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[at-l] if you just substitute "hike" for run...
- Subject: [at-l] if you just substitute "hike" for run...
- From: ThatSloetoe <sloetoe@yahoo.com>
- Date: Tue, 6 Jun 2000 15:15:33 -0700 (PDT)
If you substitute "hike" for "run", this could be any day hiker, section
hiker, or throughhiker who suddenly find themselves "in the zone."
God bless us.
> THEY RUN AND THEY RUN...
>
> This is the season of the lonely sport.
>
> It is called cross country.
>
> The glory and the glamour are on the gridiron. The guts are out on
> the course where the cross country meets are run.
>
> Football players perform in front of thousands of frenzied,
> shrieking fans in plush stadiums. Their rib-rattling efforts are
> cheered on by long-legged, short-skirted cheerleaders. They are
> outfitted with the best equipment plastic, rubber, and jersey can
> provide.
>
> Their every hang-nail is ministered to by a battery of trainers,
> physicians, and surgeons. Sports writers give them flashy names
> like "Tank" and "Animal" and "Roadrunner", and pour out reams of
> purple prose, quoting faithfully every belch and grunt, while radio
> and TV casters describe their every move in breathless decibels.
>
> The football player gets the stats and the ink and the homecoming
> queen.
>
> The cross country runner gets leg cramps, seared lungs, and the dry
> heaves.
>
> Most cross country meets are about as well attended as a
> refrigerator auction in Siberia, or the commission of an act of
> hari-kari.
>
> Cross country runners have no equipment problems. They put on
> shorts, maybe a t-shirt, and some shoes. If you're really sporty,
> you wear a headband to keep the sweat out of your eyes.
>
> Football players hear the swelling crescendo of 70,000 voices
> screaming to score. Cross Country runners hear their own rasping
> breathing, the pounding of their blood in their head, the crunching
> rhythm of their own footsteps . . . and a little voice whispering
> taunts, asking maddening questions: "Only three more miles,
> spaghetti legs, only three more miles . . . will you make it? Or
> are you gonna quit? Come on, lie to your legs some more; tell them
> just one more hill then you'll sit down and rest."
>
> They call it the loneliness of the long distance runner. It is an
> apt phrase. For the runner has only one other companion in each
> race . . . his name is pain.
>
> They draw elaborate patterns of X's and O's in football, they send
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