When Rabbits Attack!

The Bunny Whisperer. Nah, too wimpy. Night of the Killer Bunnies!

Such were the headlines that flashed through my addled brain. Despite having witnessed many strange and exotic things in my short life, this night was surely the creepiest I had ever encountered. Adventure need not require crocodiles in Costa Rica or echoes of the Oracle at Delphi (two very cool things, to be sure). Sometimes adventure is right outside.

Happily, I was with two exotic, foreign women. This is something I try to do as often as possible, to assuage my usually moribund ego (yeah, right). My friend Mihaela is a petite brunette with amazingly long, witch-like hair. That makes sense, seeing as she is from Transylvania. Mihaela is the childhood friend of my elusive Bianca, and in fact originally introduced us. Bianca, of course, is my counterpart with her alluring, vivacious lust for adventure. There I was, simple, boring Brian from Iowa with two Eastern-bloc babes. The ingredients were there for a smorgasbord of adventures, but in the end was merely rabbit stew.

“Weather.com is obviously messed up,” I called out as we gathered supplies for the day trip. “It says over 50% chance of rain and probably snow, with dense clouds.”

“In Nevada?” Mihaela asked, incredulously. “Surely you were wrong.”

“I don’t know exactly where our destination is on the map, so I looked up the nearest zip code I could find, which may be a ways off. I mean, come on, it hasn’t rained at Black Rock since men were painting animals in caves and stuff. But true, I am usually wrong about things.”

“Lots of things,” Bianca added wryly.

“The radar on the website claims all of Nevada is under a cloud right now, which is obviously not the case. It’s sunny here in Reno, so let’s just go. After we stop for some cookies, that is. Being surrounding by chicks makes me feel sinful, but cookies are probably all I can get away with.”

“You’re not wrong about that,” Mihaela agreed.

So we went. Our destination was northern Nevada’s amazing Black Rock Desert. It is the largest, flattest place on Earth. Literally. Most land speed records were broken here because it’s perfectly flat, dusty earth as far as the eye can see. On one trip I experimented by picking a direction at random and driving as fast as I could for a full thirty minutes, just to see if I could find the end. Nope, it continued forever, like sailing on a calm sea.

The playa itself is ringed with rugged, arid mountains. They are not dead mountains, to be sure, but perhaps mortally wounded: hot water pumps through them like lifeblood, but seeps out continuously at their base. Geothermal hot springs are everywhere in pools and ditches: many too hot to touch. There have been several fatalities. What a romantic place to entertain ladies!

Mihaela drove us in her Volkswagen Passat. Used to a Jeep with no roof or even doors, it was quite a change to be sitting in heated, leather seats. We went north out of Reno and towards massive Pyramid Lake. Wind pushed at the car, but otherwise the weather was sunny and warm. As we drove, Bianca commented in the front with Bianca about the beauty of the desert. This was high desert, which meant mile after mile of silver sage brush and huge Manzanita plants extending up to magnificent, ugly mountains.

“National Wild Horse and Burro Center?” Bianca asked, eyeing a sprawling ranch that nudged up to a huge brown hillock punctuated with jagged black boulders.

“Sure,” I answered from the backseat. “We have tons of wildlife in Nevada. Most of the state is avoided by man, of course, so the animals have plenty of room to roam. We have hundreds of wild horses here, whereas the wild burros are around Vegas.”

“Have you seen any?”

“Many. You should see a herd of wild horses running free through silver sage. It’s a wonderful sight. You know, once I pissed off a wild stallion. He thought I was after his women.”

“You’d try to sleep with anything.”

“Seriously,” I clarified. “I was running in the Virginia City foothills. I was about two miles from my Jeep when I slowed to admire a small herd of horses. There were five or six of them, including some young ones. The colts were sleek and pretty still, unlike their more haggard moms. What I didn’t know was that way behind me was big daddy, who did not like me being between him and his harem. He was quite belligerent.”

“Oh, please,” Bianca scoffed. “You’ve fought a wild stallion?”

“I didn’t say that,” I protested. “Why do people always read into what I say? I was jogging slowly past the horses when he trotted towards me and made all sorts of menacing gestures. He snorted and tossed his head and jumped around and stuff. Do you have any freakin’ idea how intimidating a pissed off stallion is? He was huge, man! I was two miles away from my Jeep and way further from the nearest building.”

“You’re serious, aren’t you?”

“Yes, I’m serious!” I snapped. “I really had no options, of course. It’s not like I could outrun a stallion back to my Jeep. Even if I could, it didn’t have a roof or even doors so he would have still kicked my ass. So I kept jogging slowly, intentionally not stopping, acting cool and angling away from the herd. He stomped after me a bit, but was satisfied once I left the vicinity.”

