-ceilinged parlour and its bay windows; periodically stopping, arms folded across her bush jacket, to scrutinize carefully the photographs, paintings, and lithographs he had hastily thrown up on the walls. She was undoubtedly cunning, as women of her age in England were rarely unmarried. He hadn’t quite worked out her game yet, but was confident it involved her gaining the upper hand in any relationship. And that, now he thought the matter over, could only involve her rejecting any attempt he might make at physical activity.

“T really don’t know much about taking photographs. I just know what I do and don’t like,” he said, handing her a cup of black coffee. “And as you can see, I’m somewhat obsessed with either taking photographs or buying art of people playing chess. I find th—”

“Actually, I quite like this photograph of the old man hitting the time clock. The expression on the other younger player’s face is remarkable.” As she was making this remark they were standing very close to each other and he could smell the vague scent of Jungle Gardenia or some similar fragrance. He was tempted to put his arm around her, but realized such a move to represent just the opportunity she was looking for to reject him. She interested him, too; unusual, since most women he met didn’t.

He walked to the steamer trunk he had set on the pegged-and-grooved floor near the windows and calmly sat upon it, leaving the sole other piece of furniture he had purchased for the room, an antique blue velvet couch, for her to sit on. “Sit down if you like.”

“I’m afraid being a photographer I must always first have a look round the interiors of people’s flats. Pictures convey information to me better than words,” she stated while still standing and looking at a lithograph of Karpov and Korchnoi. “They often reveal a great deal about a person.”

“Really,” Warren replied nonsensically. “Does the little you see here tell you anything significant?”

“Mmm,” she said after taking a sip of coffee and without turning to face him. “Tt tells me you’re probably an extremely competitive person who likes to take risks. The trunk tells me that you don’t care what people think of you; the couch and the general interior of the flat indicate you probably find older things warmer and give more a feeling of home than perhaps newer furnishings. And while the use of the trunk as a seat shows some imagination, the similarity of sizes and parallel positions of your artwork tell me that you are probably more an objective, linear thinker who executes tasks such as legal preparations with a meticulousness not lending itself to random, subjective thinking and creative endeavors,” she added before finishing the last of her coffee. “But, it’s getting late, and I must be going if I’m to be able to function tomorrow morning. I’m sorry to have to rush off after such a short time, but I didn’t realize the hour. Thank you for the coffee,” she closed, reaching for the door.

Minutes later he suddenly realized his mistake: she had been attractive, articulate, and thoroughly engaging; but had departed without relinquishing either her address or telephone number. And in a city the size of London, even with her living nearby in Hampstead, he knew he might never see her again.

Chapter 8

It was amazing how large a dog’s teeth could appear when there was saliva on them and they were moving up and down against the thin black muzzle of a Doberman, thought Chris. He was just jogging down Fitzroy Park toward the heath when he spied the wandering hound in the weeds next to the Camden allotments. Basically most dogs were cowards, and he was aware of their barks being bigger than their bites, so he maintained a steady course and hoped the dog would ignore him: but within seconds of his approach the Baskerville-like brute was barking and lunging at him with a gleaming set of ferocious fangs. Chris kept up his pace; but swerved ever so slightly: just enough of an indication for the Pinscher to sense a certain fear.

“Heyyyyy,’ Chris menacingly growled in a confident bass voice over his shoulder as the sinewy black and tan threatened to bite him on the hamstrings. Fortunately the dog eased off, apparently satisfied the yellow-jacketed intruder was being suitably chased from its territory.

Chris had once spent over an hour ona train with three fellow runners discussing dog-and-owner stories. Runners were constantly being harassed by roving hounds. You had to get used to it. Here a bark, there a hound, everywhere a bite, bite. And their owners were always telling you reassuring remarks, such as: “Oh, don’t worry, he never bites anyone … He won’t hurt you.” Both remarks always being precursors to such admonitions as “Champion, you naughty dog, leave the man alone. Champion!” Chris also knew that when beleaguered runners turned and faced the vicious beasts to yell at them, their owners often became indignant, particularly when a runner’s ankles were being attacked and in order to avoid stumbling and rabies he attempted to send one of the hapless canines airborne.

Slowly he slipped back into a mode of relaxation as he continued down the lane and turned down the alley leading back up beside the women’s swimming pond to Kenwood grounds. From that point one loop around Kenwood (via the North Wood), the East Heath, and Parliament Hill Fields was about three-andthree quarters miles, with perhaps 200 feet each of climb and descent during the course. Chris considered this loop, plus the run to it from his flat, four miles, and it was the mainstay of his short-run training.

