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The cars curling onto the Mass Ave Bridge off Storrow Drive blared their horns as Jim sprang safely across to the sidewalk in a stiff-arming Heisman pose. His training partner hustled close behind, dart-stepping over a puddle as chilled slush fanned against the back of his tights.
“Yeah, yeah,” Jim yelled in his seasoned Hartford accent. “I heah ya. You’ll get theah.”
“You know you’re gonna get us killed,” spat the training partner as he rejoined his friend heading north across the Mass Ave Bridge to the Cambridge side of the Charles River.
“What?”
“And you wonder where runners get bad reputations.”
“Hey, they saw me.”
“What about me?”
“Stay close and they see you, too.”
“And that makes it okay?”
“That makes it doable.”
*
They had been friends for years, and their verbal jousts had become as predictable as their daily routes through the city. But more than repartee, their sparring had the effect of pace management, maintain the verbal output, keep below anaerobic threshold. Continue reading
