Running on the Brain

I stealthily approach Todd's cubicle. He’s got a Rogue sticker on his PC. He's one of us. When he realizes someone’s behind him he frantically closes his Internet browser. All I could make out was YouTube footage of some marathon from the 80’s. Grete Waitz was involved.

“Hey Todd, what’s happening?”

“Robert! Hey, how was New York?? Did you BQ?”

“I ended up not running. I got a last-minute injury.”

“Oh no! Was it your leg?”

“My elbow.”

“What??”

“My elbow. I got a staph infection five days before NY. It was the size of a grapefr—a cantaloupe.”

“Are you kidding me?? That’s like the worst luck imaginable. Oh man, I’m sorry. Those things can be terrible."

“Yeah, it was unpleasant. But I’m better now and Saturday I did 16. Ran the whole thing at a 7:19 min/mi. Five seconds under MGP. Last six were under 7:00.”

“Pretty good,” Todd admits, impressed. “Well Thursday I ran ten 800’s, with the last half of the last two under 6:00 min/mi.”

“Yeah? Last week I ran three 3km’s, two 2000m’s, and four 1000m’s, and the middle two 1000m’s were at my 2km pace.”

“How about this? Seven miles on Town Lake yesterday, and I ran from the place where that rock sticks out to the Stevie Ray Vaughn statue in 12.8 seconds.”

“You didn't.”

"That's right, Rob. Twice as fast as MGP. For 80m."

"80m at .5 MGP. Dude, that's a sub-3:15 marathon, guaranteed."

Courtney from Sales breezes by.

“Hi, Robert.”

“Hey, Courtney, how’s it going in Sales?”

“Oh, you know.”

“Yeah.”

She stops, plucks a pen off Todd’s desk, and signs a stack of forms she’s carrying against the wall of his cubicle.

Without taking her eyes off the paper, “Wow, pleats, that’s a first for you.”

“Just mixing it up.”

On her way down the hall now, “You know what they say about pleats don’t you?”

“What’s that?”

“They make your butt look big. Ha, ha!”

"Ah! That's, eh . . . hilarious!"

My smile hides the horror.

As she turns the corner, “See ya at the Tech Talk!”

Before retreating I hang at Todd’s cubicle for a second.

“Hey Todd, do you think for the good of the company you could change your IM screen name?”

“Why, what’s wrong with it?”

“'HGEBRSELASSIE?' It’s just not very practical in an office environment. No one can spell it. And besides, I’m the only one who gets the reference.”

“Do you have a better idea?”

“Yeah. How about 'PRE?'”

Pause

“Hey, I like that.”