Matt Walsh can't get his mind off the wedding he went to last week, where he faced the question all twentysomethings face at weddings: "So, what do you do?" Perennially hoarse, Walsh is almost always the loudest, funniest guy in the room. He could pass as a graphic designer or a barista. With his coiffured hair, tattoos, and flashy taste in clothes, he could even pass as the rapper Macklemore.

"What do I do?" he answered. "I'm a professional runner."

Unless I'm missing something, Walsh does not appear to be a professional runner. Out of everyone I've tried to run with in Flagstaff, he's the only one I can sort of keep up with. I've been sleeping on his couch all week, drinking his day-old coffee, eating his cereal, watching him surf the Flagstaff/Sedona job listings on Craigslist. We are, in fact, on the couch right now, recovering from this morning's run. I'm feeling a tiny bit like his therapist.

"I know a lot of people would take offense to that," he admits, "runners a lot faster than me. But it's better than the alternative. Even if it sounds wrong, what else can I actually say? What do I do?"

Part of me wants to grab him by the shoulders and tell him it's time to grow up. The rest of me wants to quit my job, take him up on the offer to move in, start putting in hundred-mile weeks, and let the thin mountain air work its magic. But it's hard to ignore the numbers. Walsh has run a 2:43 marathon. Thousands have done that. In order to achieve his dream of qualifying for the 2016 Olympic Trials, Walsh will have to cut 25 minutes off his time, or almost a minute per mile. While also figuring out a way to make a living.

Flair up: Matt Walsh, the team elder at 28, shows off his runner style. He recently left Flagstaff for New Jersey to manage a running store. Nathan Perkel

At 28, Walsh is the oldest--and slowest--member of Run Flagstaff Elite, a group of almost-elite runners, former high school and college standouts who are working odd jobs to fund their last-ditch attempts to make it as runners. (In January, about four months after my visit, the "Run Flagstaff Elite" name went away when most of the guys joined a new team. Most are self-coached, and, at present, their endorsements consist of free socks from a company called Swiftwick and 50 percent off burgers at the best joint in town. In their respective careers, they've won, on average, about $300 total. In other words, the IRS probably wouldn't recognize any of them as "professional runners." Although most of them can run a 5-K about six minutes faster than I can, their odds of making the Olympics--or scratching out a living as runners--are only marginally better than mine. In other words, what exactly are they doing here?"Until I started getting into shape," Walsh says, "if you'd asked me what I did, it was, 'I'm really good at drinking beer and hating my job.' For me, to even get here--and by 'here' I would characterize it as 'the lowest tier of the highest training in the world'--it's already a victory."Route 66 divides the town of Flagstaff, Arizona, in half. The north side is a stately grid, the brick of downtown giving way to leafy residential streets and eventually the towering slopes of Mount Elden. The south side is a tangle of strip malls and university buildings. On the southern edge, before the pavement is swallowed by the world's largest spread of ponderosa pines, 17 apartment buildings are scattered across several acres of bare hillside. On a cold, wet Monday evening, a young man in shorts and a T-shirt darts up the path through the center of the complex. It'd be easy to mistake him for an undergrad, dodging raindrops on his way to borrow a book. But when he arrives at Walsh's apartment, he just stands outside the open door, scarcely out of breath, taking stock of those of us inside. "How many are you guys doing?" Nick Hilton asks."Twelve," says Steve Soprano."Ten," says Adam Vess."Six," says Walsh."Four," says Forrest Misenti, who is recovering from a stress fracture.It's like a cheer in reverse. For most, this is the second run of the day. Garbage mileage, they call it. Many have been going nonstop since 7 a.m. Six of the seven Run Flag guys live in the complex, and almost every night of the week they assemble after work to head back to the trails.

Nathan Perkel

Maybe it's his name, but Hilton gives off a certain all-American aura. He is six-foot-two, blond, and tan; the only evidence of his extraordinary training regimen are the dark circles under his eyes. His blog, The Moderately Talented Distance Runner , is a portrait of a man in progress. Like nearly every group member, he moved to Flag in late 2012. After a few weeks of waiting tables, he scored a job selling shoes at Run Flagstaff. "Someone once told me prior to my coming out here," he wrote then, "'Go be great.' Well, damn it, that's what I'm going to do."



In August at San Diego's Finest City Half-Marathon, his half debut, he was the top American finisher (and fourth overall). He also broke 65 minutes, which qualifies him for the 2016 Olympic Trials--the first among the group to do so.

We head out into the gathering dusk, and for a few miles at least, amid the staccato chatter of men in motion, there is no distance between anybody.

With night falling, we arrive at a spongy football field everyone refers to as "Cardinal," because the Arizona Cardinals used to hold training camp here. But, instead of massive linemen crashing into one another, whippet-thin runners circle it endlessly. Abdi Abdirahman, the four-time Olympian, once did 11 miles here. "Remind me to show you Abdi's coffee-maker," Walsh says. It turns out that "the Black Cactus" crashes with this crew when he's in town. Who else has slept on their couches? I wonder. This is when I find out that it's weird when people aren't staying with them. Over the summer, six guys from Syracuse rented out one of Walsh's rooms. Six guys. One room. "It was the coolest thing," Walsh says. "A national-qualifying team staying with me, using my kitchen, asking me for advice."

