special book bonus

Warren and Chris encounter the Purple Runner and a dog with attitude. Part 7.

Chapter 17

Ihings just hadn’t been going all that well in England, Warren thought to himself

while walking from Prompt Corner up East Heath Road. First there was the awkward bit with Solian and Jilly that evening in front of The Flask. When he had confronted the photographer after Solian’s departure, she had informed him that she was: “quite busy at the moment.” Then Solian had told him she didn’t want to see him anymore, and now he had lost face at Prompt Corner after first a brilliant victory, then an embarrassing defeat. All might have been mitigated by prolific poetry production, but such was not the case. He had finished the lengthy poem about the chess game, but then had drifted into the life of an habitué.

Warren knew he was rapidly getting into a “do or die” situation as far as the bet. Those cocky bastards in San Francisco were never going to let him live it down if he didn’t produce, and instilling some discipline into his routine was going to be the only way he could win the bet. He didn’t care about the money: it was the loss of face. Then he had told himself he was going to take his running seriously and he hadn’t done jack shit on that. The perennial grey didn’t help matters, either, especially since the days were becoming shorter and shorter as October approached. Those continually darkened skies seemed like an analogy to his life. I’ve got to get a grip on myself, he thought.

Inside his flat the photographs and etchings of chess games made him wince again over his loss. He settled into a chair to read Auto da Fe, but found his concentration completely lacking due to emotional fatigue from having played the two chess games. After three or four more attempts at reading, interspersed with bouts of self-pity and afterthoughts on how he could have moved differently in his second chess game, Warren decided upon a run round the heath to ease his anxieties.

Fifteen minutes later he was hammering a sub-six down the tree-lined Boundary Path bisecting the East Heath and crossing toward Highgate. A group of dark-haired, middle-aged—judging by their stomachs—men were viciously kicking at a soccer ball and screaming epithets in what sounded like some sort of Middle Eastern language on a nearby football pitch cum cricket field. As the path began to incline toward the top of the heath, Warren saw a pair of runners barreling down towards him. Instantly he quashed his loud breathing and picked it up by lifting his knees.

When the three passed each other like zephyrs over gravel, the usual lack of acknowledgment prevailed; and after they were by him, unconsciously he eased back to about a 6:30-per-mile pace and began to breathe aloud again. Knowing they were probably gearing back as well—Warren contemplated the male ego: that runners had to display their feathers while passing each other was something he found somehow very primitive yet often uncontrollable. There was always the necessity of proving oneself, or perhaps of warning other intrusive animals (runners) of one’s capabilities of defense. Almost intuitive.

His momentum carried him over the top of the heath and hurtled him down the gravel path on the Highgate side. Just there extended the manicured expanse of grass where couples often intertwined in games, out on highly visible knolls, as if no one was capable of observing their activities. Warren didn’t run often, but when he ran he usually ran fast, giving the calling card of surprise.

Serendipitously he had found: a sexual act being performed by an elderly man upon a young chap on a motorcycle on the West Heath; a completely nude middleaged couple behind some blackberry bushes (where he had gone to try to relieve himself) along the Dollis Creek; a dead man floating with his arms dangling in a Highgate Pond; and two teenagers screwing in an oak tree in the North Wood while he was on a twilight run. People always tried to correct improprieties when they heard him coming, but the problem was he always approached quickly and softly, the crackling of twigs being the only announcement tendered.

Down the path, on a bench sat a man with neatly trimmed hair and mustache, his arms and legs crossed as if sitting at such a remote location was perfectly normal on a chilly, overcast day. Goddamned guys are everywhere, Warren complained to himself. Abruptly he turned down through some brush, then up across the deep grass of the South Meadow. The wind was beginning to pick up and the clouds seemed to be becoming darker in their scudding.

Suddenly a runner shot out from between the two uppermost, brush-enclosed Highgate Lakes. One characteristic struck Warren like a semaphore being waved: the approaching runner’s bright red hair. It had to be Christopher Carlson.

“Hey!” Warren yelled as it became apparent their paths might not intersect. Chris saw his wave and angled over to him. “Hi, Chris. You may not recognize me with the mustache. It’s Warren Fowles.”

Chris finally reacted with a smile. “My god, it is you, Warren. You’re the last person on Earth I would expect to meet out on the heath. What the hell are you doing over here in England?”