“Wow, you really are serious,” Bianca said, brightening with surprise. “You aren’t just saying that you fought a stallion to impress me, are you? Next you’ll say a gaggle of coyotes attacked you.”

“I’ve never seen a pack of coyotes,” I replied. “But I don’t need to seek them, it’s the other way around. Last year, one was in my parking spot at the office.”

“Oh, please.”

“Really! Mihaela, can back me up on that. I took a picture of him. As I was saying, we have loads of wildlife here. You need to realize that Reno is right next to Lake Tahoe, which is right next to Yosemite National Park. There is a huge, huge wilderness area loaded with bears and mountain lions and all sorts of cool stuff like that.”

“Anything going to attack us today, Mr. Wilderness Adventure Man?”

“Nah, nothing attacks people unless they are being stupid. Well, except the occasional mountain lion. One of the routes I used to run through the desert mountains west of Reno had a fatality actually, a few years back. A mountain lion took out a high school football player. Very unwisely he ran after sunset out in the foothills, the same place and same time daily. Turns out the mountain lion had been hunting him for a few days, following him from up above the brow of a cliff. The Park Rangers found its trail, which apparently indicated it had been there several days to shadow him. One day the lion decided to pounce, and that was it. As you can imagine, I never told my mother about that one.”

Bianca looked at Mihaela for confirmation, but she just shrugged. We continued deeper into northern Nevada and soon passed Pyramid Lake. This was an amazing lake. Imagine driving an hour into the bleak, blasted desert and suddenly encountering a brilliant blue lake so large that you can’t see the far shores. It takes several hours to drive around the beast. The clouds above were thick and bunched menacingly, casting a shadow on the famous pyramid itself. A huge tufa formation rose up from the crystal waters some forty feet to create a four-sided pyramid. So symmetrical and perfected were the angles that it was very, very hard to believe it was not man-made.

And it was snowing.

Now, I believe it last rained here the year Leif Ericsson arrived in America, about 960 A.D. or so. Yet it was now snowing. We drove past entire lakebeds of brilliant white salt, which looked very misleading indeed when the mountains above were dusted with snow. But we were in a warm, happy car with music and laughter, so it was all good... for now.

After another hour of desert driving we reached the town of Gerlach, the closest to Black Rock Desert and headquarters for the great Burning Man festival. This counter-culture party happens annually, when no less than 40,000 people build a city in the desert for one week. An entire culture is created, where money is not allowed but only trade or charity. It is all about art, with the most fantastic and bizarre creations you can possibly imagine. It is not uncommon to see a man wearing nothing but yellow body paint with a big red circle around his privates, perhaps riding a camel. This is a level of self expression that I have yet to achieve, to the relief of everyone.

As we passed the headquarters, Mihaela narrated tales of Burning Man adventure for Bianca. The thousands of tents and buildings form the city around a colossal effigy of a man. At the end of the week, amidst a frenzy of human flesh of all shapes, colors, sizes, and ages, it is set ablaze. They dance around the gargantuan bonfire it creates like some sort of primitive sex-art-orgy-thing. I simply cannot fathom why I had not yet attended.

“It’s amazing!” Mihaela continued. “The whole week culminates in this one moment of… Diablo! Diablo!”

I blinked as she spat out the strange word, absolutely like Gollum in the movies. It sounded deep and throaty, like she had a hairball. Why she chose to interrupt her story to gibber that was beyond me.

“I beg your pardon?” I asked politely.

“That street back there was called ‘Diablo.’ It means ‘devil’.”

“I see,” I said, not really seeing. It didn’t matter because we passed out of Gerlach and deeper into the desert. The sheer size of Nevada can be a humbling thing, and it took us another thirty minutes of driving to find the entrance to the playa. We drove along the edge of the vast, vast plain and frowned. The clouds were pulled tightly to the ground, like a clenched blanket pulled to your chin when you’re cold. We could hardly see the mountains directly beside the road, though we sensed their bulk. It was windy and spitting rain. Ordinarily the Black Rock Desert feels like you are on the surface of the moon, but this was more like Saturn’s moon Titan, lashed by storms of liquid methane.

We were careful not to drive onto the playa. The flat surface is made of gypsum over a thin layer of air. In the summer the sun and heat could be literally 100 degrees around you, yet the ground comfortably cool under bare feet. But when wet, it was a monster with an insatiable appetite. The gypsum collapses and draws you in. There was no cell phone service out here, so if we got stuck Bri Bri would have a pleasant jog of about 15 miles to the town and another story to tell.