"Sounds cool," I say, but all I can think about is the line for the shower. It's been a while since I've had roommates. Some things I don't really miss.

As we do laps around Cardinal, I learn that most of the guys have girlfriends--none serious runners. I wonder what it's like for these women, dating twentysomethings for whom 11 p.m. qualifies as a late night, who voluntarily push their bodies to the limits of human exhaustion.

Right now, though, everybody looks fresh. There's a magic to running easy in a pack like this. And as the miles click by, I can almost hear the wheels turning: If Hilton can do it, why couldn't I?

Hilton is quiet. Perhaps it has to do with the recent news that his roommate and closest friend in Flagstaff, Ryan Blood, too injured to run at all, is moving home after a year spent dishing up frozen yogurt to college students. "I can't imagine the things he's been going through," Hilton says after the run, "mentally and emotionally, constantly being injured and trying to get back there again. I mean, he was fourth in the NCAAs [D-II cross-country]. And he's 28 years old, and hasn't really saved anything. If he could put in a solid year, he'd blow it out of the water. He could run, you know, a 28:30 [10-K]."

I don't have the heart to point out that a time like that would still put Blood more than a lap behind a guy like Galen Rupp. Which is when I realize that in Flagstaff, the word "if" is everywhere.

In the same way that aspiring actors flock to Los Angeles, aspiring distance runners have been following their Olympic dreams to Flagstaff for at least a generation. Located at nearly 7,000 feet in the forests of northern Arizona, and boasting an intricate urban trail system as well as hundreds of miles of dirt roads and single-track outside the city limits, the thin air and soft ground of Flagstaff make it the closest thing in North America to Kenya's Great Rift Valley. Less than an hour away is the town of Camp Verde, which, at less than 3,200 feet, is ideal for faster interval workouts. If only there were more jobs!

Alicia Shay and her late husband, Ryan, were among the first elites to settle in Flagstaff year-round. "Ryan was here for a three-week training camp," she tells me, "and we were getting kind of lonely for each other, so I came to visit for the final week. And at the end of that week, we just up and moved. We had money down on a condo in Colorado, but we just gave it up. We loved it here so much."After Ryan died from an irregular heartbeat during the 2007 Olympic Marathon Trials, Alicia stayed on. Spend any time in Flagstaff and you'll meet her. You might even end up living in her house. Nick Hilton did.

I ask her how many people are living in her home at the moment.

"I have one, two, three--wait, sorry--one, two, three, four, five, six, seven. Plus me. Eight. But I have seven bedrooms. I don't have people on the couch or anything." She laughs. "It's not like a hostel."

Hey, wait, I think, that's not a bad idea. A high-altitude runners' hostel. Call it "A Leg Up." The month before the New York City Marathon, it would be packed.

My friend Jeff, upon hearing that I'm spending a week in Flag prior to racing him, tells me that the results of our race will no longer be official.

"Why not?"

"One of us is blood-doping," says Jeff.

Altitude training is, of course, perfectly legal. The basic idea is that the lower atmospheric pressure found above 5,000 feet leads to increased red blood cell production. Over time, one's muscles may begin to process oxygen more efficiently. It's no accident that the banned substance EPO mimics the effects of altitude training. When a runner who lives at altitude descends to sea level to race, he or she will theoretically have a physiological edge.

In my case, this might be the difference between a 43- and a 42-minute 10-K--unnoticed by everyone except Jeff. Despite the allure of Walsh's invitation to move in, I know that my PRs are years behind me. I've come to Flagstaff to find out what it's like to live among dreamers of the golden dream. To glimpse a path I might have taken in an alternate universe. But why not get a leg up while I'm at it?

Despite the advantages, the year-round crowd of serious runners here is dwarfed by those who train seasonally. Out of Flagstaff's 67,000 permanent residents, there are maybe a few dozen pro runners.

"For somebody who's unsponsored," Shay says, "living here year-round is gonna be a bit more blue-collar. But one thing about Flagstaff is that there's no one way to do it. If there's a common thread of success, it's the people who have come here and embraced the running community. Otherwise it becomes a grind. You get eaten up by the training."

Shay has seen a lot of runners come and go, and attributes the transience partly to a general lack of postcollegiate support systems. "It's a big jump to make [from the structure of a college team], and many runners struggle to perform at the elite level while also working a part-time job," she says. "Many talented runners fall through the cracks during this stage."

Local Legend: Alicia Shay is a pioneer of Flag's running scene, still lives in the town year-round, and rents out rooms in her house to up-and-comers. Nathan Perkel

Having dominated the three-day Trans-Rockies stage race in 2012 after suffering through years of injuries and illness, Shay understands the challenges of training at altitude. "One thing I've noticed," she says, "is that some runners move here and want it all to happen right away. So they train with this mixture of anxiety and greed, wanting to swing for the fences right away. At altitude you can't afford to dig yourself into a big hole, because you can't get out of it."

"But it almost feels contrary to human nature," I say. "You've just taken this big financial risk in moving here. How do you then take it easy?"

"It needs to be a multiyear process," she says. "Unfortunately not everyone can afford that. It's definitely harder to make a living as a runner nowadays. And so it's becoming even more important to think outside the box--to put yourself out there and show you're not just a machine that churns out times."

