Once a Runner
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Once a Runner is a novel by American author John L. Parker Jr. and was first published in 1978 by Cedarwinds (0915297019). In Once a Runner, Parker illustrates the hard work and dedication that is required of an elite runner. Since its publication, the novel has become a cult classic for competitive runners of all abilities. A sequel was recently published titled Again to Carthage.
Contents |
[edit] Plot summary
Quenton Cassidy is a collegiate runner at fictional Southeastern University. He is a well-rounded distance runner who specializes in the Mile. After writing a petition for the college's football team protesting a dress and conduct code, Quenton is suspended from the university and prohibited from competing in the university's annual track meet. Cassidy moves to a cabin in the woods and submits himself to a brutal training regimen. He is under the coaching of fictional gold medallist Olympian Bruce Denton. His plan is to compete at the Southeastern Relays in disguise against the best miler in the world.
[edit] Characters
- Quenton Cassidy – The protagonist of the book, Cassidy is an elite collegiate runner whose dedication to the sport forces him to choose to drop out of school and run under the coaching of Bruce Denton (see below).
- Bruce Denton – A fictional Olympic champion runner who becomes Cassidy's friend and coach.
- Jerry Mizner – Cassidy's best friend and teammate
- Andrea Cleland – Cassidy's girlfriend.
- Dick Doobey – The head football coach at Southeastern. He attempts to have Cassidy expelled from the school for disrupting loyalty among his athletes.
- John Walton – The world record holder for the mile, and the first person to run a time under 3 minutes and 50 seconds in the mile. His character is based on that of the famous miler John Walker. Cassidy's race against him is the novel's climactic moment.
[edit] Quotes
"The night joggers were out as usual."
"The secret is this: there is no secret." - Cassidy's answer to various people asking how he runs so fast
"It is simply that we can all be good boys and wear our letter sweaters around and get our little degrees and find some nice girl to settle, you know, down with... take up what a friend of ours calls the hearty challenges of lawn care... Or we can blaze! Become legends in our own time, strike fear in the heart of mediocre talent everywhere! We can scald dogs, put records out of reach! Make the stands gasp as we blow into an unearthly kick from three hundred yards out! We can become God's own messengers delivering the dreaded scrolls! We can race dark Satan himself till he wheezes fiery cinders down the back straightaway....They'll speak our names in hushed tones, 'those guys are animals' they'll say! We can lay it on the line, bust a gut, show them a clean pair of heels. We can sprint the turn on a spring breeze and feel the winter leave our feet! We can, by God, let our demons loose and just wail on!"
"And too there were questions: What did he eat? Did he believe in isometrics? Isotonics? Ice and heat? How about aerobics, EST, ESP, STP? What did he have to say about yoga, yogurt, Yogi Berra? What was his pulse rate, his blood pressure, his time for the 100-yard dash? What was the secret, they wanted to know; in a thousand different ways they wanted to know The Secret. And not one of them was prepared, truly prepared to believe that it had not so much to do with chemicals and zippy mental tricks as with that most unprofound and sometimes heart-rending process of removing, molecule by molecule, the very tough rubber that comprised the bottoms of his training shoes. The Trial of Miles, Miles of Trials. How could they be expected to understand that?"
"That quarter mile oval may be one of the few places in the world where the bastards can't screw you over, Quenton. That's because there's no place to hide out there. No way to fake it or charm your way through, no deals to be made. You know all that stuff. You've talked about it. It's why you became a miler. The question is whether you are prepared to live by it or whether it was just a bunch of words."
"Cassidy sought no euphoric interludes. They came, when they did, quite naturally and he was content to enjoy them privately. He ran not for crypto-religious reasons, but to win races, to cover ground fast. Not only to be better than his fellows, but better than himself. To be faster by a tenth of a second, by an inch, by two feet or two yards than he had been the week or year before. He sought to conquer the physical limitations placed upon him by a three-dimensional world (and if Time is the fourth dimension, that too was his province). If he could conquer the weakness, the cowardice in himself, he would not worry about the rest; it would come. Training was a rite of purification; from it came speed, strength. Racing was a rite of death; from it came knowledge. Such rites demand, if they are to be meaningful at all, a certain amount of time spent precisely on the Red Line, where you can lean over the manicured putting green at the edge of the precipice and see exactly nothing."
