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social smile belied a growing disinterest in the welfare of others. I was getting hooked on the hard training high of not really being there for other people.

Several articles in Runner’s World said that many runners become addicted after even a few months of running over six miles per day. It’s true that over fifteen years I missed less than 10 days of running per year. I ran in driving rain, sweltering heat and dangerous places. In New York’s Central Park after dark, I followed a freshly strewn trail of torn woman’s garments that ended in shredded panties and a bra on the Park’s bridle path. In Oklahoma City at 104,° I was chased and bitten by a terrier. In Munich at 4:30 AM, before delivering a morning lecture, the black uniformed police stopped me for a shakedown. In Ann Arbor, I shuffled along in two feet of snow. By the Seine, at 14°, paranoid barge hounds barked in big dog baritones. I ran on the Hebrew University track a block away from a loud Palestinian bomb left in a refrigerator near a busy street corner. Breathless at nine thousand feet in Aspen, gagging on the strong manure smell of Sacramento Valley farms, in the hot wetness of Houston and dry heat of Palm Springs. I wore out three to four pairs of Nike running shoes per year. What I did not tell my training analyst was that this felt like a chase after God. As in most spiritual transformations, His messages and music could emerge quite suddenly.

Even after stretching, it was painful to begin and that was my daily sacrifice. I was readying myself to follow the God of the Hebrews and make the “three days journey into the desert” as in Exodus and Paul’s recommended presentation of my body “as a living sacrifice, holy and well pleasing to God.” After three miles of running, the hip pain, back stiffness and leg heaviness lifted, difficult breathing became easier. A burst of new energy appeared suddenly. The first pop usually took the form of assertive feelings fueled by new personal power, an undoing of the lethargy and depression of a helpless sinner. New and big, I felt like I could fix almost anything. Up bubbled an aggressive speech to the Dean about his refusal of our recent request for an increase in departmental research space. As for the National Institute of Health’s recent return of one of our grant proposals, it was now clear that the reviewers were wrong. I would resubmit but this time ask for twice the amount of money. I rehearsed a new list of necessary and routine laboratory chores

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