Deep in the heart of downtown, behind the bar at Diablo Burger, in between taking orders and pouring beer, Julian de Rubira balances on a rubbery cushion that resembles the planet Saturn. It's not hard to see why his teammates refer affectionately to de Rubira as a hippie. His long hair, short shorts, and unconventional training methods do evoke the dream of the '60s. But more than his looks, more than his effortless, light-footed encounters with customers, I'm struck by de Rubira's demeanor. The guy oozes good vibes. He grew up surfing in Southern California, but this particular wisdom seems harder-won--the result of several years of learning how to live without ordinary American comforts. We're talking about the previous winter, when he experimented with the Kenyan training structure--running three times a day, subsisting primarily on uji, a fermented millet porridge.

"I'd wake up at 6," he says, "run 40 minutes, eat a bowl of porridge, take a two-hour nap. I'd wake up again at 11 and do a track workout at the high school. This was the warmest part of the day. Keep in mind this was in December. That first run would be in like 10 degrees, but midday it might get all the way up to 40."

"Balmy," I say.

"I'd eat lunch after the workout, and take a second nap. Another 40-minute run before dinner, and in bed, hopefully by 8 or 9. The first two weeks were great. But that third week. . ."

"Not good?" I say.

He shakes his head. "It set me back for months. I mean, I was working regular hours here. Those were my days off."

Unlike the rest of the team, de Rubira lives way up on the north side of town, a stone's throw from Buffalo Park, the gateway to the network of singletrack trails stretching from here to the Grand Canyon. His roommates are naturopaths and grad students. They're raising chickens in the backyard. That kind of place. There was an entire year when de Rubira slept on the floor. Not because he thought it would be good for his back, or core, or whatever, not because the Kenyans do it, but because he wanted to make sure he was okay living without a bed. "I figured I needed to get used to being poor," he says.

De Rubira seems alternately attracted to the romantic notion of living off the grid, training his body and mind in isolation a la Quenton Cassidy in John L. Parker's Once a Runner, and concerned about the real-life consequences of trying to do it alone. He sought out the Run Flag guys after he missed qualifying for the Olympic Trials in the steeplechase by less than four seconds in 2012. They were delighted to have him: He's the only guy on the team to dip under 14 minutes in the 5-K. But in track and field, a resume bearing an 8:40 and 13:48 won't get you much more than a job slinging burgers.

Behind the bar, he's still spinning around on planet Saturn. "Does that thing actually help?" I ask.

"I'm always willing to try something," he says. As a certified student instructor in Foundation Training, he approaches cross-training with a great deal of curiosity. He's constantly squatting, or breathing in statuesque poses, or hanging off tree branches. Later today he's going to try out his new slack line in the park. "There are just so many different ways of strengthening the body," he says. "It doesn't always have to be running."

Nevertheless, the past few years of working on his feet have begun to take a toll. After the Kenyan experiment, he became extremely cautious about overtraining. His mileage has dropped to just 50 a week. He's strongly considering moving back to California. "My reasons for leaving here would be purely financial," he says. "If there's a better situation living with my parents. . ."

I laugh, realizing I would probably never say those words aloud. Then again, I've never wanted to run three times a day.

"If you look around the country," Steve Soprano says, "I'm pretty much as slow as it gets for people taking it this seriously."

It's hard to look around the country at the moment, or even across the track. The tail end of an Arizona monsoon has us in its grip, and the normally well-attended weekly Team Run Flagstaff workout consists of just two dozen hard-core souls. I'm standing under Soprano's umbrella while he stands in the downpour, clad in flip-flops and sweats, shouting out encouraging words. Hilton, de Rubira, Misenti, and Vess are spread across the homestretch, dressed equally poorly, shouting equally loud. Every Tuesday evening they act as volunteer coaches for the town's recreational running club.

"My college coach could stand here without a watch and tell you exactly what pace every person was running," Soprano says, trying not to shiver.

"That guy in front," I say, "I'm guessing he's running 6:40s?"

Soprano consults his watch as a man in a blue rain jacket approaches the turn. "No way," he says. "Much faster. 5:30s."

The man speeds past us.

"Two minutes left!" Soprano yells. "Two minutes! Looking good!"

5:30s, coincidentally, are just a shade slower than Soprano is hoping to run at his marathon debut next month in Chicago. He's a numbers guy and has calculated that he'll have to go 2:22 or faster to have a chance of breaking a Trials-qualifying 2:18 within two years. When he puts his hood up, Soprano nearly disappears inside his sodden sweatshirt. He's all bright eyes and sharp cheekbones, as skinny as his frame will allow. But that frame--which used to crash around hockey rinks in upstate New York--is not the classical, willowy marathoner frame.

As "Employee 1.1" of LetsRun.com, Soprano makes his own hours. While Flagstaff sleeps, he perches on the edge of his couch and pores over dozens of Web sites and blogs that cover distance running. He looks for the can't-miss interviews and hard-to-find pieces that, once they're linked to on LetsRun, will gain thousands more readers. Other duties include answering irate e-mails about the notoriously poor behavior on LetsRun's message boards. Sometimes he gets to travel to big meets and conduct interviews with the Kara Gouchers and Galen Rupps of the world. For all of this he makes less than $20,000 a year, with no benefits, and considers himself extremely lucky.

"It's the perfect job for what I'm trying to do," he says. "I can work my schedule around my training. That said, if I want to have a family, I'm not gonna buy a house on my LetsRun salary. But I don't get single guys who make $50,000 a year and complain about not having enough money. I don't know what I'd do with that much money."