We only spent a few minutes there, lamenting the unbelievable harshness of the weather. It was more than a little awe-inspiring, to be sure. Not knowing what she was missing, Bianca handled her disappointment with the cool detachment she usually exhibited. That is, until the lashing wind denied her a cigarette. Only then did she unleash an enchanting blend of Romanian and Jamaican profanity.

I had assumed our adventure was aborted at this point. We were not able to see what we wanted to see, and we had prudently avoided entrapment on the quagmire of the playa. Yet adventure is always there, lurking, ready to pounce. Pounce being the operative word.

We drove back through Gerlach and Bianca inserted a CD of early Beatles tunes. “I wanna hold your hand,” began playing when suddenly Mihaela was overcome again by her strange urge to chant.

“Diablo!” she croaked. “Diablo! Diablo!”

The attacks began almost immediately thereafter.

Exiting tiny Gerlach took only a few minutes, and suddenly Mihaela cried in pleasure, “Look, a bunny!”

A rabbit sat at the side of the road, a little unsure if he wanted to leave the shelter of a sagebrush. OK, so it wasn’t a wild horse or a coyote, but it was still wildlife. He had the huge, erect ears of a desert rabbit. Our headlights now the only source of light, we flashed on past.

“There’s another.” Bianca casually pointed out. “He’s cute.”

“And another, look at that!” Mihaela said, growing agitated. Being in the backseat, I had to crane my neck to see more clearly through the front window. Sure enough, several rabbits were venturing out into the highway. We were in the middle of nowhere, on a thin strip of pavement that cut through a vast valley of sage and scrub. Venturing from both sides of the road came more and more rabbits.

Suddenly the car veered sharply to the side. Bianca almost hit her head against the window and barked something appropriate to Mihaela in Romanian.

“I almost hit him!” Mihaela snapped. “What’s wrong with him?”

Surging from the scrub came an inexhaustible supply of rabbits. I had never seen anything like it. I had never even heard of anything like it. Tens of bunnies, as Mihaela would say. They hopped casually to the side of the road and waited patiently for us to approach.

Then they hurled their little furry bodies under our crushing tires.

It was horrifying. Mihaela drove like a maniac, swerving this way and that. Fluffy, adorable bunnies flooded into the road, easily topping a hundred already. The sage brush boiled with their numbers as they scrambled to get onto the road, only to leap into death. One in particular caught our eye. He met my gaze and refused to move even as we careened towards him. Mihaela shrieked and nearly buried her face in her hands, despite driving at 65 mph, but we passed harmlessly over the little guy. Bianca and I laughed at Mihaela’s melodramatic behavior, but not for long.

Then one brave bunny raced towards us from the far side of the road. This little bastard was Hell-bent on ending his bunny life. I could see his thoughts clearly in his eyes, ‘You’re mine, bitch.’

Now, I have read The Bunny Suicides and know that sometimes even cute little fluffy bunnies can’t take it anymore and will find incredibly bizarre ways to end it all. This rabbit was a contender. The car bounced as we ran over him. Dozens of little eyes flashed in the headlights, and more rabbits continued to hop onto the road to the Beatle’s “Eight days a week.”

“I wonder if the road is warmer or something than the desert?” I wondered aloud. “What would bring so many out?”

“Mihaela’s bloody summoning of the devil, that’s what,” Bianca snapped. “Bamboclat!”

“I don’t know what that means!” Mihaela cried as she swerved onto the shoulder… of the far lane… to avoid a tight grouping bent on mass suicide, a la Jonestown. We squashed another bunny, and then yet another one.

“How many have you hit?” Bianca screeched. “Four, five? Come on, Mihaela!”

“I think that last one was already dead,” I chimed in cheerily. “So that only counts as half.”

“Shut up!”

“What the Hell is going on?”

“Maybe they can smell the cookies in the car. You know a bear can smell meat through a tin can through a cooler through a car. Maybe they are just hungry.”

“Shut up!”

Bianca and Mihaela began shouting at each other in Romanian. I didn’t really know what they were saying, but there were more than a few words I recognized that I won’t repeat here in English.

“Damn, Mihaela,” I asked as I was tumbled about the back like laundry in a dryer. “You want me to drive?”

“Oh yeah, stop when we are being attacked like this? They are crazy, you can see it in their eyes! I’m not getting out of the car. And turn off that damn music, it’s freaking me out.”

The attack of the bunnies suddenly halted, replaced instead by another, more common form of nature’s fury. Rain lashed at us, the wind battered us. Indeed, the wind pushed the car around the road almost as much as if we were still dodging suicidal bunnies. Mihaela, panting and wild-eyed and wind-blown hair, looked like a witch riding her broom through the stormy skies of Halloween.