"Running to him was real, the way he did it the realest thing he knew. It was all joy and woe, hard as diamond; it made him weary beyond comprehension. But it also made him free."
"Quenton Cassidy was 6-2, his meager 167 pounds stretched across his frame in a manner dictated by the searing daily necessities of his special task. Beneath the tight skin, the smooth musculature glided with fluid ease, giving the impression of elastic, lightweight power; a featherless view of a young falcon. There were no inefficient corners or bulges; the form was sharply chisled as if from sand-worn driftwood, fluted with oblique angles and long, tapering ridges, thin products of his care. Even now, standing perfectly still in the early morning glow, inverted teardrop thighs and high bunched calves suggested only motion: smooth effortless speed."
"In mind's special processes, a ten-mile run takes far longer than the 60 minutes reported by a grandfather clock. Such time, in fact, hardly exists at all in the real world; it is all out on the trail somewhere, and you only go back to it when you are out there."
"A runner who could not run was out of his element. He would not even think of himself as an athlete; ridiculously there would be a kind of guilt about; that was the worst part. He would begin to feel uncomfortable around his training comrades and the feeling would be mutual, like a newly wounded soldier among the embarrassed whole ones, who would not wish to be reminded of certain crap game aspects of life."
"That my boy is snow. White stuff that falls from God. It won't hurt you actually, as long as you don't swallow any or carry it in your pocket. Some people claim it has magical powers. Try to put on long wooden planks and slide on it. Personally I don' think it will catch on." - Bruce Denton
"'A 3:58 or so, Cass.' He looked up seriously from his chowder. Cassidy sipped his tea morosely. These things were not to be bantered about lightly. It was bad luck to put your mouth on times your feet couldn't reach."
"This was what that one perfectly executed race and the thousands of miles of training it required had earned him: the right to have his name lost in the uncontrolled frenzy of this crowd."
"Such adulation had roared down for him many times since he first heard it sprinting down the straightaway in the Olympic stadium. He would surely hear it many times again in his life. But as Denton trotted out and wistfully accepted it once more, Quenton Cassidy thought his smile seemed sad indeed."
"The other two-milers milled around with incredible nervousness; some trotted back and forth in their lanes, some bounced up and down. It was a time of cruel stress. One race represented months of training; each step the product of many miles of preparation. They would have thought of this race countless times, some of them running it in bits and pieces during interval training or overdistance. They would have thought of creeping up on Denton's shoulder with a lap to go; that sort of fantasy could get them through long hours on the roads at night. But with the starting gun only seconds away, their heads were roaring with anticipation and anguish. They wanted to be into it. They wanted to be over it. The race itself was bearable, for that they had trained. The waiting, however, was hell on square wheels."
"It is easier to train hard up North....Snow is snow. You either run in it or you don't. It give you something to go against, an irritant. But also a stimulus, if you know what I mean. Down here the freezing rain runs down your neck one day, next day you'd think spring had sprung in January.....Such a winter is always getting your hopes up. - Bruce Denton
"About the demons? They make you want to run through the jungle...cover countryside at a clip, slide by in the night like a scuttling cloud....They make you bolt awake in the middle of the night with an involuntary shot of your own true adrenaline, ready to run a hundred miles; we're talking when you're there, now, really there, four-minute shape or better. They make you jittery with the smell of forest, ready to hurdle fallen trees, run down game, leave gore in the bushes.....And then when you get them all reigned in they make you lay back in the pack, coasting three laps on an old melody...and then they make you wail out of the final turn and blow down the last goddamn straightaway like the midnight trail to hell!" - Quenton Cassidy
"I can't remember a mile race in my life that was even mildly amusing."- Quenton Cassidy
"In track it's all there in black and white. Lot of people can't take that kind of pressure; the ego withers in the face of the evidence. We all carry our little credentials around with us; that's why the numbers are so important to us, why we're always talking about them. I am, for instance, four flat point three. The numerals might as well be etched on my forehead.....we know not only whether we are good, bad, or mediocre, but whether we're first, third, or a hundred and ninety seventh at any given point. Track and Field News tells us whether we want to know or not......Sometimes it is possible, despite your best efforts and a hundred godamn miles a week, not to even exist.......That, my dear, breaks my heart." - Quenton Cassidy
"'What now?'...'20 more'"