Buy a second umbrella? I think. Actually, it's not even Soprano's umbrella I'm holding, but that of his girlfriend, C.J. Beaudette. Buy a first umbrella? I think.

Linked up: Steve Soprano, who ran 2:26 in his marathon debut, and girlfriend C.J. Beaudette may leave after her teaching gig ends in June. Nathan Perkel

"Me and RoJo [Robert Johnson, cofounder of LetsRun] had a funny conversation once," Soprano says. "He was like, 'I don't pay you very much. How do you live?' The truth is, I'm not very social. I don't feel the need to go out. Living with runners is a way of being social without being social. I thought, coming to Flagstaff, that everyone was going to be elite-elite. I didn't expect to be able to run with anyone here. I was really self-conscious about how slow I had run in college. But right before I moved, my high school teammate told me that Adam was out here. I met him and his friends, and I was like, 'Wow, these aren't 13:30 guys, they're more like 14:30 guys.' And I mean, I haven't run 14:30, but I'm not that far away. And when I met Matt--on paper he's much slower than me, and older, too--I respected him even more for coming out here. It kind of validated what I was doing. Made me feel less stupid. All these guys did. Sorry." He looks down at his watch. "One minute left!" he yells. "One minute! Looking good!"



If there were a captain of this group, it would be Adam Vess. Not only because he has recruited both a former high school teammate (Misenti) and a former college teammate (Walsh) to join it. Not only because he works for the company that manages the apartment complex, which has allowed him to assemble this enclave of runners around him. Not only because he seems a lot older than his 24 years. No, Vess would be captain purely on the basis of his stubborn--one might even say delusional--belief in himself.

"This is f--ked," he says, working his thumbs into the arch of his right foot. We've gone for an easy four-miler on Cardinal, but even on the NFL-soft grass his plantar fasciitis is flaring up. Vess bears more than a passing resemblance to Chris Solinsky, and as with the former American record holder, his build and powerful stride make pain-free running almost impossible. Walsh and I exchange silent grimaces. We want to tell him to stay off his foot, take advantage of his desk job. But he's not wired that way.

National high school champion in the 5000 in 2007, Vess comes from a long line of runners, including his uncle, former marathon great Steven Swift, who coached him in high school. At Marist College, he lost season after season to stress fractures--11 total. After breaking his femur in 2010, Vess was finally diagnosed with a bone-density disorder, at which point he transferred to Flagstaff's Northern Arizona University in order to get off the brutal East Coast pavement and soak up some much-needed rays for making vitamin D, in such short supply during those dark New England winters.

I admit that I don't entirely understand why somebody would want to continue running after suffering 11 stress fractures.

"It's simple," Vess says, looking up from his foot. "If I don't break my leg again, I'm pretty sure I'm gonna perform well."

Maybe he's right. Since the move, the stress fractures have ceased. At the 2013 Penn Relays, Vess nearly won the Olympic Development 5000, placing second in 14:04--a 20-second PR. Inspired by his former teammate, the oft-injured Misenti picked up the phone and dialed Vess.

Five months later they were living together, along with Vess's girlfriend, Becky Belanger, their two dogs, and a soft-spoken Australian graduate student named David McNeill--the same David McNeill who won two NCAA titles for NAU and competed in the 2012 Olympics. Every Sunday, the roommates host a potluck dinner for the Run Flag crew. "I'm committed to Flagstaff until at least 2016," Vess says. "Becky loves being out here. I mean, she's adopting dogs! It's starting to feel close to a family, with Forrest moving in. I wouldn't be surprised if I'm still here in 2020."

A spirited birthday fete is among the highlights of the Flagstaff running scene. Nathan Perkel

It's sobering to hear him talk about doing this for two more Olympic cycles--to continue measuring his life out in four-year increments. When I was 24, I didn't have any clue what I wanted to be doing in 12 months, let alone seven years. I can't imagine what it feels like to gamble your life on your legs. And yet, Vess's biggest gamble has already paid off: Belanger, his college sweetheart, found a teaching job in nearby Sedona and is building her own life alongside his.

But there's no avoiding the clock. Even after his Penn Relays PR, Vess still needs to slice another 30 seconds off his 5-K to really start talking Olympic Trials. And while this group's fortunes seem bound to his achievements, my guess is that he'll make his mark as a coach, not as a runner.

That said, I've never seen him compete. And from the sound of it, when Adam Vess is there with a lap to go, Adam Vess is there. "I haven't raced him yet," de Rubira says back at Diablo. "I'm kind of scared to race him." This reminds me of those classic lines in Chariots of Fire: "He runs like a wild animal. He unnerves me."

Tonight, Vess keeps playing down his current injury as "cosmetic," but it's clearly affecting him. As we near the apartments, Walsh and I push the pace up the final hill. "I hate you guys so much right now," Vess mutters, falling behind. "I can't get on my toes at all."

Not everyone adjusts to the demands of Flagstaff. In my first days there, I'm repeatedly warned not to put myself in "the hole," the state of total exhaustion that comes from behaving as if you're still at sea level. It normally hits in week two, but several of the guys have suffered through month- or even season-long setbacks, in which even easy runs sap their energy.

