Too Close to Home

Marc Parent has his latest installment up.

Teaser:

Having run a mile or so fairly regularly for two and a half months, I had hoped I could accurately describe myself as bitten—injected with a healthy kind of poison that would morph me if not into a die-hard runner, at least into a solid gotta-get-a-run-in runner. I've looked for the bite in all the places I might find it—in the lines of medical statistics that say running makes you stronger, shapelier, sharper, and less likely to need a whole host of excruciating procedures. I've searched for it in the admiring glances of my wife and kids when I lace up my shoes, in the eyes of my nonrunning friends who have turned from skeptical to respecting. I have listened to the calm within my body for an uncomfortable buzz that would find satisfaction only after a good, hard run. I have not allowed myself to wear my supa-cool, extremely comfortable Asics Gels to the movies or the school or even anywhere in the house in the hopes that I would miss them so much, I'd get out on the road just to see them flashing beneath me again. Through all this and more, I have been nudged and sniffed and turned from side to side, but I have not been bitten.