Warren waited a couple more breaths until his uneven gasping had subsided. “T just came over here to write some poetry. And what about you?”

“I just came over here to run—even though I’m not very good at it. I was working as a video tape editor for QBC News and I decided to pack it in—but that’s a whole story in itself. How far you going?”

“Oh, I’m just out for three or four miles. What about you?”

“I was gonna do six. You want to take a spin around the heath together if I can keep up with you?”

“Sure, why not.”

The two set off and Warren quickly resumed his pace up the blacktop path beside the Concert Pond.

“I’m sorry .. .” Chris gasped, “… but could we . . . slow it down a bit?”

“No problem,” Warren replied, slowing it down on the uphill to maybe a 7:00 pace. He could see he was tormenting his fellow American and decided flattening out the run might give the struggling devil some relief. “Shall we cut across Kenwood?”

“Sure. Sounds good. I’m not in the… same condition . . . as you are.”

Warren was pleased he could assuage his own battered ego by running with someone of lesser ability than himself, and he managed to keep half a stride ahead of the carrot-topped runner on their gallop over the trails.

“Yah, [had heard you were living someplace around here. I guess I should have figured to see you out on the heaths eventually,” Warren remarked as they traversed along flower beds and in front of benches populated by elderly tourists.

“Who told you I was living around here?”

“Oh, I don’t think you know her. She saw you on a Sunday club run, but I don’t think—oh, wait a minute, she did tell me that you two ran together one day, I think.”

“What’s her name?”

“Solian Lede. She’s a tall blond girl from New Zealand.”

Chris grinned. “You devil. I know her. In fact, I’ve been t—”

“Who is that guy, by the way? Do you know?” Warren interrupted as they watched a runner eating up territory between them after having bolted through Kenwood Gate as if it were the chute of the New York City Marathon.

“TI tell you in a minute,” Chris answered, the runner blitzing toward them. “Hi, Billie.”

The runner acknowledged Chris’ greeting with a lifted right hand but made it obvious the intensity of his run was such that he wasn’t stopping.

“That guy’s unbelievable! I played him at chess this afternoon. He beat me, but I don’t know a thing about him other than he’s a very good player and that he can run like the wind. Has anyone around here seen him run competitively?”

“No, I don’t think so. And don’t feel alone about not knowing anything about him. No one seems to. I’ve actually spoken to him on several occasions under unusual circumstances, but he’s very secretive. All I know is his name’s Billie and that he’s from someplace out on the Coast. I don’t even know where he lives. Sometimes he wears a jacket that says Milano 74 on it, if that means anything.”

“Tt doesn’t to me. Besides, he could have traded with someone for the jacket.”

“He knows a lot about injuries, too, because he told me just what to do when I sprained my ankle, and it worked.”

“Strange guy. And can you believe that face! Poor devil. I think I’d be pretty secretive if I looked like that. I think I’d have trouble talking to anyone because I’d hate to catch others staring at me. In fact, if I had a face like that, I’d be an alcoholic.”

“IT know what you mean.” The two came to a halt at the white wooden barricade along Spaniards Road to await a gap in the traffic. A taxi motored by with its distinctive diesel sound.

“You want to run around the Heath Extension or the West Heath?”

“Let’s hit the West Heath. If I continue on down around Parliament Hill on the way back I’ll have my six. The Extension makes it a little longer.

“No problem.”

The two darted down the muddy embankment on the other side of the road into the leaf-strewn Sandy Heath, that vast morass whose Danger signs often gave an impression that mires abounded or vicious hounds lurked in unexpected locations. Runners had to dodge boggy areas and watch for roots and fallen branches amidst its soft turf. On a little ridge across its middle ran the path connecting the two pubs, The Spaniards, and The Bull and Bush. Chris and Warren bounded up the central embankment in single file and cut left to descend to the North End Road, a route leading to the West Heath.

“Rrrieirm«irggrrhh!” growled a huge German shepherd straining on the end of a leash held by a gaunt old chap with slicked-back hair. The two runners unintentionally veered ever so slightly off their course: just the hint of fear the frothing hound could sense. ““Ruuoooff—ruuoof-roouf\”

“Watch it! Watch it!” Chris growled back, coming to a halt right in front of the animal. With arms extended in a grappling stance, his teeth displayed in a menacing array, he advanced on the dog.

