To Be a Runner by Martin Dugard

Author:Martin Dugard
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Rodale
Published: 2011-05-14T16:00:00+00:00

PAMPLONA (PART II)

Seven. Sun just up. I walked with Ron and the pilots down an alley built before Columbus discovered the New World. None of us had gotten more than two hours’ sleep. Too much excitement. Too many bodies swaying in the streets; sometimes dancing as couples, more often not. The warm night air had smelled of sweat and expensive perfume. By the time we stumbled off to bed, the town was just kicking into that partying mode reserved for true professionals. Even the pilots, who treated revelry as a birthright, were wrung out.

In the morning the cobbled streets and narrow medieval alleys were puddled with red wine, vomit, and pools of urine so vast they could have been considered estuaries or lakes and given their own geographical place names. Thick green shards of broken glass rose from the vile puddles. The march from our hotel to the run course was like tiptoeing through a minefield.

For all those sensations, what had me reeling were the white pants I wore—the tight white pants. Borrowed from Ron, they clung to my thighs like sausage skins. It had been a struggle to button the waist.

Sometimes it’s a major event that provides the impetus for change. Say, the death of a close relative. Sometimes it’s something considerably smaller, like being confronted with a forty-pound weight gain moments before being chased down a narrow, crowded, wine-sticky, piss-slippery stretch of cobblestones by a half-ton killing machine.

I remembered a moment the year before, standing at the head-waters of the Yangtze River while covering an adventure race. “So, Martin,” asked a longtime Chinese colleague with typical cultural directness, “when did you get the belly?”

And there was that book signing during the summer thunderstorm in Albuquerque, when the Borders manager took one look at me and chuckled, “You sure don’t look like your author photo.”

My answer to both was the same: I’ve been lifting. It’s muscle.

This officially marked the second time I had gotten fat. So, no, I wasn’t the skinny blond kid who ran NCAA cross-country anymore. That much I could deal with. The weight gain didn’t trouble me as much as what it implied. Careerwise, I was pushing myself to be my best. But in all other areas of life—family, appearance, fitness, spirituality—the desire to be my best had imperceptibly been replaced by a lowering of standards. And I couldn’t explain why. The dissipation of Pamplona and my physical appearance were not mirror reflections. They were close enough to the truth, though, to sting.

My ruminations came to an end as we reached a high wooden barricade near the Plaza Consistorial. It was the moment of decision. On the other side were the runners, awaiting the 8 a.m. release of the bulls. On our side were spectators and would-be runners in a cloud of second thoughts. I climbed over. Ron and the other pilots clambered up the rails, too.

The tightly packed scrum inside the barricades was claustrophobic. The street was so narrow, and the sea of red and white so great, that there was no room to move.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.