Chasing the Rabbit

The aspens were still asleep when my phone buzzed.

Pale trunks rose out of the dark like bone. The trail climbed in narrow switchbacks, packed dirt dusted with frost, my breath hanging in front of me in small white bursts. I’d already been out for an hour — five miles of warmup — and my legs had finally stopped asking questions.

There’s a point in any long run where your body stops negotiating. It’s resignation. The muscles accept the terms, the mind goes quiet, and for a few miles you get to remember why you loved this in the first place: because the world gets simple when all you have to do is keep moving.

My phone buzzed again. I slowed just enough to fish it out of my vest.

“Mike,” Krista said, wind in her voice. “You still crushing five-thirty miles for distance?”

I glanced at my watch. Six-forty. Easy climbing. Twelve miles of five-thirty tempo up top. Old habits die hardest when they’ve been built into bone. The numbers weren’t impressive anymore. But they were still honest. In my head the workout was a map: climb, settle, twelve miles at tempo, cool down.

“Sure am,” I said. “Why?”

“We’re short a pacer. Lost Dutchman Marathon. Apache Junction. We’ve got a few Olympic Trials hopefuls this year. They’re planning to go out around five-thirties. Hold them to halfway, then peel off. No bib. No time. You’d be doing us a huge favor.”

The idea hit me before she finished. I tried to erase it. Forty-two years old. Marketing director for an outdoor brand. Conference calls that stacked like dominoes. A wife who wanted a child and a life that didn’t revolve around race calendars and recovery days.

I wasn’t supposed to be the kind of man who said yes to that call anymore. I was supposed to be the kind of man who said, Sounds fun — ten years ago.

“I don’t know,” I said, buying time. The trail steepened. My calves bit back.

“It’s a small race,” she said. “Low pressure. Boston qualifier, sure, but nothing like the big city stuff. We just need someone reliable.”

Reliable. The word stuck.

At the office, they used words like reliable and consistent the way priests used words like faithful. It was praise and warning wrapped in one. Reliable meant you disappeared into the job. Into the marriage. Into other people’s plans.

You were praised for it—right up until nobody looked up when you walked out.

“I’m in Colorado,” I said, as if geography could absolve me.

“It’s in two weeks,” Krista said. “You can fly in. On us. It’s not racing. You’re just the rabbit. Keeping their pace.”

I felt the idea again — the bright, stupid, hungry thing — and tried to suffocate it.

“Okay,” I said, surprising us both. “I’ll do it.”

She laughed. “Knew you would. You always do.”

When the call ended, I stood there longer than I needed to, hands on my knees, breath steaming, heart rolling easy and deep. The aspens watched without judgment.

Then my phone buzzed again — not a call, an email notification. Then another. The little staccato of obligation. I didn’t look. I tucked the phone away like it was something that could spoil if exposed to air.

I started running again before I could talk myself out of it.

***

Arthur Lydiard used to say the hills would tell you who you were.

He didn’t dress it up. No metaphors. Short sentences. Commands, really. He spoke the way cobblers and farmers spoke — men who worked with their hands and didn’t expect the world to meet them halfway.

I was sixteen the first time he broke me.

One hundred miles a week. He said it like it was nothing. I tore my quad on the first attempt. Two weeks later I was peeing blood. Two weeks after that I got the flu and lay on my parents’ couch shaking, convinced I’d broken my body permanently.

My mother wanted me to quit. She said the Olympics weren’t a plan, but a pipe dream. She said a boy shouldn’t be coughing blood into a sink.

The fifth time, I went to his house.

He answered the door in a stained shirt, scalp freckled with liver spots, that hooked hawk nose bent toward the floor. His workshop smelled like leather and glue. Shoes lined the walls in various states of disrepair. A little radio played low, some announcer talking about rugby like it was scripture.

“Boy,” he said, looking right through me. “If you can’t turn out a hundred miles, you’re wasting your time. And worse—mine.”

