Forty 3

Running Squad

The sport of running is not for everyone.

It brings aches and pains, it's hard on the body and you often experience discomfort when you hit the wall. But it can be a rewarding pastime for those who stick with it, and it brings a sense of satisfaction along with health benefits and a kick ass physique.

I was a long-time member of our local running club and I attended sessions with almost religious dedication. It was the thing in my life that I enjoyed most. Work was mundane and home life was a drag.

We ran a few times each week, alternating between early morning and evening sessions and there was a longer run scheduled on Sundays. People came to whatever times suited them and the culture was very informal. We were mainly a social group - definitely no Olympians in our midst. The club had been going for decades, and some of us were long standing stalwarts. We had a mixed membership: young and old, men and women, and all levels of fitness. Everyone was welcome.

Our training routes were generally through the local streets, around the lake and amongst the college grounds - generally flat and safe which accommodated the different demands of the group.

I guess I used the camaraderie of squad to substitute for the lack of intimacy at home. My wife and I had drifted apart emotionally through the years. We lived together but really had very little in common and conversation was thin. I tried to get her interested in sports and running but she flatly refused.

"What woman would possibly be interested in that?" She was dismayed. "You'd get all hot and sweaty. Yuck! No thank you! You can keep your mad running for yourself and your dumb friends." I repeated invitations occasionally but she was never amenable.

Instead, she was more interested in watching TV, coffee with colleagues or drinks with the girls. She loved going shopping with similar minded women, I think for dresses, but I was never sure what they were actually shopping for. From time to time, she would even have weekends away with the girls, but I was never invited.

A Newcomer

At the end of one particularly hot summer, a petite young Asian woman arrived alone at our run squad and simply joined in when we set out for the warmup. I thought she must have been a local student because the college kids tend to start squad when they return from summer break. But it turns out I was quite wrong.

I noticed her because she looked out of place and a bit disoriented on the first day. She didn't look like much of a runner, carrying a little extra weight and endowed with a solid build. She wore a regular cotton tee shirt and gray sweat shorts. She didn't even wear runners - just casual canvas sneakers. To her credit, she made it to the end of the session, and then started coming to more.

After the first session, I thought she might have been one of the early dropouts. She was strong and had some fitness, but she was not

running

fit. I could tell that the early sessions were really hard for her as she puffed hard and had to walk the final segments back to base. The club has a week of free sessions before you need to join up, and when she turned up in the second week, I knew that she'd become a signed-up member. It's no guarantee that you'll stick with it, but it's the first step.

I wouldn't say that she was blessed with any special innate talent for running. But what she

did

have was perseverance and determination in spades. She attended every week and she just got better. She even began coming to multiple sessions, and her form and speed responded in kind.

By the end of the first month, she'd acquired some better running gear, following the trend of wearing tights and a crop top, along with proper running shoes. Under the guidance of our coach, her running posture improved significantly and her body rewarded her with better stamina and strength.

Our club is pretty friendly but being populated by amateurs, we lack any formal introduction processes. Whenever the Asian girl arrived, I would smile a greeting to her and she returned the gesture, but we had never actually spoken. Eventually I stepped up. I'd overheard her name in group conversations, and I even checked the sign-on register to confirm that I'd heard right.

"Josephine, right?" She looked surprised. "I'm Ev."

"Hi."

"Good to see you've joined our club. It won't be long and you'll be a leading the pack."

"I don't know about that," she replied. "I'm just looking to get a bit fitter."

"Well, running will do that for you," I declared, knowing from experience that you won't regret it if you stick with the sport. Trust the process and the results will follow.

Josephine

. I've always found it curious how Asian families come up with their western names. I'm sure that their names are entirely appropriate in their own language, but somehow the western names that they choose don't quite mesh. They choose names that are antiquated, or just out of fashion.

Joy, Wendy, Agatha. No-one in western countries choose those names anymore, but Asians seem to have an affinity for them. Maybe the name had some traction in France, but personally I'd never met another Josephine.