On Wednesday morning, however, I can't hold myself back. Maybe it's the pot of coffee I drained at the apartment. Maybe it's the sweet smell of new rubber inside the Run Flagstaff store, or the cavalier way everyone's talking about "an easy 10 miles." Or maybe I want to impress the new faces. Here is Matt Llano, member of Team USA Arizona. Here is Vince Sherry the store owner, protege of Dr. Jack Daniels. And here is a tall dude in baggy shorts who introduces himself as "Nick." Whatever it is, when we set off on the trail toward Lowell Observatory, I start up front and decide that I can totally keep pace.

We cross a quiet intersection and stop. The trail ahead is washed out. I tiptoe to the left. Some tiptoe to the right. The dude named Nick splashes through the puddle, which is more like a small lake. Halfway across, he loses his balance and gets soaked up to his armpits. I may be slow, I think, but at least I'm not that goofball.

Three miles in, we hit the first hill, and the guys begin to scamper away from me. Even after the trail flattens, I feel like I'm breathing through a straw. Hello, 7,000 feet. Hello, oxygen debt. By the time we reach hill two, I'm done. De Rubira graciously offers to jog me back to the store.

"Who was that Nick guy?" I wheeze, when I no longer feel like I may vomit.

"You mean Arciniaga?"

"I just," I gasp, "kept up with Nick Arciniaga?"

Arciniaga, a 2:11 marathoner and 2011 U.S. National team member, is the perfect role model for the Run Flag guys. After an undistinguished college career, he's put together year after year of consistent, relentless training. Aside from a few hours of bookkeeping at the shoe store every week, he lives comfortably off his race winnings and Adidas sponsorship. Provided that your definition of "living comfortably" includes 140 miles a week.

A few weeks from now, Arciniaga will win the U.S. Marathon Championships--far and away the highlight of his career.

"A couple years ago," he tells me after his victory, "I was working 35 hours a week, living with a bunch of other runners, trying to organize my life around getting in enough miles. And that's the situation these guys are in. Like me, they've got mediocre track PRs compared to other professionals, but when it comes to the roads, it's a whole new world."

I ask him how often he finds himself dispensing advice to the guys.

"I see Nick Hilton probably every other day," he says. "He'll tell me about his workouts, and mostly I find myself reassuring him. He's got the determination--the work ethic--to take that next step."

"I hope he realizes the impact he has on me," Hilton says about his coworker.

This, in a nutshell, is Flagstaff. Sometimes the dream you're chasing works right alongside you.

On Friday night, Leah Rosenfeld arrives at the apartment, bearing pizza. She spent the 2012–13 year as a graduate assistant coach at NAU. Unsure of her future, she joined forces with the Run Flag guys while pursuing a Master's in educational leadership. Then, over the summer, Rosenfeld was offered a full-time position as assistant track coach at NAU. It's her dream job: The men's cross-country squad is among the nation's best. Naturally, Rosenfeld's own ambitions will now take a backseat to her team, but that didn't stop her from winning gold in the 3000 at the Maccabiah Games in Israel in July. She's not here to talk about running, however.

"GET THERE!" Matt Walsh and Roman Acosta cry out simultaneously from behind Acosta's semi-closed door. Acosta, studying for a Master's in public administration, ran for Rosenfeld last year. His college career ended when he tore his labrum during indoor track--an injury at least as painful as it sounds. After months of rehabilitation, he's still weeks away from being able to run again.

"They're playing video games," I say.

"'Call of Duty,'" Rosenfeld says.

"You, too?"

She nods, a little self-consciously.

"What's the appeal?" I ask.

"Coaching is so demanding, time-wise," she says, "that it's hard to have a social life. Honestly, if these guys weren't here, I might not hang out with anybody."

"Plus," Walsh hollers, "it's a whole lot cheaper than going to the bar."

"GETTHERRRRE!" Acosta agrees.

Out of everyone I've met, Walsh and Acosta know the true power of GET THERE, the group's unofficial slogan. GET THERE is contagious. GET THERE is everywhere. Always loud, all caps, yet flexible enough to apply to any situation: the final lap of an interval workout, the search for gainful employment, and yes, the spattering of blood and guts around a make-believe world.

In this male-dominated running crew, the presence of Rosenfeld and her lone female teammate, Hillary Hayes, is absolutely vital. If they weren't part of the social fabric, life in Flagstaff might take on a sort of apocalyptic desperation.

"All last year," Rosenfeld says, "when I'd go on the Sunday long runs, it would be anywhere from five to 20 guys. . .and me. It's been harder to get a group of women together. Guys seem to be willing to take the leap of faith and just join a group."

"Is it ever awkward being so outnumbered?" I ask.

"There's a maturity to their training," she says. "When we meet up for runs, they know what they want to do. They're not getting distracted by girls. Or maybe I'm just standoffish. And when we're out there, that kind of camaraderie--the crazy vulgar jokes--I think it's fun."

I leave the three of them crowded onto Acosta's narrow bed, weapons in hand. Those of us with money are headed out.

Half an hour later, I'm back for what feels like the 15th time at Diablo Burger. The place is slammed. Julian de Rubira takes our orders, somehow managing to appear relaxed even as the line stretches behind us out the door.

