Plotline: average hs joe, normal looking, average intelligence, usual family background. Mr. Average in small-town midwest. A chance viewing of "Endurance" lights his fire.
He begins with a crappy 5:30 mile on his hs track. But he has found himself! In secret he begins his regime. Reading Coach Timmons horrifies and inspires our farm boy. Ryun - the white boy made good, the terror of the Kenyans! Long ago...but a model nonetheless. Over the last year of hs he trains harder and harder, getting thinner, more introverted. Now there's no time for friends. Girls find him increasingly repellent. But for the moment he doesn't care. He's on a MISSION. He follows Lydiardism and is recruited by a DII college.....
By sophomore year he has discovered Eddy Lee and broken 4:00. This is not enough for him. His lust for glory is fully aroused. Daily viewings of Without Limits inspire him. He thinks he's training hard. 80mpw with his college team. Until he discovers the work of whom he instantly recognizes as his true zeitmeister, Percy Cerutty! He knows he's onto something: the name strikes fear into his teammates.
He begins a fully Stotan regime. Moves to ABQ, quits on college, work. Cloistered away, reading LR after each run, doing doubles, running only with his Kenyan roommate road-circuit buds seeking their fortune in ABQ. Now he eats ugali, drinks tea, occasionally beats the Kalenjin warriors in their workouts. He runs state, wins in 3:39. Starts posting queruously to LR, asking Renato Canova about the role and frequency of 1000m repeats. LR threads begin to appear...about him!
His self-doubt develops and intensifies in every sphere outside running. Rejections from cuties are a daily event. But this spiral of social and mental decay reinforces his commitment. The faster he runs, the less he wants or cares to deal with the demands of girls. He knows meaning is only to be found on the track, in the fires of competition. He welcomes his self-imposed exile and exclusion. It is pure, beautiful, simple.
Invites to Europe follow his state win. A 3:34 in Heusden gets him into Berlin. Now he runs 3:30. Wins GP meet! F%%%!! Makes BIG money. Still unhappy. To Monaco. Invincible. Now a 7:29, outkicks Choge and Alamirew. The LRBF erupt into a frenzy of love-loathing, worshiping his defeat of the black horde and accusing him of ongoing EPO and PED abuse. He doesn't care. He won! New NR! Kalenjin begin whsipering on the startline, O s^^^, here's the new mzungu!
Despite the euphoria, our hero can't get laid...even though he just bumped into Ivet Lalova warming up and she likes him. On LR he dismissed Tiberian wisdom and therfore cannot consummate her advance. But he still doesn't care.
Immaterial. This season is the greatest of his life. Next up, a 1k in Paris. He wins, again! 2:14. Awesome! The Kalenjin fear him, now they txt him asking for tactics and pace for the next Diamond League race, what will he run, and how? Their fear induces a perpetual hardon in our hero. He has arrived in the only way that matters! Next day, Brussels, he turns out a 12:57 5k with a last 1k in 2:22 that annihilates Bekele and Farah.
Our hero contemplates existential meaning of running and life. His bipolarism is well developed now. He cannot interact socially so his agent handles all requests. Shows up, continues flashes of brilliance. 1:43 for an 800, beats Lewandowski and Lomong. Makes WC team at two events, 1500 first... dominates heat, looks good in semi....but, in the final the wheels come off! No explanation!! Kiprop, Choge, pass him...aargh, even Riseley and Wheating!! After a 7th place finish in a race won in 3:41 with a 51 last lap, total despair engulfs our hero. He wallows on the track in front of 80,000 spectators. The live feed from EuroSport has died and the LRBF bay hysterically. Choge and Kiprop cannot understand how they beat him.
As the giant stadium empties and he faces his unfulfilled destiny alone, with nobody to blame but himself for his failure, the baying voices of LR colonize his mind. Trembling with fear and overcome with angst at the idea of logging on again and reading worse abuse than the classic Webb-crucifixions that he used to participate in, the futility explodes into his brain.
He commits suicide in his hotel room under his poster of Pre by drinking four pints of DMSO.
The hotel staff find him 12:30 later with his iPod endlessly playing the loop of Donald Sutherland's Without Limits eulogy.
The End.
(originally published August 2012, moved from previous page to this location for thematic coherence)
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