Not that I could really talk. Everett is a pretty unusual name, even for an older white guy. Everybody at squad simply called me Ev. In fact, newcomers didn't even know my full name, attested by the fact that many of them greet me as Evan. I didn't bother to correct them anymore.

"How are you finding the sessions Josephine?"

"It's good," she replied with a sigh. "Actually, it's tough. Really tough. I thought I'd be better at this. You make it look so easy. I'm trying hard to come to more sessions, but when I think about how much it hurts, sometimes I can't bring myself to leave the house." Her English was near perfect, with the obvious Oriental background, but her speech contained the twang of our local accent.

"Well, I think you're doing great," I encouraged.

"I just need a bit more motivation," she lamented. "A kick sometimes."

A thought came to me and I made the suggestion. I hoped it wasn't too forward or threatening to ask. "I drive here, so how about I pick you up every time that I'm coming to a session? That way you'll feel obliged to come because someone is waiting for you?"

"Really?" Her face lit up with enthusiasm "OK!"

As a result, we fell into a routine, where I'd call by her apartment each time I was on my way to training, and wait out front, and without fail she would appear at her front gate and we'd travel to squad together.

The trip from Josephine's apartment to run squad was only a short distance, so our time chatting was usually cut short. After a friendly greeting, we would always discuss our respective days. I never had much news to report, but I enjoyed listening to her.

I soon discovered that Josephine was not, in fact, a student. Rather, she worked in retail at a couple of local convenience stores for her livelihood, and she would often lament her dull work. I guess young people all went through that stage of life, working crap occupations for low pay before climbing a professional ladder. Even the grad students at squad seemed to work in cafes and bars, holding down part time jobs to fund their degrees.

Invariably the conversation would turn to running topics. She was always keen to learn anything to do with the sport and she would lap up every morsel I had to offer. Hints on nutrition, training programs, postures and drills - she listened to it all, and as the weeks and months went by, she put it all into effect as her running improved in leaps and bounds.

After nine months of dedicated training, she had blossomed as an athlete. When she ran it appeared almost effortless. She had a nice gait, quick cadence and a relaxed posture. And with every week she became faster and faster.

Soon enough Josephine burst through the 8 minute mile pace in the regular run sessions and she seemed capable of maintaining that pace for the long runs too. That kind of performance put her near the forefront of the women runners in the club, and she was knocking on the door of many of the quicker men too. Sometimes I had to put on a surge of extra effort to keep ahead of her when we were doing the speed sessions.

A few months after that, she had become one of our top women runners. By the end of training sessions, even intensive ones, she looked like she'd hardly exerted any effort at all. Her crop top betrayed a few sweat marks and her face had a glean of perspiration, but she was otherwise unflustered.

In the span of one short year she had transformed herself as a runner. She was the epitome of grace, with an effortless style, great a back-kick on the sprints and high knees to keep her motoring. She was a textbook runner for the middle distance.

She had transformed her body too. Her legs had developed into muscular and toned springs. Her calf muscles were pronounced and she exhibited hamstring muscles that generally hung loosely on her leg but flexed like an engine when she ran. She had lost weight, sporting a slender body with a flat tummy boasting visible abdominal muscles. But best of all, her ass was strong, round and bulging with glute muscles.

I had watched her evolve physically with her dedication to training. Throughout her journey, I loved to spend some of the training sessions running behind her, watching that hot ass in running shorts that fitted tightly in the crease of her behind. With every step, her butt muscles flexed and relaxed, and I loved to watch her running action. Her body would remain straight and true, her hips level and her legs working like pistons while her pony tail swished from side to side.

While Josephine's fitness had improved no end, there was still one curious unhealthy practice that she hung onto. At the very end of every training session, she would roll herself a thin cigarette, and slowly indulge in a smoke. I thought she'd let go of the habit, but despite my repeated warnings, she persisted.

I couldn't really talk, because I had my own vice, being addicted to caffeine. Without fail, I'd have a coffee after the morning sessions and I'd down a coke and maybe even an energy drink after the evening warm downs.