We grab a table out on the patio. It's my first time meeting Ryan Blood, Nick Hilton's best friend in Flagstaff. "Good news," Blood tell us, and goes on to explain that he's got a decent lead on a job back home in Pennsylvania. He hasn't been healthy since August 2012, when he and Hilton took part in a world-record-setting 10-man, thousand-mile charity relay from Minnesota to Penn State's campus. Blood wouldn't realize to what extent he'd damaged his knees until a week after the relay ended, when he and Hilton arrived in Flagstaff, ready to take on the world.

"That's awesome, man," Hilton says a couple times, but the mood is somber. This will be one of Blood's last nights out on the town. In two weeks, he'll be gone.

As usual, the mood brightens with the arrival of food. Suffice it to say that the English muffin buns alone are worth a trip to Diablo Burger.

At my urging, Sarah Grothe, Nick Hilton's girlfriend, tells us about how they met. "He told me he was a professional runner," she says. "It was pretty much the first thing out of his mouth."

"You told her you were professional?" Blood says, shaking his head.

"Well, I didn't want her to walk away!" Hilton says, laughing.

After eating, we decide to swing by the Lumberyard, which on Fridays is transformed from brewpub to dance hall. As we wait for the traffic light to change on Route 66, an undergrad darts across the intersection. "Track star!" one of her friends yells. "You get a 10!" yells another.

Across the street, the track star pretends to aim an arrow skyward. An imitation, presumably, of Usain Bolt. Before she lets the arrow fly, she hesitates, then lowers her hands in confusion. "Wait," she yells, "how do they grade in track?"

A few minutes later, Blood and I are standing at the edge of the dance floor, beers turning room-temperature in our hands. I'm finding it difficult to talk to him. Everything I think of seems painful. In silence, we watch Hilton two-step with Grothe, his life stretching out in front of him with such perfect simplicity: two more years of 100-mile weeks, knocking down PR after PR. After that, the Trials.

Despite his injuries, Blood looks just as fit as the rest of the guys. His half-marathon PR is still five seconds faster than Hilton's, but he may never know how fast he could have been. Somewhere out on the dance floor is the drunken track star, unaware that she's sharing the room with two world record holders. There are no grades in track, I want to tell her. It's much crueler than that.

"Migration is not abandonment," reads the sign at Walnut Canyon National Monument. About a thousand years ago, a community of pre-Columbian people now known as the Sinagua built cliff dwellings halfway down the steep canyon walls. They stayed for more than a century, farming the canyon rims, but eventually moved northward into Hopi Territory. A tiny blip in history, but here we are, paying our respects.

"It's hard not to wonder what the Southwest will look like in a century," I say. "Will Vegas be a ghost town?"

"There's this expectation nowadays," de Rubira says, squatting down in one of his distinctive poses, "that everything we build should be permanent."

I try to imitate him, wobble, then stand up. De Rubira's daily regimen includes half an hour of squatting, and I can't even manage to get my heels to touch the ground. Above us, the hawks are circling.

"So I'm not sure if this belongs in your essay or not," he says, "but a couple weeks ago I got this message on Facebook. I can't remember if I've mentioned, but my father's from Ecuador, and for a long time I've been thinking about getting dual citizenship. My sister went through it a couple years ago. Anyway, the message was from this guy, Byron Piedra, who has run in the past three Olympics." He exhales audibly, Foundation-style.

"And?"

"And there's all this excitement growing in Ecuador for the next Olympics, because they're in South America. But except for Piedra, there aren't really any long-distance runners in Ecuador in a position to qualify." He inhales.

"Wait a minute," I say.

"'Quieres correr por Ecuador?' ['Do you want to run for Ecuador?']" he says. "That was the message. Apparently there might even be government funding."

Standing there above him, looking down into this canyon that's been uninhabited for nearly a thousand years, suddenly I'm wondering if he's thinking what I'm thinking. Is this a shortcut? Would it still count?

"So I'd still have to run the B Standard," he says, "which would be like an eight-second PR. And I'd obviously need to be the fastest guy in the country."

"Would you have any competition?"

He starts to smile. "My time in the steeple is eight seconds faster than the [Ecuadorian] national record. So. . .I guess I'd have a good chance."

"Wow. Would it be at all bittersweet?" I ask, "not to do it at Hayward Field?"

"That's never really been a part of my dream," he says. "For me, it's always been about the Olympics themselves, not the Trials."

"Have you told the guys?"

"Honestly I've just been trying to absorb it."

"So you're still thinking about moving in with your parents?"

"Dual citizenship doesn't happen overnight," he says. "It would probably be a lot easier to make arrangements from home. The funny thing is, if it works out, the training would be fantastic. I'd still be living at altitude. Higher even than here, in Cuenca."

De Rubira lives as hand-to-mouth as any of the struggling artists I know back home in Portland. I think about what it would be like for him to stay through another northern Arizona winter. Clocking out after a long shift, biking home from work in the middle of a snowstorm. In bed by 9 p.m. Trying to nap after the first run of the day. And again after the second. All along, the dream has seemed so outlandish: the 2016 Olympic Games. And now, to find out he's only a few seconds away. Migration is not abandonment.

"Get there," I say quietly.

As we head back to town, he tells me about his one adventure racing overseas. In 2012, after just missing the Trials, in the best shape of his life, he paid his way to Europe with hopes of convincing a handful of race directors to stick him in their fields. He managed to get himself on four different starting lines, and it was on the final one--the one where he met Piedra--that he ran his 13:48 and landed his first big payday: 80 Euros.

