Bette pulled up into the parking lot near the running track. She wondered what she had gotten herself into. When Alice had called her, she had told her friend that she didn’t do that training anymore. The main reason was that a lot of people were stubborn, lazy or both. They expected to run like a champion without doing any effort. They never minded cancelling a quarter on beforehand either, when Bette was already there. She didn’t charge, because in the beginning, she loved it. It were the people she had got sick of.

But of course, Alice had convinced her. This woman she would send would be a fighter. Someone who doesn’t give up easily and works hard for what she wants in her life. At first, Bette had refused. But Alice’s specialty is nagging until one gives in. So here Bette was, up and ready for a challenge. Alice had told her that this woman couldn’t run two minutes long and she wanted to be able to run a few miles in the long end. Bette could only hope the woman didn’t expect to be running those few miles after three weeks, like all those others.

Bette got out of her car and filled her lungs with fresh air. She stretched her arms behind her back and looked around. There weren’t many runners around, that was ideal. She knew that a great lot of people didn’t have much confidence and felt like other, better runners were looking down on them because they were slow or weren’t able to keep running for a long time. The truth was that other runners mainly didn’t care about that, but the fear seemed to be there.

As time was passing by, Bette was getting rather annoyed. She didn’t like to be kept waiting, especially not when she was somewhere to do somebody a favor. She was just thinking to herself that this woman had some guts – Bette made an exception for her so she at least expected to get some respect. To her, being in time was a form or respect.

Some minutes later, a car parked. Bette was already walking towards the lot to greet who she thought would be the one she had been waiting for, but stopped herself just in time. It was a man that seemed to be in his early thirties. He spotted Bette, tough, and grinned. He closed the doors of his expensive looking car and walked towards the brunette.