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[at-l] if you just substitute "hike" for run...



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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