“Stay, Wellington, sta-ay!” the old fellow admonished his brute while savage teeth continued to be bared by the monstrous Alsatian now standing on its hind legs and straining at its lead. Warren had kept on running, but when Chris

resumed, while still watching the bridling canine, he stumbled over an exposed root, reinjuring his tender ankle in trying to keep his footing.

“Gawd day-em!” he yelled, limping several strides. “Why don’t you put a muzzle on that dog!”

“Certainly, old boy, if you will wear leg irons while running,” the old man muttered under his breath.

“Perhaps you’re right,” Warren returned. “A good bash across the chops with some leg irons might improve the ill-mannered beast’s disposition.”

“T should say his disposition is affected adversely by foreign accents,” the man sighed with several shakes of his head. “American, I should guess.”

“Correct; and you, sir, by the projection of your voice are obviously a thespian,” Warren retorted.

“Mmm,” Chris nodded while massaging his ankle in front of the fuming, superannuated dog handler. “Perhaps lifting its chin with American shoes might help it behave in a more British fashion.”

“Oh, I shouldn’t do that if I were you: the strength of his lead is only adequate at best, and Wellington has no qualms about meat that has gone off a bit.”

“Doubtless, doubtless,” Warren nodded. “The fact that he has remained at your side is certainly an attestation to that.” And before the master could reply, the two colonials were well on their way down the path to the North End Road. “Tough old nut, eh what?”

“Goddamn dogs,” Chris swore, wincing with pain from his ankle.

“You want to stop at The Bull and Bush for some anaesthetic?”

“Nah. Let’s keep going. I’ll be alright in a minute or two.”

In crossing North End Way the two dodged cars as a group of tourists approached from Golders Green Park. “See, Irving, I told you the English are getting just as health-conscious as the Americans,” a plump woman in a lavender-and-green pants suit motioned at Warren and Chris to her husband.

“T must look thinner than I thought,” Chris laughed as the pair scampered up the short street leading to the West Heath. They decided to run clockwise around the one-mile loop and so headed up and over the ridge separating them from the main forested area. The path was still muddy, and they were forced to tiptoe over a narrow dry isthmus in order to avoid two gentlemen walking a poodle and staring at them. They motored onward, passing below Jack Straw’s Castle and turning right to negotiate the alternately grassy and muddy moguls, then opened it up a bit on the gently declining meadowside path.

“That’s one of the secrets of English running,” Warren explained, as a gradually increasing file of young boys in navy-blue shorts and knee stockings ran toward and by them. “School running. Kids start early here, and there’s no stigma attached to going out for cross country like there is in most parts of the States. You get the old arteries formed at an early age from belting over these hills in cold

moist air, and you combine that with never getting quite enough food to supply the calories you need to stay warm, and you end up with the thin, rugged hill runners of England. Competitions are keen, and it’s no disgrace to be a harrier. In the States we’re just coming around to that way of thinking because of the middle-aged running boom.” The school boys moved smoothly by them, one of them taunting: “Knees up, keep them up,” to the older sloggers. “Yah, when we were in high school that sort of kid would have been carrying a briefcase and would have been considered a wimp. Now in the Dixon and Decker era, it’s suddenly O.K. to be a runner.”

“This is a bit too fast for me,” Chris moaned, the pace having been picked up in deference to the school boy’s ridicule. “I’ll try to keep you in sight.”

“O.K. What are you doing for dinner tonight? Do you like Indian food?”

“Sure.”

“Let’s meet up at The Flask in Highgate, and then we can head on down to the Standard for some chicken tikka or whatever, O.K.?”

“Why not. What time?”

“Seven o’clock.”

“Fine. See you then.”

“You’ve got to run hard,” Warren winked over his shoulder as he continued to pull away from Chris, “if you want to be able to keep up with some of these Kiwi ladies.”

Chapter 18

“Someday . . .” Chris half yelled after Warren before allowing himself to slow so he could breathe easier. He wondered why some people like Warren, with thin physiques and all the talent in the world, let their running slide into obscurity. It was probably for the same reason he had let swimming go when he had displayed great potential (before smoking): too much training at too early an age. But then the truly greats kept it up their whole lives, didn’t they? Why was it that certain potentially great runners gave it up while others hung in there? Or, as Brendan Foster had said in his book about the boys that had once beaten him during school days: where are they now?