Andy Yelenak

In the first few weeks of June he had gotten his miles up to about 70 per week, but this improvement had made him very tired. Even though he had quit drinking alcohol and was attempting to eat more moderately on his near-vegetarian diet, the drugs he was taking for his condition made him feel extremely fatigued much of the time. Or perhaps there were too many natural sugars in the fruits, grains, and milk he was consuming. His doctor had told him to give up coffee and he hadn’t. Maybe the caffeine was screwing up his blood sugar levels. He couldn’t be sure. He had had an easy day yesterday and so thought he would try a “double” by doing the short loop in the morning, and then maybe the nine-mile circuit of all the heaths, if he felt up to it, that afternoon.

What a pretty girl, he thought, noticing a lady’s jeans-clad posterior pointing in his direction, her dark blond locks dangling over a tripod-mounted Hasselblad camera. Just in the grove of trees beside the Ladies Pond she was crouched with her hands on her hips, peering through the lens: possibly to frame a shot of the pond and a sole recumbent nude sunbather. Chris was catching fleeting glimpses of this optimistic woman as he continued along the rock-strewn and muddy alley, the figure and pond partially hidden by a picket fence and the dense, low-branched trees. Then he noticed the photographer’s shoes: high quality training shoes. Maybe she’s a runner, he thought, leaving the idyllic setting behind. Anyway, with only patches of sun and this cool air, that sunbather’s certainly stretching it.

Climbing the long blacktop path adjacent to Kenwood’s Concert Pond, he started thinking about Solian. She hadn’t been on the last two Sunday runs. What if she had found the Sunday run’s pace too slow, and never showed up again? Would he see her somewhere out on his daily runs? But he hadn’t seen her in almost three weeks. Maybe he could get one of the Heathgate Harriers to give him her phone number. Then he could call her and ask her to go on a run. But could he keep up with her?

More desultory thoughts, such as how he had found his way back to the Oaks after becoming lost on that first Sunday run, popped in and out of his mind as he wound his way along the muddy trails of the North Wood and descended to the wooden gate. By the time he reached Kenwood Corner his stride was relaxed and cadence faster than normal with seeming effortlessness, so he spontaneously decided to turn up through the wood leading to the Sandy Heath, and West Heath beyond in order to extend his run to six miles.

Just as he was approaching the corner gate he saw a tall, dark-haired runner with a mustache shoot out from the trail leading up from the Highgate Ponds and head away down the muddy rutted path leading to the central meadows of the heath. The figure looked somehow familiar, yet he couldn—

“Owww!” he yelled, a sharp pain shooting up from his ankle. Suddenly he was flying downward, his elbow digging into the mud. More out of embarrassment than common sense he tried to leap back up onto his feet and continue his run,

but quickly fell back down on the ground and grabbed his painful ankle, rocking back and forth, cursing himself for having taken his eyes off of his foot plant during the hazardous turn. Dammit! he winced in pain. There goes another four weeks training down the drain!

“Are you O.K.?”

Chris became aware of a pair of Nikes standing only a foot away. He slowly looked up: then did his best to disguise his shock upon noticing the steaming runner looking down at him. In that split second Chris had observed the thick eyebrows, the slightly flared nose, and the wet, clustered spikelets of brown hair scattered upon his forehead. Distorted mottled patterns of skin eroded the left side of chin, mouth, and slightly concave area where the left cheekbone had once been prominent. And those piercing brown eyes, one of them partially obscured by scar tissue. Chris was sure it was the same runner he had seen on the previous Sunday run. The left side of his face was so badly scarred, Chris unwittingly paused before answering:

“Yah… uhh… Tl be O.K.,” he finally replied while continuing to rock, painfully rotating his right ankle in a circle.

“Let me have a look at it,” the runner said, squatting down. Chris noticed that the purple nylon windbreaker, draping down upon the powerful quads of the mysterious runner, had the logo Milano 74 on it. He wondered whether it was an athletics meeting logo or perhaps an auto race title; but before he could give the matter any further consideration, was snapped out of it by the palpation of his ankle.

“Ow!”

“Does that hurt?”

“Ow—yes!”

“And that?” the runner asked as he continue to prod the areas above and around Chris’ rapidly swelling ankle bone.

“Yes!”

“And that?”

“No, that doesn’t hurt. Are you an American?”

“Yah,” the runner answered, releasing his hands from Chris’ tender ankle. “It looks like a bad sprain, but I don’t see any blood marks under the skin. If there were some way to get you home without putting any weight on it, I’d suggest that, but there isn’t, and there’s another way of looking at these sprains, anyway. That’s to run on it. If you walk home on it, limping all the way, you’ ll give it a chance to swell up like a balloon, but if you run on it—how far do you live from here?”

“About three-quarters of a mile by the shortest route.”

“Well, if you run home on it at a reasonable pace, not too fast, and not too slow, and then ice it as much as possible in the next 48 hours to keep the swelling down, you may be able to run on it in two or three days. If you walk home on it, though, the swelling might take a week to go down.

