Jock is gone now, and the elite runners are sequestered down the road, so things are a lot tamer here. Inside the school, marathoners sit patiently on the gym floor, in bleachers and against every available wall, waiting. The air of expectancy and shared dreams is drifting on the scent of analgesic. The buzz of conversations creates a low rumble. Like the world's largest basketball team minutes before the Big Game, the masses of marathoners sit in expectation of the moment, the culmination of months of preparation, the test.
Workouts are done, pep talks are over, stomachs clutch, muscles twitch.
Another busload pulls up. In one of the windows, a young woman stares out in silence, observing what could easily be, in another era and with a quick costume change, warriors preparing for battle. And suddenly, it's as if the magnitude of it tightens her belly. A spark of fear lights her brown eyes. She makes the sign of the cross.