But Chris let these thoughts evaporate as he jogged by the Leg of Mutton Pond. The lake had been so named because once its spring-fed waters were supposed to have been fresh enough to allow a leg of mutton to remain in them overnight without spoiling. Now when he glanced over at the cloudy, bacteria-ridden liquid, he would have been surprised had even the heartiest fish been able to survive. It reminded him of the polluted Great Lakes of North America. “Oh, well, no one gives a shit,” he said aloud as he began the gradual ascent up the Sandy Road.

The upper room in The Flask had a fair number of people in it considering it was only seven o’clock. Traditionally English pub goers never arrived before nine o’clock, more out of economic necessity perhaps, than propriety. However, a seemingly genuine mix of drinkers from various age groups and economic strata were interspersed throughout the warmly lit room. Chris smiled at two girls he could hear conversing in German at the next table.

“Why are you drinking two beers at once?” one of them inquired, her English pronunciation being quite good.

“Oh,” Chris laughed, “I’m not. One’s for a friend who hasn’t arrived yet. What part of Germany are you from?”

“Berlin. And you are from America?”

“Mmm. But I’m living here now. Are you on holiday?”

“Yes. We are going up to Scotland tomorrow to go walking,” the girl in the plaid shirt said. Her friend appeared to be very shy, only periodically looking up from the orange squash in front of her. “Why are you living in England?”

“TI came here mainly to run—although I’m just a fun runner—because England is known for its distance running. I’ve always wanted to live here for a year or so and now I have the opportunity, so…”

“It’s good you are doing so while you still can,” the girl somberly stated.

“What do you mean? You mean because of the possibility of nuclear war?”

“We think of it as a probability,” the girl nodded to her friend. “We just live for today. Neither of us thinks we will live until 30.”

“Wait a minute,” Chris laughed after a drink of beer. “You don’t really believe you’re going to die. You’ve probably been brainwashed with too much of this limited nuclear warfare in Europe threat. Don’t worry, it’s not going to happen.”

“We think it will.”

“T think if there’s any nuclear warhead firing, the U.S. and Russia will provide more important targets for each other than Europe, and for that reason I think it will remain a stalemate. You know what stalemate means?”

“Yes, we do. But we still think the two super powers will settle their differences in Europe, so we live day to day. Do you approve of Reagan?”

“Not particularly. His idea of attempting to balance the federal budget is a good one, even though impossible. He may have done it in California, but Congress is basically an institution for spending. However, I don’t care for either politics or politicians. I’m just a runner. I do my bits to encourage exercise, fitness, and certain non-material pursuits. But I’m afraid I’m not Reagan’s personal emissary in Europe.”

“Why is the C.I.A. always meddling in the affairs of other governments?”

“Hey, do I look like J. Edgar Hoover, or what?” Chris laughed. “Like I said, I’m just a runner.”

“Why do you like running so much? I think it is very boring.”

“IT don’t blame you. Much of life is boring to many people. You can either spend a great deal of your life boring yourself, or else spend less time on the negative and find things that interest and excite you. I think anyone is fortunate that finds a passion of any kind in life, and I’ve found one: running. But to me, running’s like any other sport: once you get obsessed with it, more and more facets of it become interesting. I like doing it, reading about it, talking about it, and hanging around with other runners. It never bores me—although admittedly to non-runners I must seem a running bore.”

“Maybe you are running away from something.”

“May-be, but it makes me feel good,” Chris smiled.

The German girl turned to her friend and began to speak very quickly in German. At the same moment Warren arrived wearing a tweedy coat with three flap pockets, a thin-collared blue shirt, and a loosened navy-blue knit tie.

“T see you prepared for my arrival,” Warren said, noticing the second beer on the table while slipping into the chair opposite Chris.

“Cheers.” The two drank from their thin glasses. “I was just defending American policy with the two German girls over here,” he motioned with a glance, “and we could invite them to join us if you want.”

Warren attempted unobtrusively to look their way. “Mmm,” he nodded appreciatively. “Why not.”

