The third time I almost got knocked down, I fell across his back with my arms around his neck. Brute knew this game and took off running. He took the same track as before, running counterclockwise around the large yard, up the slight rise and across the back of the house and then down toward the woods and across the wide part of the yard. As we passed Neeka, she called out, "If you could figure out how to steer him, you wouldn't need the bike!"
The next time around, I yelled back, "He doesn't have any brakes, either!"
All this was great exercise for Brute, but wasn't helping me, so I hopped off and somersaulted on the grass. When I came up, I started running. Brute had stopped when I got off, but when I ran past him he fell into step with me. We raced around the yard once, almost as fast as he had when carrying me.
The second time around I poured on the speed. After a few yards, I found I had to change my stride because I was losing traction. I kept bouncing up with each step and launching myself into a running long jump. I tried leaning forward, but that did not help much. I found that my best speed depended on a long stride and trying not to bounce.
The next time around the yard, I saw Brute sitting next to Neeka, watching me run. I hadn't even realized that he had dropped out of our race.
As I ran down the slope toward the woods, I felt myself lose traction and I bent my knees and let myself drop back to the ground. When I hit, I pushed off as hard as I could with both feet, arching my back and throwing my arms over my head.
I flew into the air boobs first. The wind blowing past was exhilarating. I had jumped a good twenty yards from the tree line, but they seemed to be approaching awfully fast. I twisted my head and looked down to try to judge my landing. To my great surprise, I was still a good six feet in the air and seemed to be dropping very slowly.
I made a guess at where I would land and swung my arms and legs forward in the normal long-jump landing position. It still seemed to take a long time before I hit the ground and when I did, I was moving much too fast to stop. I started running again and turned as sharply as I dared to keep from smacking into the trunk of a tree.
I slowed to a stop and looked back. I walked to the spot where I landed and started pacing off the distance to my takeoff spot. Neeka and Brute came running over to join me.
"Holy moly! How far was that?" she asked. "I didn't think you were going to ever come down!"
I finished pacing and counted it up and counted it up again. "Even allowing for my very rough estimate of the distance," I said, stunned, "I just broke the World Record for the Long Jump — the Men's Long Jump."
"What? How long is that?"
"29 feet and change."
"How far did you go?"
I took a deep breath. This had not been the tension-relieving experience I had expected it would be. "Something over forty feet." I said. "But there's a slope here where I took off."
"Took off is right! You were flying!"
Neeka's enthusiasm started to infect me as well. I had just broken a World Record, without trying. What could I do if I tried? What could I do if I really tried?
"Here," I said. "If I'm going to do this, let's do it right. There's a tape measure in the shed. And a bag of bone meal we can use to mark lines. Let's lay out some measured lines and try it again on the level."
Brute still wanted to play, but he was less insistent than before. I think he realized that we had something else to do at the moment. Neeka got the tape and I carried the bag of bone meal out onto the flat part of the yard, out next to the woods where it was widest. We laid out six rows of white lines, each exactly ten feet apart. Then we added short marks halfway between the ten-foot lines. In only a few minutes, we had a fifty-foot-long ruler laid out on the ground.
Neeka and Brute went back toward the house and partly up the slope to get a good view. I walked to the first line and backed off all the way to the hedge on the property line. I would have just under a 100-foot run-up.
I stood with one foot in front of me, breathing deeply and trying to relax. I tranced and visualized the run-up and the take-off just at the first white line. I went over what I wanted to do again and again until I felt ready. I swung my arms back and forth to get the most momentum to start and then I started running as hard and as fast as I could.
The first line came up incredibly fast and I planted my right leg as viciously hard as I could and threw myself into the air. Again, I had the sensation of flying, but this time I did not look down. I focused on getting my legs out in front of me, and landing as far away as I could. I was almost bent over double when my heels hit and I rolled forward over my knees. I was lying flat on my back on the cool grass when I heard cheering. Up on the slope were Neeka, Bambi, Bud, Jim and Brute. Everyone was cheering, except Brute. I stood up and looked around to find my mark. I walked back and stood where my heels had made dents in the sandy soil. The marks were fully five feet past the last white line. I had covered a distance of fifty-five feet, which was over twice the world record distance for the women's long jump, although I didn't know that at the time.