Success is survival
and you toughed it out.
— the prophet michael martin murphey
—

In the end, they finished pretty much as I suspected they would: magnificently.

Mild Sauce, unassuming as she crossed, no big celebration, her emotions betrayed only by a little fist pump as she looked up at the clock. Oh, you know, she seemed to be saying. Just went for a run.

Moose, with a hilariously majestic bow, the curtain call on a jet lag weekend that led from Italy to the Met to the Auburn track. I wish I knew how to say bravo in Italian.

Why do people do this stuff? I think I knew the answer a long time ago, but I seem to have forgotten.

It would have been the accomplishment of a lifetime, if they hadn’t already had so many others.

“Success means having the courage, the determination, and the will to become the person you believe you were meant to be,” Dr. Sheehan once said.

They have succeeded.

They’ll pack away their buckles, limp around like grannies for a while as they look back at the memory, and then gaze into the horizon for the next seemingly impossible dream. Why? Because they must. It’s what they do.

Oh, yeah, now I remember. That’s the answer.