Rain drummed maniacally on the roof and the wind pushed us all over the road. Wave after wave of rain slashed at us, struck the pavement, and rushed off downhill. With the rabbit fury past, I began to seriously worry about a flash flood. There was more than enough rain for it and, even though the mountains were miles away, I had seen water levels rise a full meter in less than thirty minutes on a plain many miles wide. I opted to remain silent about that.

Time passed slowly now, though our hearts continued to thump and our breaths came in ragged pants. The silence became oppressive to me, and I felt the need to break it. I couldn’t help it.

“Did you know,” I said. “That a former President of the United States, Jimmy Carter, once claimed to have been attacked by a rabbit?”

The two sour looks I received propelled me onward. “It’s true. He was fishing with his brother, or someone like that, in a boat in the middle of a lake. They both claim a rabbit swam out there and attacked them.”

“That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard,” Mihaela snapped.

“Carter was the first U.S. President to visit Romania,” Bianca added.

“See?” I said. “I know nothing of his presidency, but he knew how hot those Romanian women were. Now I find him more credible. Besides, can you imagine the balls it would take to be the President of the United States and say something like that?”

“And you actually wonder why no one ever believes a word you say?” Mihaela asked.

The punch line of the story? The next time I saw Mihaela, she had gone out and purchased a rabbit-fur coat.

Running with the Devil, Part 3

And then the brutal, heartbreak hill was topped. Torrid waves rolled over the long, curving brow like clouds over a mountaintop, and into the turbulence I limped. Finally the end was in sight, a small cluster of green about a mile ahead. How pathetic and fragile that life looked, hammered into submission by the sun on this anvil of desert rock. Yet it was a desperately needed reminder of the tenacity of life, like a solitary weed defiantly sprouting through a crack in a Walmart parking lot.

I, too, was fragile and struggling to survive. Each step was a chore, but no longer painful. After three plus miles of thumping on my injured leg, it had gone numb. But every other part of my body screamed fatigue and aches racked up and down my body with each jolting step.

I glanced at the devil temptress running beside me. She stared ahead at that patch of green hope, absolute concentration filling her face. She looked horrible, I realized. Her hair was soaked and limply clung to her forehead, then was smeared to the side as she continuously wiped the sweat from her brow. Salt stains ran down her sleek, brown skin in rivulets. If she looked that bad, I could only imagine how monstrous I looked. Fortunately the photographer continued to miss me.

But I had made an error. I had misjudged how much water I needed for the last, three mile leg of the race. I had hydrated so thoroughly throughout the first ten miles that I figured I could push it at the end. My twenty ounce water bottle had long since been depleted by soaking my steaming head. The temperature of the afternoon was always higher at 2PM than at noon, and here I was, trying to wing it when conditions were at their worst!

Though the course was generally downhill for the last mile, it was far from easy. I ignored everything but the bliss hidden in that green: runners passed out on the scorching asphalt were behind me, the pain was long since numb, and even the demon temptress was forgotten. But the heat would not be ignored. My head felt like a blazing coal in a fireplace. I had encountered dehydration before when running in a desert. It had knocked me down and plodded over me like a team of oxen. That was nothing compared to this. This was heatstroke. I knew it.

I wanted to stop. I could no longer even imagine how good it would feel to finish. I wondered seriously if I even could. Or should.

Why continue the pain? I had proven countless times that I could run 13.1 miles. I could do it on no sleep. Hell, I could do it in my sleep! What was I trying to prove? I was injured and limping. Was I just damaging myself in useless pride? I wanted to stop, damn it. I wanted to walk back. I wanted to end the pain. For the first time in my life, I had undergone a challenge that I wanted to quit before finishing. And it didn't bother me.

Yet on I ran. Pain was certain. Suffering was optional. Stupidity was inherent.

Ahead was the final turn. The last hundred yards of the race was not on the highway, but down a drive lined with wilting, browning palm trees. There's no better reminder of desert brutality than a bunch of dead palm trees. I approached a man of about my age, size, and level of pain. Without realizing it, I began to catch up to him. Before I knew it, I had passed the devil temptress and was passing this last runner. I turned off the highway and thundered down the parking lot towards the finish line.

There! Rocking madly before me was a small tent overshadowing the finish line. Oh, those precious blue timing mats on the ground. A handful of sun-dizzy spectators clapped halfheartedly as I swept past them. My feet slapped over the mats and I loosed a groan of relief. I did it!

