Track and Field stories

The kid with the popping shoulder veins used to run like a horse; not graceful and sinewy, but clopety-clop like you could hear his footsteps encroaching like the tell-tale heart. The sound was be-labored by the knowledge of his pneumonia and the sense of someone trying to overtake you. It was intimidating, even for a teenager.

He was heir to the half-mile throne, set back by his illness. On endless trails set around the highschool, he was very patronizing; saying things like, "If you keep running like this, you'll do such and such or be such and such by this time next year." It was like listening to a teacher. I only trained for cross-country once. I only ran cross-country one year.