Beating the Clock.
He is getting
closer—I take one last deep breath and remind myself that I can do this. I know
what I need to do and I have trained for years to get here. He hits the mark
and I take off—our handoff is perfect, my feet move faster and faster beneath
me, not fast enough. I can hear footsteps behind me, now I can hear only one
pair, now nothing. I come around the bend sprinting as fast as I can. Remember
what you need to do, it’s time to relax a little and breathe. I’ve done this
thousands of times. Each step becomes a little longer. Breathe in, breathe out,
don’t let yourself slow down, relax. For a second I allow myself to look up. In
front of me there is a giant screen—there is someone running on it. That
someone is me! I look for the other runners but I can only see myself. I’m
winning. Focus on the race, you won’t be
ahead for long if you just keep staring at the screen, I tell myself. I
look back at the track. I’m almost at the end of the straight. It’s time to speed
up. My mind wanders again, how did I even
get here?
What am I even doing here, I’m a horrible runner, I remind myself
as I step up to the starting line. I know
that everyone here is faster than me. I shouldn’t have let my friends
convince me to run track.
“Hey good luck man,” someone I don’t know says as he shakes out his arms
and legs. He looks nervous. What must I
look like?
“Yeah good luck to you, too.” I wish that it really worked like that! If
only luck could make me faster.
“On your marks.” I just want to leave. “Get set.” Maybe there will be
someone that is slow like me and this won’t be as bad as I think it will.
Bang! I take off
willing my legs to move faster, but they don’t cooperate. I’m already behind
every other person. Try as I might they keep getting further and further ahead.
When the race was over I wanted to go hide in a hole, but instead I went to
look at the posted times. As my eyes moved down the list my heart sunk lower
and lower as each number read a name other than mine. Finally, the very last
name on the list was my own. Was I really the slowest person on my team? There
had to be some sort of mistake, I was active and played sports my entire life.
“Shane, why did you
decide to run the hurdles.” My coach always talked to me a lot once everyone
else had left the track. I really admired him, even though he was balding. He
was six foot three, the perfect height for hurdles. His calves still showed the
effects of years of running past. He was so fast! He had told me many times
about how he had ran a 39 in the 300 hurdles. I was still running slower than
50 seconds.
“I thought I might like it, and honestly it was the only way I would get
to run at the meets.”
“Well you seem to have taken to it! You are always the last one here.”
“Yeah, well I have to do something if I want to get better. I’m going to
finish better than last at region, I just know it.”
“You have done great this year,” he said “you have improved more than
anyone on the team, but I do have some bad news. Region only allows four
runners to compete in varsity so you can go, but you can’t run.”
“Really?” I choked out “Well at least I got to run at all this year.”
“Like I said Shane, you have improved a lot this year. You have gotten
faster in every race. Keep working hard, and you will make varsity next year
I’m sure.”
“I’ll do it! I know I can make it.”
“But for now go home. I’m hungry and you’re keeping me here.”
“Ha! In that case I think I better stay a while longer.”
The summer and fall
came and passed, and it was time for run-offs again. I approached with
anticipation. The race came and went and I wasn’t last overall. I wasn’t even
last in my heat! I earned a spot on varsity for the hurdles, but I wasn’t
satisfied. I was running in all of the races, but I was finishing in the middle
of the pack. I didn’t ever make finals so I only ran one day of the track
meets. No matter how fast I ran, or how much my time improved it was not
enough, I wanted to be the leader, I wanted to be the best. That year came and
passed and I had again improved in every race I ran in. My aspiration of
becoming the top of the team was starting to seem possible. I just had to work
harder.
I lined up in front
of the hurdle, “just one more, I almost have it perfect.”
“You can get it perfect tomorrow, it’s time for dinner and you need to
come home.” She looked too tired for me to argue much today. She always drove
by the track on her way home from work, knowing that she would often find me
still there.
“Alright I’m leaving right after this one.” I take off towards the
hurdle, I jump and I hit my knee. “Alright I’m leaving after THIS one.”
“You are the
pace-setter now.” My coach is talking to me, why is he talking to me?
“I don’t know how to set the pace! What if I run too fast or too slow?”
“You’ll figure it out. Run each 200 in 28 seconds, everyone else is going
to base how fast they run off of you.”
“Can’t someone else set the pace? I don’t think I’ll be good at it.”
“You’re the team captain, who better to run at the front?”
As I step onto this track for the first time ever it finally hits me. I’m
running in the state track meet! I made it a year before I thought I would too!
I had improved so much and not only was I at the state meet, but I was
confident I was locked into the finals. I hear those familiar words “On Your
Marks.” I’m calm, I know what to do. “Get set.” I tense up, this is what I have
been working for. Bang! I take off, a perfect start. Three, Four, Five hurdles
down and I’m in first place! Six, Seven, only one more hurdle to go, I almost
have it. I feel my foot connect with plastic, the all too familiar ring of
plastic and metal fills my ears. The ground comes close, but I barely maintain
my balance and stumble across the finish line. Two people passed me. It’s going
to be close. Heart pounding I wait by the results board. “I can still make top
9, I had a good finish even if I messed up.” The list is up. I spot my name…
next to the number ten. “I got 10th?” At least I have another race,
and it’s my best, the 300 hurdles.
The gun goes off,
and I am paired up against the fastest runner in the state. We take off step
for step and I know I have it. As we round the bend for the final 100 meters
the gun starts firing bang, bang, bang, bang, bang. “Stop the race, Stop the
race.” A man is running towards us waving his arms. We slow down and stop.
“What is going on?” one of the runners asks.
“The timer never started for your heat, you are going to have to run
again.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me!” he shouted.
We walked back to
the starting line and the race began again. I ran my hardest, but my body gives
out in the last 30 meters of the race. “I don’t know what in the world happened
coach, I was just too tired.”
“They shouldn’t have run through that race again until tomorrow, but you
ran a decent time. You can still make finals.” My coach was trying to cheer me
up, “Just so you know in that first race you were on pace for a 39, you’ll get
it in the finals!” The results go up on the board, Shane Miner 10th
place…
I’m not letting that ever happen again! I think to myself as I
bring myself back to the present. I am steps from the end of the straight. I
may have started fast, but I know who my competition is. He finished in 6th
place yesterday in the open 400 with a time faster than I have ever run. I pick
up my pace, knowing that I am going to have to run the race of my life to beat
him. I will my legs to move faster and faster, he still hasn’t caught up to me.
I hand the baton off to my teammate and collapse off to the side of the track.
“Shane do you know what you just ran?” my coach is shouting from the
crowd. I couldn’t concentrate or reply, it was all I could do to keep from
collapsing completely. The race ends and all I can think about is those words,
do you know what you just ran. I stumble over to where he is in the crowd and
he turns a stopwatch and points it towards my face.
“Are you serious?” The words were out of my mouth before I could think.
“You killed it.”
“Are you sure that was my time?”
“Well it wasn’t my time! Yes I’m sure”
I stared at the screen again, 50.2 seconds! The fastest time that anyone
in our school had run that whole year.
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