"Did you feel like you gave the crowd 80 Euros' worth of entertainment?"

"No!" he laughs. "But there was this other race in a small town in Belgium, this one where I ended up winning the second-slowest heat of the 5000, and all these kids came up to me afterward. They wanted my bib, and had me sign autographs, and part of me wanted to tell them, 'Look at my time, I'm nobody,' but of course I didn't. To them, I was the winner. I think I gave them something."

Monsoon season is almost over. Blue sky stretches from here to Mexico, maybe all the way to Rio. For the first time all week in the land of ifs, I roll down the windows. As the wind rushes in, I realize that one thing is certain: If de Rubira does compete for Ecuador in 2016, he will give those kids in Cuenca everything he has.

Bum Wheel: During a Thanksgiving Day race, de Rubira broke a bone in his right foot. He's rehabbing at home with his parents in California. Nathan Perkel

Wednesday or Thursday, the argument begins on Facebook. A-1, Hilton suggests. Woody Mountain, Vess pleads. Hart Prairie, Soprano counters. Hart Prairie is the pits, Vess responds. Exactly, says Soprano, do it while I'm out of town! Occasionally a local legend like Alicia Shay weighs in. Part of the pleasure of the Sunday morning long run is the buildup. When you dream about running in Flagstaff, the Sunday long run is what you dream of.

A few miles west of town, the red dirt of Woody Mountain Road winds its way through densely forested hills and sun-soaked meadows. These are Ryan Hall's stomping grounds; one of the last houses on the edge of town is apparently his. The dirt has been softened by all the rain, and the sun is low enough that most of the run will be shaded, but the mosquitoes keep us moving.

Within half a mile, I understand that this run is going to be different. The front group of Hilton, Vess, Misenti, McNeill, and a new guy we christen "Phil the Valet" vanishes. After a long look at the empty road ahead, Walsh and de Rubira--my patient, gracious running buddies--apologetically leave me in the dust.

A few miles down the road, Becky Belanger waits in the Jeep, also known as the "meat wagon." She will stop every four miles or so to give us water breaks and the option of throwing in the towel. What with all the water bottles and running paraphernalia, not to mention two overfriendly dogs, there really isn't room for more than three people. This is my rationale when I climb aboard at the second stop: I am not going to lose my spot on the meat wagon. By now, I am behind by minutes--maybe miles. The illusion that I can keep up has been shattered, once and for all.

Belanger and I careen around a few corners, crest a hill, then slow down to 10 mph as we approach Walsh and Phil the Valet, who turns out to be a decorated ultrarunner named Phil Slama. Walsh looks terrific today, his legs turning over in the effortless fashion of Ryan Hall. There is something mesmerizing about driving alongside good runners: I want them to keep going forever. But eventually they check their watches, confer, and come to a reluctant stop. "That was perfect," Walsh says while climbing aboard.

The meat wagon is now a full-on mess of sweaty bodies and muddy dogs. McNeill and Misenti have already turned around, honoring strict mileage limits as they come back from injuries. As we wind our way out of a meadow, we close in on Hilton, Vess, and de Rubira. They're really going after it, cranking out sub-six-minute miles. I think back to a few nights ago, when Vess sat on the edge of Cardinal, foot in his hand. He doesn't look remotely like the same person. And neither, for that matter, do Hilton and de Rubira.

"How far are they gonna go?" I ask.

"I know Adam wanted to make it all the way back to the parking area," Belanger says. "And Nick is planning on running all the way home." "Julian said he wanted to go 14," Walsh says. "He'll pull over in a bit."

"He's skinny," I say, wondering where he'll fit in the Jeep, "but not that skinny."

"Julian has his ways," Walsh says.

Sure enough, when de Rubira bows out, he doesn't even consider climbing inside the Jeep, but wedges himself between the rear bumper and the spare tire. He can almost lie down back there. As we drive on, all we can see of him are his bare knees, poking above the back seat.

Eventually we realize that there is a murmur coming from back there.

"Is he okay?" Belanger asks, her foot on the brake, her eyes flashing in the rear-view mirror.

Walsh leans his head out of the meat wagon. For a moment, he's unusually quiet. He pulls back inside. "Julian wants to talk about breakfast," he says.

"I wish this were every Sunday," I say.

"It is," he says.

Vess and Walsh have the grill going out on the back porch. Food covers every inch of table and countertop. There's everything from ribs to quinoa. People are getting loopy on a few sips of beer: Everybody's a lightweight at 7,000 feet.

On one couch, Sarah Grothe and Becky Belanger are planning an upcoming road trip to Santa Monica. That their boyfriends will be duking it out on the roads for $300 purses seems incidental compared to the fact that they are finally hitting the beach. So what if all four of them will be sharing one motel room? "It's hard not to feel a little landlocked up here," Grothe says.

The latest addition to the household, a scrawny mutt named Alex, leaps on the couch and starts licking my face. "She doesn't really like to be petted," Belanger warns when I move to set my plate down.

"Just keep eating," Vess says.

"It's a win-win for you both," Belanger says.

"Seconds?" someone says.

And a few minutes later: "Thirds?"

"I can't believe how hungry I am," I say.

"You're at altitude," Vess says. "Every stair is actually 1.2 stairs."

