An intimate and brutal arena

I was reading an article recently online about Alberto Salazar. One sentence captured this approach to running that I've been chasing in some way every since I started putting one foot in front of another on the roads.

And so, obviously, I thought I'd share it with you:

He seemed to turn that most elongated of sports venues, the marathon course, into an intimate and brutal arena -- a boxing ring, say -- and with it, distance running into a kind of foot-to-foot combat.

An intimate and brutal arena, a place for foot-to-foot combat, an occassion for drama, a place for blood...