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"Not now... it hurts but go all the way thorough do not stop until you are past it you cannot afford to give the son of a @#$%& anything.... so holdit holdit holdit J*(#$ C=&@$/% hold it holditholditHOLDITHOLDIT- HOLD IT..."
pg 179. This exemplifies the book because it shows the last strain of effort, and how in the last stretch of a race the runner is mentally yelling at himself not to give up. It show the intense focus and effort put into the kick, yet a the same time how it passes so quickly and seemingly painlessly.

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For my artifact, i chose a tree. In the book, it always mentions the tree in front of Cassidy's girlfriend's house. It describes how he sits under the tree in the rain while waiting for he to answer the door or come home. This symbolizes many things in the book. First of all, the tree provides shelter from the rain. You can stay under it and be safe all you want, but to go anywhere you have to face the rain and continue running. Quenton has to make a decision to leave both the physical and mental shelter of the tree and his girlfriend in order to continue his run and move on. It also shows that the more roots you have in a place: the more ties you have, the harder it is to leave that. Cassidy loved his team, so it was very hard to leave it. Trees have so many roots, but they are never going to move because of it. This is not necessarily a bad thing: it depends on what you want to have your roots in. So, overall, the tree signifies not tying yourself to things that don't mean as much to you as the thing that you have to leave the shelter for and go for. Sacrifice the good to go for the great.

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By: Simon and Garfunkel.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l3LFML_pxlY

This song relates to this section of the book because Quenton Cassidy has to leave his 'family' of runners and go off by himself.  It is completely unfair, but he fights through it still.  And, to the main line of the song, even though he is not a 'boxer' anymore after they took away his title of a college athlete, the 'fighter' still remains as he is still a runner.

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This is a terrible situation. The football coaches were coming to check on the dorm since the cross country coaches were busy, and were checking our rooms. However, it was at midnight. Jack Nubbins thought they were thieves and pointed a gun at the coaches and told them to leave. I couldn't get there in time to sort things out and now as cross country captain the weight is going to fall on me. Not only will Nubbins probably be kicked out of the school, but I will probably lose my position and possible be kicked off the team myself for letting this happen. That would be a quick end to my running career. I don't even care if I get kicked out of school, but if I can't run then everything will change. I don't want to go to the coaches because that would make this situation worse, and they don't exactly like me as is either. I think that I will have to bring this up with the cross country coaches and the school board and see what they think. I hope I can find a way through this situation.

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1) "'Or we can blaze! Become legends in our own time, strike fear in the heart of mediocre talent everywhere! We can scald dogs, put records out of reach! Make the stands gasp as we blow into an unearthly kick from three hundred yards out! We can become God's own messengers delivering the dreaded scrolls! We can race dark Satan till he wheezes fiery cinders down the back straight-away!' He was full into it now."  (63)
This is important because Cassidy proves his motivation and love for running.  It shows what runners feel like about their sport and how they find the strength to put that one dreaded foot in front of the other.
2) "'In track it's all there in black-and-white'" (61) In this quote, Quenton is referring to numbers.  This is important because this is why track is different from other sports:  you know for sure if you are the best.  There is no questioning it.
3) "ten-mile" (74)  This word is important because Cassidy and Mizner decide to go on a 10 mile course when everyone else goes on a 5 mile one.  Even though this isn't going to do much by itself, it happens several times in the book, and is what separates them from the other runners.

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One more time on the line.
smooth effortless speed body as a projectile
lost in a flash of adrenaline and pounding hooves
on the eight-mile course
The Trial of Miles; Miles of Trials
fatigue of victory being able to "feel" the finish line
back to the hands-on-knees death grip,
arose and ran two eerie miles at a stumbling pace, pale and shivering
"Challenge him to a race"
powered across the finish line in the 5000
In that box was an Olympic gold medal.
Chapters 3 and 4

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I chose this book because I am a runner myself. Other members of the cross country team kept telling me that it was a great book, and that it gave lots of inspiration to run. I have been looking for the book for a long time before I finally decided to buy it on my kindle. I am looking forward to reading it, and want to finish the book before the season ends.

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Originally self-published in 1978, Once a Runner captures the essence of competitive running—and of athletic competition in general—and has become one of the most beloved sports novels ever published..

Inspired by the author’s experience as a collegiate champion, the story focuses on Quenton Cassidy, a competitive runner at fictional Southeastern University whose lifelong dream is to run a four-minute mile. He is less than a second away when the turmoil of the Vietnam War era intrudes into the staid recesses of his school’s athletic department. After he becomes involved in an athletes’ protest, Cassidy is suspended from his track team. Under the tutelage of his friend and mentor, Bruce Denton, a graduate student and former Olympic gold medalist, Cassidy gives up his scholarship, his girlfriend, and possibly his future to withdraw to a monastic retreat in the countryside and begin training for the race of his life against the greatest miler in history. .

A rare insider’s account of the incredibly intense lives of elite distance runners, Once a Runner is an inspiring, funny, and spot-on tale of one man’s quest to become a champion..

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Brett Flerchinger is currently a student in high school working his way through the world.  He draws inspiration for his writings from both nature and due dates, and loves getting good ratings on the things his writes (like A's).   He also hates writing things about himself, and never planned on having something written about him.