The brief chats after training and the short conversations on the drive to and from squad were not enough. Eventually, Josephine suggested that we go for lunch after the Sunday long run. We were finished squad by 10am, but we were always hungry, and turned up to whatever café or restaurant was open early enough to accommodate us.

Sometimes, lunch would extend for an hour or even two. We'd talk the whole time about everything and nothing. The weather, politics, travel experiences. We'd gossip about the other running club members, what's happening in the district, how we liked the food. At the end of each conversation, I was always amazed how the time had flown by.

I loved being in her company and found her so easy to talk to. It was like a breath of fresh air to be able to speak honestly. I loved hearing about her own views and opinions and her background back home in Asia before she moved over here. The conversation was always interesting, usually gentile, but occasionally she would dip into more saucy topics.

Most of all, I loved to watch her mouth while she spoke. She was endowed with beautiful half-moon loops that formed a perfect arc to frame her mouth. I tried to keep eye contact during our conversations, but I knew that my gaze wandered to watch her lips as she talked.

The fullness of her lips seemed to perfectly match the curves of her Asian eyes and with a cute button nose to set it off I found her face stunning. I knew that she was attractive when she first arrived at squad, but as time went on I found her more and more beautiful. I wouldn't call it an infatuation, but I did look forward to seeing her at run squad with great anticipation. During my down-time at work, my imagination travelled to a happy place, playing back pictures of her face in my mind.

It would not have surprised me at all if she descended from a royal line. A lineage from a culture that valued beauty and elevated the most attractive women to the highest echelons. An Oriental dynasty that selected eligible females for the beauty of their lips to pass down through the generations. In my mind they had achieved perfection with her. But what

I

felt was irrelevant. She was a young beauty living a single life near the city. I was serving out my time in the outer suburbs. I was just happy that our paths could intersect for these few moments of bliss a couple of times each week.

Sometimes, she would talk about her dating experiences, and I listened intently, trying to picture her in glamorous clothes, all made up, courting eligible gentlemen. I only ever saw her in athletic attire, so it was incongruous to think of her on the dating scene. There was something exhilarating about vicariously living her dating encounters, although I admitted feeling a tinge of jealousy that it was not me on the receiving end of her romantic attention

Occasionally she steered the conversation to my domestic life.

"Did you ever have children with Mrs. Ev?" She knew my wife's name, but insisted on anonymizing her.

"No, it never eventuated," I replied.

"What about you?" I asked. She'd never mentioned any children, but who knows in this day and age.

"No, of course not. Could you imagine?" She shook her head as if it was an absurdity.

"We tried for a while," I said, "But we couldn't make it work." I remembered how I was close with my wife back then. Without children as a point of focus, we followed separate pursuits in the subsequent decades and our lives diverged, apart from a shared house.

"Sounds like you had a lot of practice trying," she giggled. "It must be good being married and getting as much sex as you want. Like over the years, how many blowjobs you must have got. It must be a man's dream come true."

"Um," I replied. "I know exactly how many."

"Really?"

"Yes, zero."

"What?" Josephine exclaimed.

"That's right. She's never been open to it."

"But what about sex?"

"Yes, that still happens a little bit."

"Like how many times a week?"

"Oh, I think we're on a different page there Josephine. Maybe a few times a year."

"Oh God," she declared. "Poor you. I think that would kill me. Sorry, that sounds rude and arrogant. But that's even less that I get. And I'm a single girl."

"Sure," I qualified. "But you're a girl. So you can get as much as you want."

"I don't think it's quite like that," said Josephine opening up. "I mean, a random hookup can scratch an itch, but there's still missing something. Like, there's no intimacy, you know what I mean?"

I knew exactly what she meant. If she had put out the offer, I would have fucked her then and there.

"Would you call this a date now?" I asked her. "When we catch up for lunches like this? Is that what you'd call it?"

"Let's not give it a name," she replied. "Let's just enjoy what we've got." She reached across the table and touched my hand.