“Now, after you get the swelling down in a couple of days, put your foot up on a chair arm, let the heel drop down, and then bandage the ankle in a firm figure-eight pattern with an elastic bandage. Run and walk on it that way for ten days, only taking off the bandage when sitting or sleeping, and the ankle should strengthen itself. Then you’ll be able to run again without the bandage, O.K.?”

“Yah, O.K., thanks. I’ll try it. But how do you know so much about this type of injury?”

The runner arose from his squatting position. “I’ve done a fair amount of running in my day. Here, let me help you to your feet,” he said, giving Chris a hand. “Now, remember: ice it when you get home, and then run on it with it bandaged—but not until the swelling has gone down. It’ll hurt now when you start to run, but keep it up until you get home, and then be quick to ice it.”

Chris was looking down at his ankle, but he was thinking of just where this guy could be from.

“Are you from the…”

The question was broken off when he glanced up to see the back of the purple jacket moving off like Steve Ovett at the start of an 800 meters.

Chapter 9

The constant scudding clouds and damp air since she had been in London made Solian feel as if the two cities, Auckland and London, were in that respect similar. Except that it was a great deal colder in London for a June day, which she supposed was equivalent to one of Auckland’s December days. On that Saturday morning she had forty minutes in which to arrive in Hyde Park by 7:30 a.M., allowing her thirty minutes to register for the “Brinjal Bhaji 7-mile road race.” She was curious to know how well she could do on a flat course, even though she would effectively be “running through” the race by not taking any easy days prior to it, and by running the additional five miles over to the park.

Solian felt somewhat stiff, but the cool air flowing by her and the solitude of cruising over the knolls of the heath and macadam paths over and down from the top of Parliament Hill gave her an exhilarating feeling. Virtually no one else was about except a man walking a dog on a distant path. Even the normally chock-ablock playground of the Haverstock School was totally devoid of any soul as she continued her descent along empty North London streets. Then she employed a trick Elizabeth had shown her on a long training stint begun from the marathoner’s Harley Street osteopathy offices: cutting through the Chalk Farm tube station, giving her an opportunity to dodge the lighted yellow ticket machines as if they were menacing rugby halves.

Soon she traversed Primrose Hill via a tree-lined path, crossed over the bridge above the Grand Union Canal, and strode by the kiosk in Regent’s Park. Her legs

felt relaxed and warm inside of her Gore-Tex warmups, but she still felt sluggish. I wonder how I’ll go? Then she smiled to herself while loping through Baker Street on the way to Marble Arch. Maybe I should stop into 221 B for a little of the old Seven Per Cent Solution!

Because of her innate good sense of direction, Solian reached the car park adjacent to the Serpentine Pond near which the race was to be held. A few cars were arriving and she spotted what looked to be an entries table amidst some milling runners.

“That will be 50p, please,” said a wiry man attired in yellow robes and a magenta cloth turban, the latter featuring a framed photograph of a bearded chap with flowers under his chin. The official glanced down at the various lists of categories stretched out before him. “You haven’t pre-registered, have you?”

“No.”

“And your club affiliation is?”

“Heathgate Harriers.”

“Sorry?” the man said with a slight shake of the head and without looking up.

“Heathgate Harriers.”

“Heathgate, you say?”

“Right-y-o.” Oops, she thought, now you’ ve gone and done it.

“You’re from Australia, are you?”

“No. New Zealand.”

“Mmm. I see. I hope you don’t find things too difficult here in London,” the man said before abruptly looking up at her with a fleeting grin and handing her number 170.

“Only the language,” she smiled before turning away from the table.

She was a little disconcerted with having put herself in a position to be condescendingly asked to repeat her club affiliation because the old guru had pretended not to be able to understand her accent, but even more so because he had mistaken her for an Australian. But she quickly convinced herself to calm down. It’s going to happen to you here in England whenever you open your mouth.

While geese honked beside the Serpentine Solian began stretching out her hamstrings by propping each leg up between the arches atop a wrought-iron fence. She was just shaking her head in amusement over the appearance of the man in the turban, when she glanced to her left to see a beer can being dropped from the window of a Rolls Royce Corniche by someone clad in a white Dhjalaba and sunglasses. She shook her head a bit more and raised her eyebrows. Nice pre-race preparalion, sheik.

Before she knew it she was standing in a pack of perhaps 175 runners on a road beside the placid pond and its spectator geese. Looking round it became evident there were probably only ten or fifteen other women in the race, none

of whom, with the possible exception of one girl with wavy blonde hair, looked particularly fit. While standing there Solian pressed one knee forward at a time in order to restretch her achilles tendons.

“Hello. I’m sorry, but I’ve forgotten your name.”

