So the pi-mile's this Sunday, and I can already imagine how it's going to go...
Start out running... This feels nice... 5 minutes in, already tired, stop and walk some halfway through, push to the finish, stumble across the line, they'll say, "Daniel, it's just a fun run you know!" and if I can breathe I'll say, "I- know,- this- is how- I have fun" as I collapse to the ground in front of some other people leisurely jogging in behind me...
Oh wait, that's not how you're supposed to visualize... I'm supposed to say:
I'm halfway through, still feeling good, headed back in, passing a bunch of people on the way, sprinting as I get near the end, flying past the line, the person with the stopwatch saying, "23:xx" and I'll be exhilarated having run such a time in my current condition.
Yeaaheheheh that's not gonna happen.
But, I'll give it all I've got, finding some kind of motivation in the memories and the unfinished stories of the past...
After I improved so much in my first season of cross country, everyone kind of expected me to keep getting better. And, for the most part, I did. I didn't improve every race like my first season, but I improved in most of them. I was getting down to 23 minutes, 22 minutes even for my 5K time.
People knew me for my DDR skills. We'd have pasta parties before every race and sometimes people would have DDR (or it'd be at my house and I'd have my pad), and then I could do my MaxX backwards and stuff. I tried not to do too much DDR though so I wouldn't exhaust myself the day before the race.
I became one of the fastest JV runners. We were going to a meet and I was expected to have a strong showing for the JV team (team scoring was the sum of the 4 or 5 lowest places, lowest score wins). The race started, and I was feeling good. I was halfway through, still feeling good, keeping up with the people I was supposed to keep up with. But then my calf muscle started to twinge. I knew I was in danger of cramping up and if that happened my race was essentially over. I figured slowing down was the best thing to do, which was so frustrating as I felt I could have sped up. The pain got worse though, to where every time I pushed off with that leg it hurt. I was like stumbling along saying, "Ah! Ow! Ow!" every couple seconds and then I'd suddenly speed up as I had the energy but my calf was holding me back. I got to the long final straight, where people were gathered all around both sides of the track watching the runners come in and all I was thinking was, "Please just cross the finish line..." And then my calf exploded in pain. The crowd made its sound of surprise as I slid to a halt on that last straight. And I was frozen there. I couldn't move. I couldn't move at all, save for grabbing my calf and wincing in pain. It seemed like it took forever for the next of my teammates to come past, but they all finally did, looking at me and seeing if I was already as they ran by. Someone from off the track came to help me and the pain eventually went away. Well, the physical pain, at least. I found out later we were just short whatever place we needed to get T-shirts (I don't know if it was first for JV or top 3 or something). And no one said anything to me, but I knew that if I had just crossed the finish line, we would've had that place. I could have even taken a minute limping past the finish line and that still would have been enough. But I couldn't do it. My legs couldn't do it. And it might have been because I had played a lot of DDR the past night.
In my first year I had no stamina, but my legs never got tired. I could play DDR 9s and a couple 10s and then run a 5K and my legs wouldn't even feel tired at all. I often didn't have the stamina to keep going, but my legs never held me back. That slowly changed over time.
I got to watch as someone joined for their first time, starting out with a 5K time of something like 22 minutes, a time I could barely get 2 years after I first began running. But, it was no big deal to me. I'm sure I did the same thing to a lot of other people in other things.
My best friend from running had been a contender for varsity much of the time. As I improved, I got closer to his level. It got to where beating him in a race was no longer an unreachable goal. So I played it up in my mind, thinking of how I would one day beat him in a race. Well, coming to the final stretch of a timed mile, me, my friend, and that guy who could run 22 minute 5K's when just beginning running, we were right next to each other. And I started sprinting and pulled away, but I pushed too early and I started losing steam and I looked back to see them passing me only they didn't pass me and I finished ahead of them. What I knew all along came to mind then: our rivalry probably wasn't as intense as I imagined it to be, and winning a random timed mile wasn't that big of a deal anyway.
In my third and final season, I was competing for a spot on varsity. Not one of the top spots, we had too many really good runners for that, but for the 6th or 7th spot out of the 7 people who ran varsity in each race. I dropped my PR below 20 minutes, and it looked like I would earn that spot for sure, running 18:56 on a hilly course. I was really proud of that. Sub-19 minutes? I never would have imagined I could do something like that after starting out at over 30 minutes for my first few 5Ks. I was really proud of that- until my coach told me that there had been some timer issue and that the times of everyone in the JV race were reported to be faster than they actually were. I told my friend, but no one else.
I wasn't really doing as well as I had hoped. As my stamina got even better, my leg problems got even worse. I had to worry about cramps after every race pretty much, and I had stopped improving as steadily. That was my condition going into the race to decide who would get to run on the varsity team at state. That was my last chance, and... I didn't do anything with it. In the end, my friend and I were the two alternates to the state team.
The day of the state meet was cold. Really cold. I remember that our hands were hurting. The coach gave gloves to the 7 people that would be running, and I think there were supposed to be gloves for us too, but we didn't get any.
I yelled as loud as I could, encouraging on the people who were running for us every time one of them passed. It was more because I was frustrated, or wanted to be frustrated, that I hadn't done well enough to make varsity. Our team had always been a contender for the state title when I was there, and it would have been something to say I was part of a team that placed at state. I don't think we won that year.
That wasn't it though. There was one more track season. But that wasn't much better than the cross country season. I just continued where I left off, not improving much anymore, suffering from cramps...
I went into my final event as a high schooler wanting to make something happen. Make my coach proud. Pull off a miracle or something. Surely in my final mile race I could do something amazing. But I couldn't.
That was how my running career ended. That was the last time I was a part of a track or cross country team. Of course, I still ran occasionally, for stamina, for the memories, for the goals I never reached.
I ended up with a 19:10 as my best time for a 5K. I'm certainly not disappointed with that. But I subbed 19 you know! Where's the proof that there was a timer error!
So if you ask me if I like running, here's what I'd have to say:
I hate it. I never should have joined cross country in the first place. My stamina went away but my leg strength never came back, leaving me with neither in the end. All I have are the painful memories...
It's just a painful sport. If you really give it your all, then you're going to be hurting at the end. And what's even worse is that if you're not one of the best, then what's it all for?! You're driving yourself to your limit so you can get 999th instead of 1000th or something. You're not gonna win. If you don't have the talent you could run for years and you might not even accomplish anything still.
But I feel like running teaches you something. When you're out there a mile from the finish and you're suffering, you have to go on through your own determination. You can blame anyone you want: the coach made you do the wrong training, the course designers designed a stupid course, the president is terrible I don't know. It's not going to do anything though, because unless you actually just give up, you've got to finish the race, and you've got to do it with your own power. You give it everything you've got, and not for a world record, not for a course record, not even for a top spot, but just for your own personal record. But you know the effort it took to get there. You know the amount of effort it took to go from 1000th to 999th, and you can be proud if you actually do it. And who knows how far you'll go in the end?
I don't actually hate running. I made a lot of friends because of it, and I have a lot of memories and stories from running. Not all good, not all bad. I feel like I was always someone who could fight through pain to chase after goals, but if I wasn't, I surely was after my cross country days. I know what it takes to go from the bottom, almost no natural talent at all, to a respectable level. To me, running will always represent that. A sport in which you always have to fight through pain to reach a higher goal. And so I let myself get called back to it from time to time, to fight through and put a new ending on the stories of the past, and to create some new stories as well.
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