“Excuse me. I don’t know your names, but would you like to join us?”

“Oh, no thank you. We are expecting to meet two friends here in a few minutes.”

“O.K.,” Chris smiled deferentially.

“Bloody British are too quick for us, Chris. It looks like we’ll have to stick to our usual philosophizing.”

After tripping down memory lane for a few minutes Chris could contain himself no longer.

“So how do you know Solian Lede?”

“T met her at a seven-mile race in Hyde Park. She finished just ahead of me. I forgot to mention that she thought she had seen you when she saw a photograph on my living room wall of us playing chess.”

“Oh, yah, remember that photo,” Chris temporized. “Well, anyway, I’ve been trying to run into her again so I can ask her for her phone number. Every time I’ve seen her and have just about been ready to ask her for it, something always interferes—but I didn’t realize you were seeing her,” he apprehensively added.

“IT was. But I wouldn’t bother with her if I were you.”

“Why not?”

“Ah, the chick is neurotic over her running. She doesn’t have the ability to let loose and really have a good time. She takes the whole training thing far too seriously.”

Re ue

Pee aoe

Warren’s words burned like lava into Chris’ head as he conjured up images of the two of them being sexually involved. But then again, he reassured himself, nothing at all might have happened.

“Well, I take my running pretty seriously—even though you’d never know it from my 182-pound bulk and my race results—so I wouldn’t mind dealing with her problems,” Chris hinted, hoping Warren would offer him her phone number.

“T’m telling you, the chick is too neurotic. Besides, she doesn’t have any tickets, anyway.”

“T don’t mind a flat-chested girl as long as the rest of her is trim,” Chris replied, ignoring the innuendo behind Warren’s remark.

“O.K. Remind me later on tonight and I’ll give you her phone number. I’ve got it in the car. Just don’t tell her who gave it to you.”

The Standard Indian Restaurant in Westbourne Grove was bristling with insolent, food-stained waiters carrying large silver platters full of chutneys, biryanis, tikkas, tandooris, poppadums, pilaus, and other colorful specialties. London notables and pundits, foreigners and their families, and young couples and obscure businessmen draped their elbows upon soiled yellow tablecloths while munching delectables and quaffing cheap wine or downing pints of lager. The fashionable intelligence arrived no earlier than eight o’clock, usually preferring at least an hour later—or frequenting Khan’s next door—so Warren and Chris had been fortunate to get a booth along the wall.

Andy Yelenak

Their table was just near the bar and waiting area, enabling a fairly large woman’s posterior to nudge ever closer to Warren’s plate. Utilizing a rapid sawing motion with a knife held in his right hand, the corresponding elbow held high enough to somewhat moderately prod the obstruction with each movement, he diligently began slicing through a piece of mutton tikka. This action elicited, not surprisingly, an indignant look from the matriarch, who with one motion moved away and imperiously leered over her shoulder.

“This restaurant,” Warren remarked with raised eyebrows as he continued to saw his tikka, “seems to be getting more crowded all the time.”

“Mmm. But then I guess that’s what we get for sitting near the rear.”

The two amicably continued chatting and eating, finishing off two spicy poppadums, a mutton and a chicken tikka, one nan and one kulcha, one mixed vegetable curry, and one vegetable kofta, all of these salient items washed down by a liter of house red plonk.

“What was your time for the Brinjal Bhaji seven?”

“Oh,” Warren quinched up his nose, “38 and some change. Lede and another English girl beat me. It was actually quite embarrassing because the New Zealander passed me in the last mile. I fucked up, but I guess that’s what I get for going out hard without any training to back it up.”

“Going out hard is easier than going in soft.”

“Truly the case, my good man, truly the case,” Warren impassively replied with one more accurate elbow movement.

His remark reminded Chris of a sensitive subject. He pushed some rice around on his plate.

“Did you go out with Solian for a long time?”

“You seem quite preoccupied with this Kiwi lady, sport. I’ve been out with her many times. In fact, the last time she was over she left in tears. Like I said, I’ll give you her phone number if you want, but I’m telling you, there are many more attractive ladies around London, with more talent, if you take my meaning— more wine, by the way?”

“Oh…aa…no thanks. Actually I just started drinking again a week ago. I had quit for four-and-a-half months, but I was starting to feel ill—probably too much coffee—so I decided to start again.”

