The Purity Of The Long-Distance Runner

The Purity of the Long-Distance RunnerThe long Iowa highway is empty. Beside it, quarter-ton pigs doze in blazing green pastures; the sun has burned a hole in the sky and is hanging near the fields. The temperature is climbing toward 96 degrees.In the distance, on a crest of the highway, is a bobbing speck. With its even speed and its hard-rubber movement, it descends a hill, moves along a flat stretch, starts a new hill that curves two miles toward the hot glass of the sky.The speck becomes a r...