“My body keeps breaking down,” I said.

“You’ll never run it with your body,” he said. “You’ll run it with your heart. One option. One goal. One focus.”

He pressed a headlamp into my palm.

“Start at five,” he said. “Run till it’s done.”

“What if I have to walk?” I asked.

He snorted. “Hell, I don’t care if you need a cane. You log the miles. You hang on.”

I remember staring at the headlamp, suddenly furious. Furious that he could talk like that. Furious that he didn’t care if I hurt.

“How do you know?” I asked. “How do you know I can?”

He looked at me like I was slow.

“You told me you wanted the Olympics,” he said. “That’s the question. Do you want it or don’t you? We’ll know next week, won’t we.”

That was Arthur. The man who made us run seven Waiataruas — twenty-two miles each, through the Waitakeres — in a single week, starting from 5 Wainwright Avenue, climbing and descending until your legs forgot their own names.

It wasn’t the mileage that scared me. It was the way he said it was simple.

***

Two days later, at my kitchen table in Colorado, I told my wife.

“It’s in Arizona,” I said. “Lost Dutchman. They need a pacer.”

She didn’t look up from her mug. Her hair was still wet from the shower. She’d started wearing it shorter the last year, less time wasted, less fuss. Even her choices had become efficient.

“A pacer,” she repeated.

“Elite guys,” I said. “Olympic Trial hopefuls. I’d just run the first half with them. Help them hit splits.”

“And then?” she asked.

“And then I’d drop out,” I said.

She stared at me over the rim of the mug. She was tired in a way that wasn’t about sleep. She had been patient for years — patient through training blocks and travel weekends and the way I always had one more “quest,” as she called them.

“Do you want to go?” she asked. She didn’t sound angry. She sounded tired of waiting for the answer to be the same forever.

The honest answer was yes, so violently yes it scared me.

“I said I would,” I said instead.

“That’s not what I asked.”

I felt my throat tighten the way it did before a race. The old pressure. The old familiar narrowing.

“I don’t know what I want,” I said, and even as I said it, I knew that was a lie. I knew exactly what I wanted. I just didn’t know what it cost.

She nodded slowly, as if confirming something to herself.

As she closed the fridge, I could see Sandy’s ultrasound photo under a bike magnet.

“Okay,” she said. “Go do your favor.”

Favor. That word was sharp.

That night I lay awake listening to her breathe, thinking about how you could run twenty-six miles and still be afraid of the conversation waiting at the finish.

***

Lost Dutchman Marathon didn’t look like much.

A dirt parking lot. A handful of tents. Volunteers in folding chairs clutching coffee. A portable speaker crackling with classic rock. The Superstition Mountains rose in the distance, purple and gold in the early light, their name doing half the work for them.

Krista met me near the start with a clipboard and a hoodie that said LOST DUTCHMAN STAFF. She was the kind of organizer who didn’t look stressed because she’d burned through stress years ago and found something steadier underneath.

“You made it,” she said.

“I’m reliable,” I said, and she laughed.

She pointed toward the elites warming up. “There they are. They’ll want five-thirty to halfway. Not five-twenty. Not hero pace. Metronome pace.”

“Right,” I said.

“Halfway,” she repeated. “No bib,” she said. “You’re not racing.”

She waited. “Say it.”

“I’m not racing,” I said back.

On the line, I recognized the men immediately.

Sam Keller to my left — Phoenix Marathon winner last year, compact and efficient, eyes already somewhere past the horizon. Ricky Bautista on my right, long and loose, second place last year, nothing wasted in his stride. And just behind my shoulder, Reggie Dawson.

Reggie was the reason anyone cared.

Big chest. Long, sinewy legs that seemed to go all the way up to his ribcage. He wore gloves and dark shades even in the half-light, like he didn’t intend to let the day get too close. Sub-2:30 ambition radiated off him. Olympic Trials hopeful. The real thing.