My Embarrassment

One evening at running squad, I suffered the most embarrassing incident of my life.

I shit my own pants trying to run too fast.

The evenings were becoming cooler as the seasons progressed into fall. Somehow our region is a bellwether for the ailments of winter time. As the days cool, immune systems relax and we spend more time indoors at risk of infections, the inevitable spread of colds and flus and bugs takes hold. It's happened every year in the past, and I'm sure it will continue forever.

During work that day I didn't feel one hundred percent. It was a nondescript kind of malaise that wasn't in any particular part of my body. I didn't have a headache, my throat wasn't sore and my gut didn't churn. But somehow I felt low on energy and I couldn't even eat all of my lunch.

I wondered if I'd fallen victim to the first virus of the season, but it can be easy to convince yourself that you're on the cusp of falling ill, for nothing to ever eventuate. From past experience, I knew that the best strategy was to press on like normal, and wait until any sickness really made itself apparent. Big mistake.

I was also aware of the commitment that I'd made with Josephine. I had promised that I'd offer her a lift to every session. I didn't want to let her down and I'm sure she wanted to maintain the discipline. I concluded that I had cornered myself into going to squad.

We arrived as normal, and Coach Paul delivered the briefing. We would be conducting a fartlek style of run that night. The fartlek came from Scandinavia apparently and was successful in conditioning their elite runners. They would follow a path at moderate speed, and then at random times runners would sprint to a landmark. Apparently it was supposed to prepare the body for both endurance and cardio bursts.

Paul led the group and we travelled the gravel paths around the lake. Every now and then he would shout out "utility pole" or "next intersection", and it would be the signal for the group to pick up pace to the nominated landmark.

I ran in a small balloon with Josephine and a couple of twenty-something men. I found the slower pace OK, but during the sprints I found myself sweating and cramping in my stomach a little. The banter in our little group became competitive, and between us we were keeping score on who managed to reach each landmark first. I hadn't even won any of them.

"Parked car!" shouted Paul and I spotted an old Mustang around 200 yards ahead. This was my opportunity to get a point on the board and I hit the road. I pulled ahead but few moments later, Jo drew alongside me. I could tell that she was putting in all of her effort from the way that she held her hands open and pumped her arms. She looked ahead and I too focused on the car. I was running at one hundred and ten percent, determined to remain ahead.

I felt a pang in my tummy. It was like a cramp that moved around and then I felt an urge to fart. I continued to press on, running hard, feeling my whole body tense. I didn't want to let any gas slip out of my butt -- every runner knows that is a dangerous proposition, so I clenched my ass tight. Alas, it was of no avail as my body decided that it was going to expel the runny shit that has migrated through my insides.

With only ten yards to go, my innards let loose and I felt a giant explosion in my shorts. I won't go into the details but it was disgusting. I made a loud and obvious noise, and it smelt like high heaven. Running shorts have the underpants built in, and mine were made of a loose mesh. The brown mess ran down both of my legs and soaked into my socks.

"I got you --," started Josephine before she realized my situation. Her face shifted from a triumphant smile, through a look of disgust and into an expression of embarrassment for me. I felt it too. The rest of the group congregated at the parked car, ready to continue running the next segment.

As they pulled up, each member of the club in turn made the same discoveries. "What's that smell?" they would each remark, and then when they discovered the source they would follow up with their own version of, "Oh my goodness."

There was nothing available to clean me up and I was in a state of utter embarrassment, so I did what seemed completely logical to me. I simply ran off, back towards my car. I didn't say goodbye, I didn't explain, I didn't say sorry. I just ran.

When I returned to the car, I laid a towel on my driver's seat. I slipped out of my disgusting attire and dumped my socks and shorts in the gutter and drove home to clean up. The smell in the car was bad enough, and I kept the windows down.

As I drove home, I realized that I had abandoned Josephine at squad. I was simply so ashamed about my accident that I thought only of myself. Later I realized that I'd left her to walk home alone in the dark. Hopefully someone else offered her a lift.