...The runner's lungs burned with the exact pain that meant she was alive and pushing, still pushing, legs spinning beneath her like wheels not yet worn flat. The ribbon grew larger, closer, real. She could hear her heartbeat filling her skull, her breath ragged, every muscle past its proper limit and demanding more anyway. This was the moment Nike loved, the instant before outcome, when will and flesh warred and neither had yet won. Her stride lengthened. The finish line rushed forward to meet her. Time snapped. She crossed over into the other side of the moment, gasping, transformed, knowing something fundamental about herself she had not known before...