The Year is 2027...

The year is 2027. Coach js is on all lips.The magic man. Makes wonders.

PLEASE MORE

I will keep bumping this thread if it means the story eventually gets finished

c. goucher we need you

The year is 2027. The Magic Wizard JS is a successful coach at a D1 team.Every runner in the team improved magically by the Swedish Mastermind.

Matt Withrow’s fingers caress the supple brown leather in the backseat of Alberto Salazar’s Lincoln Navigator. The dulcet tones of Baden Powell stream through the cabin. Shadrack Kiptoo-Biwott sits, eyes closed, next to him. Galen Rupp is riding shotgun and staring out the window at the powerlines falling in gentle arcs between their posts.

Alberto Salazar is nodding along with the rhythm of Powell’s guitar, driving under the speed limit. He makes eye contact with Withrow in the rearview mirror.

“You’re clear on the workout, Matthew? I know Michael can speak in parables sometimes.”

Withrow leans forward in his seat in the space between Salazar and Rupp.

“I’m clear on the workout. I just don’t understand how you’re going to get around your ban to coach us out there.”

Rupp and Salazar let out simultaneous laughs, and glance at each other. Salazar turns to Withrow with a wild smile, all tooth and deception, and pats him on the forearm.

“Let me worry about that. You just focus on your effort.”

Salazar pulls his Lincoln into the parking lot of the suburban high school on the outskirts of Portland. The asphalt is damp from the evening rain. Withrow grabs his bag, exits the car, and takes a look around the lot. A tall man in a gray wool coat and smart brown trousers is leaning against the back of a white sedan on the far side of the lot. He’s wearing tortoiseshell glasses and a fedora that matches his coat. Salazar crosses the parking lot in a light jog and shakes the man’s hand with his toothy grin.

“Who’s that?”

Galen Rupp shrugs as he opens the trunk of the Lincoln. There is an aluminum lawn chair covered in gold spray paint folded in the back next to a large tub of Vaseline. Two oval disks are mounted on the chair’s arm-rests. Similar disks are mounted on each of the chair’s feet. Salazar returns smiling.

“Have a great workout, men. I’ll see you afterwards.”

“You’re not going to coach?”

“You know I can’t do that, Matthew. Run along.”

Withrow stares as Rupp and Salazar exchange a furtive glance. Kiptoo-Biwott waves to Withrow as he turns and shuffles into his warm up jog. Withrow and Rupp fall in behind him. It is a snail’s pace.

“What’s the deal, Galen?”

“You’ll see.”

The men return to the track to find Alberto Salazar sitting in the golden folding chair at the starting post, just inside the rail. He is wearing a form-fitting leotard with a mechanical metronome keeping time between his feet. He is blind-folded, and the exposed parts of his body are covered in a thin-layer of Vaseline. Large noise canceling headphones are affixed to his ears. Threadlike copper wires connect the headphones to the chair. His hands rest, palms-down, on the disks mounted to the chair’s arm rests. His feet are placed on similar disks on the track’s surface.

“What the–?”

Withrow is cut off by the man in the gray coat and fedora.

“Gentlemen, you can call me Mr. Gray. I’m with USATF, here to ensure Mr. Salazar does not violate the terms of his ban.”

Rupp smiles and shakes his head as he laces up his flats. Withrow stares in disbelief. This is how he plans to coach us? He turns to voice his concerns to Kiptoo-Biwott, but he’s already halfway down the straightaway, into his first stride. He feels Rupp’s hand tighten on his shoulder.

“Trust me.”

***

Alberto Salazar hears nothing. He sees nothing. The smells of wet tartan and freshly cut infield grass sting his nostrils. He envelops himself in the silent darkness of his invention and focuses on the cool, metallic contact at his fingers and toes. His breathing follows a deliberate pattern as he drifts into a world between worlds, a universe of his own making.

He calls the device The Golden Mole. It was developed with help from researchers at the University of Minnesota and the Boys Town Hospital’s Human Auditory Development Laboratory in Omaha. The specialized disks isolate and amplify the unique vibrations created by pebax foam and tartan. There are separate sets of disks attuned for differing ground and footwear conditions. Familiar rhythms rocket through the pathways of his nervous system, radiating through the aluminum disks at his extremities. The delicate Amadinda xylophone of Galen’s clipped stride, the brushed snare drumbeat of Shaddy’s shuffle, and the echoing timpani of Withrow’s lumbering amble.

The sinusoidal waves approaching and retreating flood his senses and he begins to imagine the shapes of the men in the dark silence of his mind. The linear harmony of their workout is a carefully choreographed dance. As they glide through the end of their first rep, he barks out his encouragement.

“Very good. A bit quicker tempo, Matthew. Shadrack, take this next rep.”

The men launch into their next repetition and Alberto Salazar immerses himself in the symphony of their effort. He allows his mind to wander as their phosphene figures dance against his eyelids. What have I become, buried in the darkness? Doomed to hear only the echoes of my favorite song? He feels the familiar urge to rip off the shackles of his sensory deprivation to see Galen in full flight. A change in the rhythm of the dance jerks him out of his reverie.

Withrow is struggling to keep the pace. The harsh gong of his left foot rings up Alberto’s metatarsals and rattles around his cuboid and navicular bones. He feels the broken piano of Withrow’s crumpled body hitting the tartan. He rips off his blindfold and earmuffs, and sprints across the infield.

“It’s the plantar fascia, isn’t it?”

Even if this isn't the OP, hes back

No more male and female track and cross country teams. just one big team of "no sex determined"

This blows. I'd rather be Mike Smith's mountain bike saddle than a human reading this garbage.

Let us enjoy this. You don't have to read it.

I know it’s early, but what high school is Colt Goucher going to?

OP is BACK baby!