"My grandmother was so happy the last time I saw her," Roman Acosta tells us. "She was like, 'You're finally eating, Roman!' You know, because my face has filled out? And I was like, 'Grandma, all I've ever done is eat. I only look this way because I can't run.'"

Acosta's comment lets loose a cascade of stories. I should be paying closer attention to what's being said, taking notes, behaving like a proper journalist, but I can't help but notice Walsh grilling away out on the deck, occasionally looking in as if to make sure we're all still here. Suddenly all I can think about is what he told me this afternoon.

"Without them," he said, "I probably would have gone home months ago."

There's a photo of Walsh from the morning after last week's wedding. He's crossing the finish line of a local 5-K. Beet-red, hung-over, just a few strides ahead of the top female finisher. Eighteen minutes are showing on the clock--a mediocre time for a high school boy. And yet, his head is back, his arms are raised.

But it's not what you think.

Walsh spent the first couple years of adulthood drinking too much, his weight ballooning, and when the market crashed in 2008, he found himself living at home on Long Island, aimless and depressed.

"Basically," Walsh told me, "I went out into the world and came back with my tail between my legs. It's interesting, because I'm never a very focused person, I can never do the same run two times in a row, but my first week back, I ran around my block--which is a mile and a half--seven days in a row. For me to go back out later in life, I needed to start with this little circle around me."

Only now does it occur to me that he could just as easily be talking about this world he and his teammates have built for themselves.

"Before the wedding," he continued, "I would run with these guys, and my form would be choppy, trying to keep up with them. And I'd just keep thinking you're not in shape, you're not in shape, you're not in shape. And then I went home and ran a s--t race--"

"This was the 5-K?"

"Yeah. But you know, I ran. I ran a race. Finally. I put on a singlet, I put on a number, and I ran something.

"And I came back, and I was just worried. Worried about a job, worried about being 28, worried about all of this--but then I go on these runs with you and Adam, and I realize I sort of feel pretty good. And then today, none of that worry from before my trip was there. I attribute a lot of that to Julian. Because Julian is willing to, like, start easy and then we'll roll. And Julian eventually went on to push the pace on the front group.

"A day like today makes it worth it. I toughed it out, things are starting to click, and. . .I looked like a runner."

Now, he closes up the grill and carries in one final plate of food. It's almost 9 p.m.; looks like we'll have leftovers. Amid the yawns, plans are hatched for tomorrow's workout. Looking around, I realize that the whole family is here. I am suddenly desperately nostalgic for my old roommates Ian and Jeff. I know what it's like to be in your twenties, to live with your best friends. That part I know. But there's something else here. For all we shared at 2928 Pine Street, the three of us dreamed three very different dreams. The part I don't know--the part I love--is watching these guys dream together.

My last morning in town, Hilton and Vess rise early for an interval workout. At 8 a.m., it's already hot on the blue NAU track, and though I'm just here to read splits, the sweat begins to gather between my shoulder blades. On the docket is a 10 × 1000 workout for Hilton, and 6 × 1000 for Vess. It's brutal by any standard, especially so at 7,000 feet. The workout comes from Trina Painter, an elite runner who coaches a local high school team. And, since the spring, Nick Hilton.

When I ask about their arrangement, Hilton laughs. "I'd love to pay Trina at some point," he says, "instead of buying enchiladas from her daughter for school fund-raisers. I haven't been able to pay her yet, and she's okay with it. But she texted me one day, and she said, 'Hey, my daughter's selling enchiladas, and I put you down for a dozen.'"

Shoe Thing: Hilton still works at Run Flagstaff and ran 2:19 in his marathon debut in Philadelphia, good for third place. Nathan Perkel

Although we're trespassing, and several NAU javelin throwers are practicing on the infield, it's not until I see de Rubira clambering over the fence that I begin to feel nervous about getting caught. Amid the soaring javelins, Hilton and Vess speed around the track while de Rubira sets up hurdles on the homestretch. Lap by lap, Hilton and Vess trade off leading. The goal is to work their way down from 3:10 per kilometer to as close to 2:50 as possible. They look smooth through the first four, but their breathing is audible from a hundred meters away. On the fifth kilometer, Vess's head begins to bob. "Keep that form together, Vess," de Rubira calls out.



On the sixth rep, Hilton opens a five-meter gap, but Vess barges up the inside on the homestretch. "Classic Vess," de Rubira says.

"That's what happens," Vess pants, "when you leave the inside open."

"That's what happens," Hilton responds, "when you run like an a--hole."

Laughter. Coughing. Spitting.

"How's the foot?" I ask.

"Felt good," Vess says. "But the rest of me. . ."

The three of us watch Hilton continue. 2:57 for the seventh rep. 2:58 for the eighth. Immediately after the eighth, he folds himself in half, grabbing his knees, sucking air. He doesn't resume jogging for 10, 15 seconds. "I'm not really recovering anymore," he manages to say as he nears the starting line.

How is he going to be able to face work after this? I wonder. How in the world is he going to sell shoes? But work is probably the last thing on his mind. He's no longer really aware of us. 2:56 for the ninth.

"Last one!" we shout.

With a stunned gasp, as if he can't believe he's actually doing it, Hilton launches himself one final time around the blue track.

"When he's finished," de Rubira says, "that fence is gonna feel about 18 feet high."

"Julian," Vess says, "you know you can just walk through the building like a normal person."

"Seriously?" de Rubira says. "It's open? I never thought to try the door."

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