“I will stop,” she said.
Near Rose’s office, Amy returned to the unfinished question.
“Your race history. Does Blake know?”
“Blake knows I’m qualified.”
Again: true, incomplete. Amy studied me, then accepted the week-one plan. At the stairs, I told her she had done well.
“I became dizzy after less than four minutes.”
“You showed up, worked hard, and gave me useful information. That is a good assessment.”
The praise reached her more deeply than I expected. After she left, Rose appeared beside me.
“She asked you directly,” she said.
“I told her I wasn’t ready to answer.”
Rose studied me. “Better than ‘complicated.’”
“I also told her she gets the professional facts before she signs past the trial week.”
“And the personal history?”
“Mine until I choose otherwise.”
“That is a boundary,” Rose said. “Keep it clean. Do not make Amy carry an assumption because you are afraid to name the limit.”
On Amy’s revised page, she had written:
Goal for week one: Follow the plan without attempting to improve it.
Below it:
Clarify coach’s marathon experience before extending agreement.
I closed the binder. The deadline sat there in her square handwriting. Not endless. Not today.
Chapter Five
One Mile
Amy
By Friday, May ninth, Dani had sent me eleven voice messages. The first arrived at 5:14 on Wednesday morning.
“Good morning, Price. This is your official reminder that rest days are part of training and not a personal attack. Do ten minutes of mobility. Not eleven. I know how you think.”
The second came at noon.
“Hydration check. Coffee is not water, even when you believe in it very strongly.”
The third arrived at 6:42 in the evening.
“If you are currently cycling, jogging, power walking, secretly climbing stairs, or performing what you have decided is ‘light recreational burpees,’ stop.”
I had not been doing burpees.