“I’m not surprised. A little alcohol in moderation never hurt anyone,” Warren laughed. “Besides, wine’s good for your digestion. You ought to know that.” Warren resumed chewing a bite of food, then noticed a seductive-looking ingenue having just come in, accompanied by what seemed to be parents.

Chris began thinking about how his running had at first improved when he had quit drinking, but then had slowly deteriorated as he became increasingly fatigued. Finally his head had kept going around night after night and he wasn’t sleeping properly. It could have been the coffee or it could have been the drugs

he was taking, but eventually he had gotten to the point of no longer caring. His life was too limited without any alcohol whatsoever. So he had reintroduced drinking in moderation and immediately had begun feeling better. But as with many other pursuits in life, he was compulsive, and soon was drinking enough to feel just as tired as he had felt without alcohol. /f only I could feel energetic for an entire week, he thought.

“Look, before I forget,” Warren suddenly said, passing a folded piece of paper over to Chris, “here’s Solian’s phone number. But remember: don’t tell her I gave it to you. Make something up about someone in the club or some such. Don’t say I didn’t warn you, though.” Warren took another sip of wine before shaking his head. “The girl can’t seem to relax in bed, either.”

Chapter 19

The wind was howling and sheets of rain drove into the runner’s face like angry pellets, but on he churned in the dim morning light of early November. He had considered waiting until later, but then decided that only a slim possibility existed of it clearing, so he ventured out as usual. The toughest part was getting his feet out the door on such tempestuous days. It wasn’t the temperature but the deeply penetrating damp. Blood seemed to leave his arms when his legs were really moving. Maybe it was an illusion, or maybe it was because there was very little body fat to protect them, but his hands always became numb even inside the fur-lined gloves he usually wore on colder days. It was simply amazing how much colder 40°F air in England could feel than in Colorado.

Down through the Sandy Heath’s muddy trails he flew, dancing like a ballerina to avoid falling. Still, slips occurred. While rounding a protruding root at one point below the center ridge, he lost his balance on a slick path and landed on his hip, bruising it in the process. “Damn!” he cursed, quickly regaining his feet and dashing the mud from off of his green nylon warmup pants. “Riders on the storm . . . doo—doo-doo—doo . . .” he sang to himself as he tiptoed through the last muddy bit of the heath’s bare forest and out onto the Wildwood Road.

From there he began to pick it up down the slightly declining, high-grassed meadow at the top of the Heath Extension. Even though the dirt trail across it was quite slippery, he knew he could keep on his feet if he chopped his stride along the muddier parts. Long jumping up a tiny embankment he glided over the short green leading to the main playing fields. It was once he hit those soggy fields that he took it down to around 4:25-per-mile, water running down the inside of his collar and soaking his already wet NCAA Cross-Country Championships T-shirt underneath. The plan was to hold that pace for the two miles to Finchley Road as part of an eighteen-mile fartlek run to Totteridge and Whetstone and back—this run completed once in a time of 1:25, a clocking comparably faster than Seko’s

30K track record. The footing was too unsure in the lashing storm and mud to approach that time; but he was going to give it his best shot.

It took the runner 8:50 to cover the two miles from the top of the Heath Extension through the Hampstead Garden Suburb streets and the winding paths of the Big and Little Woods; then after darting through traffic on the Finchley Road at Henley’s Corner, he continued to buck the driving rain along the path beside Dollis Creek. His shoes were soaked through, and the runner was just glad he didn’t wear socks which could wad up and cause blistering.

“Uh-oh,” he suddenly muttered to himself, his knees continuing to lift high enough to help him consume massive stretches of blacktop. Ahead a runner in a Shaftsbury Harriers’ singlet was slowing his run and looking over his shoulder, as if waiting for the runner to catch him so they could run together. By the time he reached the lanky harrier with mud spattered up the backs of his legs, the runner had already automatically reacted by striding out to an even quicker pace. The harrier accelerated as the runner drove toward him.

“Mind if I run along with you?” he asked, beginning to match the runner stride for stride.

“Sure.” He knew the questions would come, and he wished he could answer them, but his anonymity was more important even if he couldn’t be sure of exactly who he was. Then inevitably it came to them wanting him to join their clubs.

