I met Haile Gebrselassie in March 2009, in Los Angeles, at a media event hosted by his shoe sponsor, Adidas. Geb made his first appearance at the event with no entourage. He had come all the way from Ethiopia alone. The photographers and video crews present showered him with digital attention as he walked outside surrounded by a mob of starstruck writers, including me. Geb then led us on a short, slow jog along the beach, which he interrupted to guide us through a brief session of those crazy calisthenics that Ethiopian runners like to do before workouts. Of the scores of people we passed on our little jaunt, only two recognized Geb: a German tourist, who behaved like a 12-year-old girl at a Jonas Brothers concert, and an Ethiopian American cab driver who shouted delightedly, “Haile!” from the window of his passing vehicle.

Geb is known as the runner who always smiles, and indeed he wore a childlike grin throughout our run. I think he smiles all the time partly because he is an innately positive person and partly because he is thrilled by how his life has turned out. Much as Muhammad Ali loves being Muhammad Ali, Haile Gebrselassie loves being Haile Gebrselassie. His passion for running is unmatched, and he can scarcely believe his good fortune at being the second-fastest distance runner in history (after his younger countryman Kenenisa Bekele).

His will for speed is insatiable. After he set his second marathon world record in the 2008 Berlin Marathon, the first words out of his mouth were, “I can run faster.” That is all the proof anyone could need that being a happy runner is compatible with being a runner who is never satisfied. In fact, the spirit of discontent does not stand in the way of Gebrselassie’s enjoyment of running; it is the very manner in which he enjoys running. He just can’t get enough speed in the same way new lovers can’t get enough time together and some musicians can’t get enough performing. In interviews, Geb refuses to talk of retiring, but promises instead to keep training, racing, and striving until he is effectively dragged out of the sport by the corporeal disintegration of aging.

On the morning after our beach run, we journalists took a bus to the Home Depot Center in Carson and gathered at the track. Geb was now joined by the other big Adidas track-and-field stars: world champion sprinters Allyson Felix, Tyson Gay, and Veronica Campbell-Brown; world and Olympic champion 400 meter runner Jeremy Wariner; Olympic medalist sprinter Christine Ohuruogu; and Olympic champion high jumper Blanka Vlasic. One by one these winners were paraded before our seated journalistic assembly until they stood in a line of self-consciousness like so many beauty pageant contestants. After joining the lineup next to the 6-foot-4 Vlasic, Gebrselassie, all of 5 foot 3, made a show of standing on his tiptoes and drawing up his shoulders as he stole a glance upward at her head. We laughed heartily as the other star athletes stood stone-faced.