3 THIRTEEN Eight weeks later, I sit in a hotel room in London with Seymour. We are discussing blood, a subject I like to think I’m an expert on, yet we wouldn’t be talking about it if I knew what to do next. The heats for the women’s 1500-meter races start in three days. The final is five days off. With two heats set immediately before the final, the schedule couldn’t be more brutal. But for Teri the challenge is especially difficult. Coming off the high of making the team, she has reacted with a frustration bordering on horror as her interval training has steadily gone to hell. For all practical purposes, she’s back to where she was before I gave her my blood. “It must feel weird to run like a god one month and a mortal the next,” Seymour says. “I should never have given her my blood in the first place.” “Didn’t you once say regret was the most useless of all emotions?” “A character in one of your books said that.” “Oh. Well, it’s true. There’s no going back.”