Beneath the tent must have surely been a blessed five degrees less of heat. An elderly volunteer congratulated me quickly, then bent down to remove my timing chip. I nearly swooned from the shock of shade and sudden lack of pain in my leg. My entire being was devoted to not collapsing right there. The single folding chair provided was occupied by a forty-something man in a soaking wet T-shirt. He weakly looked at me and mumbled apologetically, “Can't move, dude,and I've been here ten minutes. Sorry.”

Wrinkled hands wavered with a pair of scissors at my shoelaces. My legs shook convulsively and my entire body shivered. In fact, the only part of my body that did not move was my feet, which were planted firmly on the ground. His aged hands tried unsuccessfully to cut the zip-ties, but he simply could not steady them enough to do so. I just wanted to die, but what could I do? This nice man was volunteering his time to help in such horrible conditions. I wanted to shout, to scream at him to hurry up before I crumpled into a ball on the asphalt.

After his fourth try he snipped off the timing chip and handed me a chill towel. Smelling faintly of menthol, it was designed to be soothing or some other such nonsense. Screw that, gimme water. I staggered over to the pavilion, croaking and awkward and feeble, like the primitive life-form emerging from harsh primordial world that I was.

Two barrels waited patiently for me to lumber over. One held the sweet, life-giving coolness of water, while the second had equal parts ice and water, meant for dunking soiled hats, bandanas, and bottles. My own hands shaking, I scooped several bottle-fulls of ice water and dumped them messily over my head. Then I plopped onto a concrete seat and stared at nothing, zombie-like.

Easily eight or nine bottles of water were drunk in rapid succession, even as I continuously ladled ice water over my head. My feet had swollen and removing my shoes was agony. I puffed pathetically as I tugged on those damn, strangling laces. I winced pulling off my clinging socks, and nearly fainted peeling off my leg brace. Then, as naked as legally possible, I leaned back with a pile of ice cubes on my head and let them melt at their convenience. I don't know how long I sat there in a stupor. After 13 months as a waiter on cruise ships, this level of fatigue and numbness were nothing new to me, so I just waited for it to pass.

I vaguely recalled congratulating runners as they partook of the barrels. Then again, I vaguely recalled seeing pink elephants herding by, too. Eventually awareness returned to me. A handsome black man of some fifty years approached, wearing a chill towel over his head and a dripping bandana around his neck.

“Which barrel is for drinking?” he asked tiredly, but politely.

“They are both filled with sweat and salt and pain at this point.” I said. “I don't think anyone cares, though.”

He smiled weakly at me, then dunked his entire head in the ice water.

That's when I realized that the voices surrounding me were no longer buzzing, but actual articulated communication. In my daze everyone's voice had been like Charlie Brown's teacher. I had crossed the threshold and passed back into the world of the living. I chose this time to oh so slowly get up and walk around a bit before my legs locked into that sitting position. I yanked my shoes back on, because the ground was scalding hot.

I shuffled over to the scale, intensely curious what I weighed. I felt sorry for the scale, actually. It was so hot from being outside all day it fairly wheezed when I stepped on. I stood there, staring at the little numbers reading 201, and had a sudden realization.

I had already drunk at least nine water bottles full of water.

Nine bottles of water meant 180 ounces of water.

180 ounces of water meant 1.3 gallons.

1.3 gallons of water meant 11 pounds.

I had lost 14 pounds in two hours!

I stepped off the scale in wonder, but was distracted by a voice nearby that I did not care to hear. Ms. Bitter and several girlfriends were, to my surprise, joking and encouraging runners who were collecting awards for winning times. I overheard that Ms. Bitter had won something for her 10K race time earlier today. She caught my eye and we shared a quick smile. The mood was so lighthearted that I was about to step up and join the conversation when suddenly everything changed. The devil temptress approached.

Laughter abruptly cut off and the young, athletic ladies stiffened and glared disapprovingly at the ranger, not unlike a librarian upset at undue noise. Why, they stared at her up and down more overtly than I had! One muttered something like 'slut wearing a bikini on a race'.

“Well done, ranger,” I called out as a race volunteer handed her a stone, Nevada-shaped plaque. Ms. Bitter snorted loudly and elbowed her young companions.

“You, too,” the sexy devil said, smoothly ignoring the squabbling women. “You OK?”

“Oh, I'm fine. I'll be hurting later, though. I had planned another full marathon in four weeks, but I doubt that will happen. Say, what do you have there?”

She held up the small stone plaque. “I managed to get first in my age division.”

“Awesome! Dare I ask... twenty to twenty-five years old?”

She smiled faintly at me, then turned and walked towards a group of park rangers. Over her shoulder she called back, “Thirty seven.”

“Bitch,” Ms. Bitter spat.