“Oh, hi,” she replied, noticing the handsome runner with the black mustache whom she remembered had led the Heathgate Harriers’ Sunday run she had been on. “My name’s Solian Lede.”

“Terrence Christopher. We’ve looked for you on the Sunday runs.”

“Sorry. I’ve usually run a bit earlier on Sundays . . . and to be honest with you—hopefully without sounding like an unappreciative New Zealander—I’m afraid the Heathgate Sunday run is a bit too slow for me,” she apologized. “But I would like to run tomorrow, if it’s alright, because I like a long, slow run after a race day.”

“Good. Clive Arnold and a group of us usually run back from Mill Hill at

anywhere between a 6:00 and a 6:30 pace, anyway, if you want a faster run. The normal run is a bit slow, isn’t i—”

Bang! A gun sounded and they were off before he could finish his sentence. Solian ran on Terrence’s heels for the first 200 meters, but then bridled back and let him go, feeling the pace to be just a little too fast. Prior to the start she had jogged only about a half mile since her legs already felt warm from the five-mile run down from Hampstead. Her legs now felt good, but she had to watch her breathing very closely: in any race it was distinctively the best indicator of how her pace was going.

“”..5:31…5:32…5:33…” she heard a man glancing down at a stopwatch call out as she went by the one-mile mark. She could still see Terrence’s head bobbing about sixty meters in front, there being no more than twenty runners ahead of her, as she glided down the narrow footpath across the field separating the Marble Arch from the cafe at the end of the Serpentine. Her legs felt supple and powerful from her training runs through the Waitakeres, irregular though those runs had been. There a 17-mile Waiatarua run could tax even the strongest of runners. Those runs, as well as her occasional three-volcano runs including to the top and back on Mt. Eden, One Tree Hill, and Mt. Hobson, had provided her with excellent knee lift, and she was now smoothly striding, her legs moving with the graceful fluidity coaches looked for in their athletes.

After she darted down the dirt path, danced over the horse-riding sand, and began to pick it up along the wide macadam road next to the pond and its unattended deck chairs, she heard the sounds of shoes softly hitting pavement behind her with a very fast cadence. The patterings were advancing on her, and Solian could tell from their rapidity that whoever was gaining on her had a much shorter stride length than she, a sign of a smaller competitor, a runner who had done little hill training, or one with very little flexibility in the hips and legs.

The figure drew up alongside her. She took a quick glance: the short girl with the wavy blonde hair.

Maybe it is Tika Bernheinns. Now that Solian had a chance to observe her in action, she could see that the girl was running very smoothly; and trying to take control of the race at the 1 3/4 mile point. You had better be fit.

There were several English girls, like Paula Fudge or Wendy Sly, who could easily run this sort of pace, but Solian didn’t think they would show up at a small race like this. She only knew of one runner, a girl who had been ranked sixth in the world at 10,000 meters in 1980, and that was Tika Bernheinns. But she looked so much bigger in race photographs Solian had seen. Well, whoever she was, she was taking command at the end of one lap in a 3 3/4 lap race. She’s got to be running 5:20 pace, Solian thought before increasing her pace to stay with the fast-striding girl. And she also considered she could afford to let her open no more than a ten meter gap, figuring the English girl would then come back to her in the second half of the race.

“Lovely day for a race, isn’t it?” a tall handsome runner with a dark mustache suddenly said to her.

The circles under his eyes told Solian that he had to be in his late thirties, yet he seemed to be moving effortlessly, with a very relaxed stride even longer than her own. And his accent sounded almost American. But never mind: she mustn’t lose her concentration. He would probably think her rude, but she wasn’t going to reply. After giving him a quick glance and a smile she concentrated on her form.

“Don’t like talking in a race, huh?”

He moved off from her gracefully, as if a 5:15-per-mile pace was something any schoolboy could do easily; reached the girl in the white shorts and vest Solian thought could be Tika; then seemed to lock into the girl’s pace, positioning himself behind her right shoulder.

At the end of three laps of the course Solian had gained back very little of the 20 meters she had allowed the blonde girl to gain from her. Maybe it had been a mistake to have run those five miles over to the park. She didn’t feel overly tired. Her legs felt good and she was maintaining her cadence. It was more that she wasn’t feeling as if she had been holding back and was now ready to give it a go. Her time at five miles had been 27:11, which being a 5:26-per-mile pace meant she had run one of the fastest five-mile splits she had ever run, but still found herself running second. Solian honestly hadn’t expected any competition of this sort in an early morning race in England. It just wasn’t ‘English’; they didn’t like to get up early, particularly on weekends, and accordingly most races were held at 2:30 in the afternoon, a more civilised time.

She scampered up the two concrete steps signalling the only slight incline during each lap, then began to lift her knees more and push off harder. In the