“You’re the runner everyone has been wondering about. You train quite fast it seems.”

“T try to.”

“Quite a nasty one, isn’t it.”

“Terrible.”

They fell into a silence as the runner continued running a chest ahead of the English harrier, both of their eyes locked upon the horizon.

“This is… quite a… healthy pace you run,” the harrier gasped between breaths. “Do you . . . always train . . . this fast?”

“T never run slower than six minutes per mile on any run, and rarely above 5:30.”

“You’re Canadian . . . are you?”

The runner gave him a cursory glance before turning the screw a bit tighter: 4:15 pace. “Look, I don’t want to sound rude, but I’m not very good at talking when I’m running hard.”

“T know … what… you mean,” the harrier blurted. “In fact… I’m going

… to have to… ease off a bit. I wasn’t planning … on running . . . this fast today.” Within seconds, the hapless character was five yards behind the runner and sagging.

“Sorry, but I’ve got to stick with my program,” the runner threw over his shoulder as sympathetically as he could. God, the guy probably thinks I’m the biggest hot dog in the world. He didn’t enjoy burning people off who wanted to train with him. There simply always remained those prying questions which ultimately could lead to his identity.

Which reminded him about possible hopes for plastic surgery. Mr. Armathwaite had convinced him to visit a plastic surgeon of high repute, Frederick Treves, but the man, in consultation with a colleague, had informed him that any surgery they attempted might result in further scarring and discoloration elsewhere because of the necessity of acquiring skin grafts. They also had told him that although they could improve his appearance, they could only do so much, and that it would be very costly. And he would have been forced to submit to a hospitalization where he was sure to be a freak show for medical students. Oh well, hammer out those miles. The answer will eventually come.

On his return almost an hour later, his legs had tightened during the long slow climb back up to Spaniards Road. He pounded down the blacktop path adjacent to the desolate Concert Pond. Trees’ branches were almost completely devoid of leaves, yet thrashed in the wind like long upside-down hula skirts.

On he blitzed, all the way up the alley along the ponds now barren of foliage to the southern end of Fitzroy Park. His right hand reached across to his left wrist. He clicked his chronograph, glancing down as the rain ran off his nylon jacket onto the watch. “1:29:53,” he said to himself before beginning to cool down up the lane toward his shack. “Not bad.”

Along the way the large Doberman was barking behind the wood fence, but the elements assured that nothing else was about on the quarter-mile ascent. He decided the cover of the rainfall and wind would be perfect for using the other entrance to the cave. Accordingly, he bypassed the allotment gardens and jogged between the two white columns onto the gravel road which led up to the stately white house.

Carefully and stealthily he moved along the edge of the bushes down toward the lower part of the unmanicured property not visible to the house; then shuttled over to the switch concealed in a watertight metal box beneath some ferns, five yards from the cave’s unusual second entrance. Pushing aside some fronds, the water-soaked runner opened the box, then flicked a switch. After replacing the lid and fronds in their original positions, he next walked over to the giant redwood tree.

As he gazed at it he couldn’t really believe a real redwood was alive and growing in England: but there it was, and its diameter exceeded three feet. The runner pulled a hand from out of one of his rain-soaked gloves and twisted a large piece of bark ever so slightly. The switch underneath the bark in combination with the other switch assured that no one could ever accidentally stumble upon the method for being admitted to the hidden entrance.

Scampering down to the moss-covered bench amidst the winding rock garden paths, and assuring himself of being alone, he pressed the release button under the wood slat and tilted the bench back. Below a dark stairway descended to his subterranean chambers.

The Purple Runner will continue in the November/December issue.

November/December 2011 M&B Sneak Peek

Here are just some of the stories we’re working on for our next issue:

« Roy Stevenson constructs a program for the intermediate marathoner. ¢ Mackenzie Lobby travels back in time to meet the Twin City hard cores. Ulf Kirchdorfer introduces readers to running detective V.O. Max.

¢ Hal Higdon philosophizes on the unique mystique of the marathon.

¢ David Asp attempts to translate marathon running to cross-country skiing.

Gail Kislevitz spends quality time with world-class Gillian Adams Horovitz.

e Jeff Hardisty joins other postcardiac runners in Harrisburg.