I crunched over the gravel to my wife's compact, yellow Hyundai, named Galbişor. The 'little yellow guy', as the name meant in Romanian, waited amid waves of roiling heat. Ordinarily I would have driven my red Jeep, Lola, but today was not a day for her roof-and-doorlessness. No, I wanted air conditioning. Juggling a water bottle and some devil's food cake, I struggled to open the door and let the heat pour out. The thermometer reading 114 degrees, I cranked up the air conditioner and melted into the seat.

Kindly volunteers had provided the chocolate cake, but it was too heavy for me. All I really wanted at this point was salt. The Salvation Army had provided tortilla chips and pretzels, but they had been sitting in the sun and may as well have been a bowl of jalapenos. Munching on the devil's food cake, I absently grabbed the nearby coffee cup and took a sip. To my shock, it was perfect! Despite being leftover from three hours earlier, there was not even a hint of bitterness. It was fresh and steaming and tasty. Smiling, I snarfed down devil's food cake in style and contemplated the race. Amazingly, I had won second place in my age group with a time of 2:08:37. That was a whopping thirty percent longer than my average half marathon, yet it was without doubt the most satisfying of them all.

Running with the Devil, Part 2

Hot shoes hammered hotter asphalt. I was only on mile five of the half marathon, yet already feeling fatigued. In the last three months I had run an average of forty or more miles a week, so how was this possible? My calf injury was not bothering me, and I kept a slow, even pace to make sure of that. I was well rested, so that left only the heat.

The heat. Yes, that was it. I had a hunch a normal person would have recognized it immediately. After all, my shoes were beginning to melt and I constantly doused my head in ice water just to avoid heatstroke. I had gotten so used to training around 100 degrees that I no longer even consciously thought of the heat. Why, just yesterday my wife and I had cuddled under a blanket on the couch when it was 98 degrees. Yet Vegas had endured a horrible, bizarre cold snap this last several weeks. We had been plagued with unnatural, low 80s and, gasp, clouds!

I laughed aloud at the sun-blasted brown surrounding me. Of course! This was a full thirty degrees hotter than what I had gotten used to over the last month.

I began catching up to a runner ahead of me. The hill I had been slowly ascending for half a mile was getting steeper and he had slowed to nearly a walk. I was running stronger than ever, actually, because I had trained on some bruiser hills in the Red Rock Canyon. The poor man puffed and blew and wheezed, and his running stride was actually the same speed as a walk. That was a funny thing about running: sometimes we slow such that a speed walker could beat us, but we won't change up our gait and admit we are walking. Like everyone else, runners live in a constant state of denial.

As I approached, he picked up his pace to match mine. He was a skinny, twenty-something man with surprisingly tiny sunglasses on. They were little, round and blue a la John Lennon. His hat was so large I presumed he thought it would block the sun, but he had since learned the errors of his ways. I could easily see him squinting at me, then drooping with disappointment.

“Good job, marathoner,” I called to him. “Look, the water station is right up ahead.”

“I don't feel great. I've never run in heat like this before, and I'm dyin'.”

“Well, you know the old marathoner's mantra, 'pain is certain, suffering is optional.' Dying isn't in there anywhere.”

“When I heard you approaching, I thought you were the hot babe. I saw her behind earlier.”

“Man oh man, did I see her behind earlier, too. I'm about ready to pass out, but it's her ass that makes me want to cry. I'm not sure how that fits into the mantra, though.”

“I'm right behind you,” a feminine voice called out.

“Gotta slow down now!” the young man said, instantly abandoning me. “Good luck!”

Sure enough, I turned to see that the footsteps behind me for the last two miles were those of the demon temptress. I smiled sheepishly at her, but it likely never surfaced beyond my racing grimace. Before she could say another word, however, I was saved by the water station. We both thumped to a halt in the flimsy shade offered by a large tent.

Several barrels of ice water awaited, as did four volunteers. They snatched our bottles and filled them with sports drink. One volunteer, a girl of perhaps twelve, offered up a bowl of sliced oranges or pretzels. Salt tablets were offered, but I regretfully declined on behalf of my dear mother. Having read somewhere that America's processed foods have too much sodium, she had barred the seasoning from the house during my entire youth and made it clear that no child of hers would be allowed to consume such a sinful substance. No doubt it never occurred to her that a thirty-something athlete running in 110 degree heat for several hours may have different nutritional needs than a retired homemaker in 65 degree air conditioning. Funny how she screeched louder at salt than at my cigar smoking.