I felt old standing there. Not weak — just aware. Like someone who’d lived several lives already and was being asked to step briefly into another.

The gun went.

Dust kicked up. The pack surged forward into the narrow gravel trail, canyon walls rising on one side, cactus and open desert on the other. The sun lifted itself slowly, like it needed to be convinced.

Five-thirty pace settled in without argument. My heart rolled over, smooth and practiced, like an engine that had been idling for years waiting for the right moment.

Mile one: five-twenty-eight. Perfect.

Mile two came in hot — five-twenty. Too eager. I eased. Reggie stayed glued to my shoulder anyway, like he was testing whether my pace would hold if he leaned on it.

Sam and Ricky tucked in behind, two-by-two like they’d rehearsed it.

At mile four, I corrected. Five-thirty-two.

Reggie’s breathing was louder than I expected.

At the water table I fumbled a cup, nearly swerved into a porta-potty, caught myself at the last second.

When I looked back, Sam and Ricky were already stretching thin.

Six miles in, we hit pavement. Suburbia. Lawns and mailboxes and early risers holding mugs in their hands. Someone had a sign that said RUN LIKE YOU STOLE SOMETHING. A kid rang a cowbell.

And something loosened in me.

Seven was five-twenty-eight.

I felt it immediately. My breath flattened. Long exhales. Everything came into focus. My world grew silent. My heart was calm.

Miles eight through ten clicked by in the low five-thirties. The watch stopped feeling like a judge and started feeling like an observer.

By ten, I knew I could stop whenever I wanted. I’d done my job.

Reggie pulled up for a moment. He glanced at my watch. Not long. Just long enough to register the numbers.

“You’re smoother than you look,” he said. Not a compliment. A diagnosis.

I knew the deal. I’m just the rabbit. The pacer. Step off clean and let the real race begin.

A rabbit exists to get run down.

But Arthur’s voice wouldn’t leave me alone.

Can you hang on?

***

By thirteen, I was still on it—five-thirty. Reggie eased back, then held. Smart. Patient. Reggie wasn’t waiting to take me apart. He was waiting for me to peel off—like I was supposed to.

At halfway the timing mat lay ahead like a seam in the road. Volunteers shouted, cups out.

I drifted left—toward the exit—then didn’t.

I stayed in the centerline as if it belonged to me.

Halfway.

I stayed.

Something in my chest clicked. I saw the Superstitions ahead at mile twenty-two. Flat. Straight. A long push just about the distance of the tempo leg of my hometown Waiatarua substitute. At forty-two, the hundred-mile weeks felt less like ambition and more like a dare I couldn’t stop answering.

I thought about my wife, sitting at the kitchen table with her coffee growing cold, talking about schools and stability and how tired she was of everything being provisional. The way she’d said favor like she was naming a disease.

I thought about my job — the way my calendar looked like a losing game of Tetris. How my life had become interruptions.

And something about the disorder of it all loosened my grip. My shoulders dropped. My hands unclenched. My hips uncoiled.

Fourteen: five-fifteen. Fifteen: five-twelve. Reggie closed to twenty seconds. I crested a small hill and let myself go.

Five-ten.

Then five-oh-five—pure panic and pride.

I stopped looking at the watch.

I wasn’t pacing anymore. I wasn’t racing either.

I was just flying.

The miles I’d been saving for my whole life showed up.

***

The track of the first heat of the Olympic 5,000 meter came back to me without warning.

Three laps to go. Twenty-two men. Eight advance.

My hamstring tightened like a warning light. Cool sickness crept up my spine. Two runners moved on my outside shoulder. If I didn’t push now, I was done.

Arthur wasn’t there.

I finished tenth.

After, Ned and I sat in McDonald’s in the Olympic Village, hoarding Big Macs like kids who’d been given permission to misbehave. We talked about splits like they were myths, like they could be revised in the retelling.

“I think I could’ve held on,” I told him. “If I’d committed.”

He didn’t argue. That was the worst part.

