At the municipal pool, I swam laps beside a woman whom I recognized, as she had won her age group in the city marathon more than one dozen times, but, I soon learned as I watched her pull herself out of the pool, she had since lost control of her left leg, which dragged limply behind her. As we sat drying in the sun, reclined on plastic lounges, she explained to me that she injured her leg when she fell down a cellar hatch that gave under her weight as she walked down the sidewalk. Her bones had broken so badly and her nerves damaged so severely that the leg had hung impotent ever since. The former marathon champion explained that she had no memory of the accident nor did she remember the week following and could only tell the story because she had been told it herself by one of the many witnesses. She admitted that her misfortune may have been due to the fact that on that day she had become hyper-aware of her stride, because the Sunday before she had placed out of the top ten in her age group in an organized race for the first time in a decade and she feared that her form had become flawed. A runner (she had decided) must never consider her pace or question her step; she must only move forward.