Fortunately, the demon temptress had to remove her hydration backpack again, which required more time to refill than my 20 ounce bottle. I was actually embarrassed at having been caught saying something naughty about her, though mostly because I had not been able to say it directly to her. Flirtations weren't fun when they were wistfully offered to the air. I couldn't tell if she was grimacing from the run or glaring at me, so I fled just to be safe. I rushed out into the 'safety' of being alone in the crippling sun.

To my surprise, the half way point was not where the final aid station was. Even as my water bottle was being filled with cool, clear loveliness, I watched with alarm at the runners departing further down the road. I had assumed we were somewhere around mile six, but in fact it was closer to merely mile five. While such a short distance may seem silly to fret over, the heartbreak of slashed expectations can be rough.

So onward I slogged. The hill dropped into a deep valley where the heat simmered and boiled even hotter. Just as my legs began to get used to the sweetness of downhill, a sudden upsweep of land made me struggle every step. I kept scanning the shifting distance for the turnaround, but could not find it. When I finally did arrive, I saw that it was merely a road cone with a small but clear sign printed upon it: ½ marathon turn around.

Waiting behind the cone was a photographer. He stood in the road beside his idling van, using a portable stand to snap pictures like crazy. I had no time to wonder how hot he was in that heavy photographer's jacket with the dozens of pockets because he was taking pictures of me. I had to suck in my gut, to stand up straighter, the whole ritual. I was surprised that he snapped off picture after picture, turning the camera this way and that as if with a model in a studio. Usually photographers snap one or two and quickly move on.

“You look great, baby!” he shouted. Only then did I realize the demon temptress was running right behind me again. Upon reflection, he had not taken a single photo of me, but entirely of her!

Together she and I spun around the cone and rushed off for the second half of the race. We were now running side by side. The pounding of our footsteps was the only sound for a while, and it was obvious that she was comfortable in silence. It was all but impossible for me to not talk when there was a waiting ear, and definitely impossible for me to not dig myself in deeper while trying to escape the hole I was already in.

“It's really not fair, you know,” I said to her as we panted and sweat. “I need to run a lot faster, but I just don't have it in me. And until I do, the photographer will only take pictures of you. My wife won't believe I actually did the race at all.”

She chuckled, but said nothing. As if on cue, a carload of young men and women on the way to the beach drove by in an SUV pulling a boat. They honked their horn and everyone inside, men and women alike, raucously shouted encouragement to her. What was I, chopped liver?

“Isn't it hot wearing that backpack out here?” I asked her as we slogged ever uphill. “Then again, I guess you have to wear a sports bra anyway.”

“Exactly,” she said. “It's not any hotter than that brace on your leg.”

Another truck drove by, this time with a DNR man. He stuck his head out the window and shouted, “Way to go, ranger!”

She waved to him, then poured water over her head with the wet cloth she carried with her. Occasionally she would slap the exposed parts of her body with the towel, clapping cool water onto her tanned skin. Here I was, miles out in the heat, watching a model spanking herself. Life truly was beautiful!

“Why do they call you ranger?” I asked. “I've heard a couple people say that.”

“I am a park ranger,” she replied. “I know them.”

“No kidding? That's gotta be a cool job!”

“Not exactly. I work on Lake Mead near Bullhead City, Arizona. It's always over 120 degrees in the summer. Say, I'm not forcing you off the road am I?”

“No, I prefer to run on the gravel shoulder. Less impact than concrete, you know?”

“Well, if I'm crowding you, just say so.”

Of course, she could crowd me all she wanted, but I didn't say that. We ground through the miles, chatting. I learned about being a park ranger, which I thought was fascinating, and she learned about being a writer, which she thought was mildly interesting. We had been pacing each other unknowingly for the first six and a half miles, why not enjoy each others' company on the return? Runners frequently made new friends on races, especially during those long, lonely middle miles of a full marathon. The extremes of this race made our little half marathon feel longer, though, and we were both grateful for conversation to take our minds off the heat.

And then came the snap. We were ascending a particularly long hill on mile eight and a half, when my calf gave out. I had been expecting it for mile after heated mile, but it mischievously chose to go out when I was finally flirting with the hot babe. Story of my life. I sensed, rather than felt or heard, a slight snap in my left leg. Instantly each footfall included a jabbing, icy jolt of pain.

“There it goes!” I called out in frustration. “Damn it!”

“You OK?” she asked, slowing a step.

“Fine, fine. I knew this injury would flare up, but had hoped if I kept this pace it would be OK. Guess not. Go kick some ass, ranger!”

She pushed on ahead, and I limped up the seemingly endless hill. I wanted to round up and say I reached mile nine before my injury, but it was actually barely eight and a half. Funny how that bothered me more than the injury itself. I had known it would happen, and all my frustration and disappointment had already been voiced a week ago when I lost the marathon before even starting. I found that I could still run, if very slowly and funny and limping. Well, of course I would keep going... I was still five miles from my car!

