Parker, a former University of Florida runner, started spending winters in the little house on his brother's property about four years ago after a quarter-century absence from Alachua County. He had last returned to Gainesville to write "Once a Runner," his 1978 novel about a track and field star at the fictional Southeastern University in Kernsville, Fla., a book Runner's World magazine recently described as being "so inspiring that it could be banned as a performance-enhancing drug."