***

Mile twenty-four snapped me back.

Five-forty-three.

Then something even worse.

My hamstring hardened into a knot. My chest rattled. The desert air tasted like dust and pennies. At the water stop I slowed to a jog — and Reggie slammed into me from behind.

“What the hell, man?” he said, half-laughing, half-not. “You’re supposed to be the pacer.”

“Sorry,” I said. “Just having a good day.”

He shook his head, annoyed now, but there was something else under it — the fear you get when your plan depends on someone else behaving predictably.

“Fine,” he said. “You set it. I’ll go when I’m ready. Just try to stay with me. Just go ahead and try, old man.”

No one waved me off. No one shouted. No one seemed to know I wasn’t supposed to be there.

That’s when it hit me — the part Arthur never explained.

I wasn’t trying to win. I was trying to stop quitting.

You don’t just hang on. You have to choose what you’re hanging on to.

Not the medal. Not the time.

Something smaller. Something more stubborn.

Mile twenty-five came in at five-oh-eight—stupid, spiteful speed. Blistering for me this late in a marathon.

“Old man my ass,” I muttered.

Reggie was still there. Fifteen seconds back. Close enough to end me in a sprint.

The finishing straightaway opened up. The world narrowed. My vision tunneled until the banners at the end of the road looked like they were drawn in charcoal. My stomach rolled.

I counted breaths like a prayer.

One-two-three-four.

Reggie surged.

I didn’t answer, because I was already going full throttle. I just kept hanging on.

***

Then it was over.

I bent forward, hands on my knees, the world tilting sideways. The sound of the crowd reached me late, as if it had to travel a longer distance to get to whatever part of me was still conscious.

Behind me, Reggie stumbled into Krista’s arms, legs gone. He wasn’t the invincible thing he’d looked like at mile one. He was a man who’d emptied himself.

“What happened?” I asked, genuinely confused.

Krista’s eyes were bright. She was laughing and crying at the same time, like she didn’t know which emotion had earned the right to be first.

“You won,” she said. “You weren’t supposed to. But you did.”

“Won?” I said.

Krista’s smile faltered into logistics. “You crossed first,” she said. “But without a bib—”

“Doesn’t matter,” I said.

I turned. Reggie was on his haunches now, head down, gloves on the dirt, chest heaving, sucking air.

He looked up at me. His shades were off. His eyes were just eyes — tired, irritated, human.

“Hell of a thing,” he said. “You didn’t break.”

I shook my head. “I couldn’t if I wanted to.”

He stared at me a moment, like he didn’t understand that sentence.

Then he laughed once — short, rough. “Man, I been chasing splits my whole life. You? You were chasing… something else.”

Reggie stood slowly, wincing as if he’d aged ten years in the last mile. He came closer, close enough that I could see the salt on his cheeks.

“You know what you did?” he asked.

“I ran too hard,” I said.

He shook his head. “No. You showed me something.”

“What?”

He looked out toward the desert, toward the Superstitions sitting there like they’d seen this before.

“I can race a man. I don’t know how to race… whatever you were doing. You didn’t even look back. Not once.”

“I couldn’t afford to,” I said.

***

Later, after the finish area emptied and the tents began to fold, I sat alone on a curb with the medal in my lap.

My phone buzzed.

How did it go?

I stared at the words until they blurred.

What was the honest answer?

I could tell her I won. That would sound like I’d chosen running over her.

I thought about Arthur in his workshop, handing me a headlamp like it was a verdict.

I thought about Ned in McDonald’s, both of us trying to eat our way around a dream we lost.

I thought about Reggie’s eyes when his shades came off — how quickly a demigod becomes flesh.

Winning hadn’t changed anything.

But hanging on had.

I typed back:

Didn’t drop. Coming home. Staying.

I finished, I thought.

Just the way I’d said it to Arthur all those years ago, hobbling into his shed. I finished.

For the first time in a long time, that was enough.