As they walked over, the older guys said that Price had tried to get the team to lift, too, but the squash team in the weight room was never a directed affair. The players suspected that lifting weights would make their reactions slow, and there was also something sort of townie about lifting. Mostly the team had just talked and sat on the equipment so that when Price told them they were wasting time they could say they were taking their recovery between sets.

But Markson had a very particular circuit for them to work through: first leg press, then military press, then sit-ups, then pull-ups, then the rowing machine. Everyone started at one of the stations and rotated, so everyone was doing something specific, and Ben was surprised that Markson was right on top of them, not letting anyone dawdle or goof off. At the rowing station the three guys on side-by-side ergs would race to see who could get the most meters in four minutes. Even Colin looked relaxed, and Ben saw Ahmed laughing as he sat back into the padded chair of the leg press machine. Ben felt hopeful despite himself, but he waved off some of the exercises, saying his leg was still throbbing a bit.

Markson asked him if he just wanted to sit it out, but by moving, Ben was realizing how stir-crazy he’d felt over the previous weeks.

Another kid, not on the squash team, Jeff Snyder, was also in the weight room, by himself, with a bright yellow Walkman on and a rolled-up gym towel wrapped around the back of his neck and tucked into the collar of his sweatshirt. He was a small, night-eyed person, and Ben couldn’t tell what the purpose of the towel was, but it gave Jeff the big-neck appearance of a bouncer or a bull, and there was something admirably non-St.-James-y about it.

Ben learned from the other guys that Jeff was the coxswain for the JV crew team, and he was trying to make varsity, and so he was ostentatiously at the gym alone in November because it was a point of pride for coxes, who on the day of the race are just cargo, to be in better shape than anyone else on the team. Their erg times had to be competitive, they had to run out to the Long Pond boat docks fast, and they always, always had to be able to do the most pull-ups.