The next two miles I pushed onward, feeling the heat. Now that the worst had happened, I found myself dwelling on the negatives. It felt like work now, whereas before the pain had a note of adventure in it. I saw an ambulance rushing by at one point, and realized that yes, this is serious stuff. Then something nice happened... downhill. Somehow I began catching up to the demon temptress. Funny how I still didn't know her name, or even ask.

“You seem to be doing OK,” she called to me as I paced to within twenty feet of her. Her speech came in short quips. At this point, long sentences became tortuous. Though only twenty feet apart, I made no effort to bridge the gap. That would have been foolish on any number of levels. I noticed she was slightly limping herself.

“I am OK downhill,” I answered through my panting. “My soleus injury is very specific. It only hurts when I push off with my leg bent. Accelerating uphill is what snapped it. No more accelerating uphill for Bri Bri.”

A ranger's truck rushed past intently, and she frowned. She stared after it, observing in silence. She reminded me of a panther. She was slender and lithe and powerful... and patient. She observed everything without hurry, despite the pain and the heat. Further, as a ranger she was no doubt comfortable being alone for long periods of time. Her eyes squinted at a series of cones on the Lake Mead side of the road, where the parking lot for a boat ramp long since dried up and abandoned was marked with red flags.

“This is bad,” she said finally. “Setting up an air lift. Maybe a runner, maybe someone from the lake. Maybe a near drowning.”

“This too much alcohol? I hear most drowning are from that.”

“Sometimes,” she admitted. “Frequently the heat and the cold water. After basking in 110 degrees, a deep dive from a boat in the middle of the lake will kill you. The shock of the cold water shocks the system and it locks up. You just won't come up again. Happens a lot.”

Lovely. All I could think about right now was jumping in the lake to cool off, and now I hear this?

We both paused at the last water station only shortly. We knew there was only about three miles left and thought we would push it. I refilled my water bottle, of course, and downed three classes of 'room temperature' sports drink. We rushed off into the heat, both limping and trying not to let it bother us. The heat was becoming brutal, and within half a mile I had already dumped half of the my ice water onto my head. At our pace, we were still going to be out here for perhaps twenty five minutes. I began to get nervous as the sweat sprang out of my body and instantly evaporated. The demoness herself was in constant motion squeezing water onto her head and over her body.

We labored around a long curve and suddenly saw that oncoming traffic was stopped. A cluster of people hovered at the shoulder and park rangers swarmed over the scene. Oh so slowly we reached the point of commotion and saw what had happened. A runner was lying on the hot rocks beside the road, surrounded by three people administering an IV into his arm. He was being fanned by a concerned volunteer, and then we were past.

“He'll be fine,” she commented. “Help is everywhere and he is getting the fluids he needs directly. Don't worry for him.”

“I'm worried for me.”

My leg was throbbing and my entire body was stiffening. I realized that my limping was putting a strain on every other muscle in my body to compensate for my bum leg. My back and, strangely, my shoulders, were screaming with fatigue. I straightened my posture, not having realized I was slouching. Instantly I felt energy surge through me, as well as an icy lance of pain from my leg. I spent more and more effort wiping the sweat from my eyes and trying not to think of the heat. The long line of halted, idling cars added to the heat. Now not only the asphalt projected heat at us, but steaming metal automobiles. Their exhaust wafted over us, filling each gasping breath with toxicity. After a few hundred yards the line of cars ended when a park ranger ordered traffic to turn around.

We were within two miles of the finish now, and the scattered runners were beginning to converge. We passed many runners, many likely full marathoners who were running very, very slowly. One last monstrous hill rose before us, and I slowed my pace to barely moving. Each step of incline was a painful chore, and I urged the demon temptress onward with a few gritty words of encouragement. In fact, she slowed as well, and we both engaged in our own battles, mere feet yet entire worlds apart.

“We're almost done,” I struggled to say.

“Not yet. Not til it's over.”

“I meant almost done with the hill.”

“I know.”

She was right, of course. Finishing a long race was a series of smaller challenges overcome, but this hill was slowing everyone down. Then, a mere twenty yards ahead of us, a man collapsed. He fell directly into the road and lay crumpled on the pavement. I could almost hear his skin sizzling on the hot asphalt, but he did not move at all. Fortunately a park ranger was nearby directing traffic and rushed to the man's aid. Neither the temptress nor I said anything, barely able to speak between ragged, searing breaths.

'Pain is certain, suffering is optional', I thought. I think I'll add to the marathoner's mantra, 'Safe return doubtful.'