Hurdles

I went to a very, very small school from third grade through graduation.

One of the advantages was that, if you were at all athletically inclined (or if your parents at all wanted you to be), you could definitely play any sport you wanted to. Even if you really weren’t that good at it. At all. Which is how I ended up on the track team at the end of my junior year.

There were about ten of us on the team, and all of us were forced (sorry, encouraged) to compete in multiple events. We would give up our afternoons to train during the week, then give up Saturdays to go a track meet with all the other sad track kids from the other smalls schools in our area.

Needless to say, I was less than thrilled about it.

First of all, I was not much of a runner. I am not built to run - I have thick legs and wide, child-bearing hips. Also, I didn’t like to sweat much and definitely did not give 110% during practice. I was averaging 40-73%, on a good day. It wasn’t completely my fault: I had broken my ankle during junior high, and, since I neglected to complete my physical therapy, running for more than about ten minutes caused an extravagantly painful stabbing sensation that originated in my ankle and travelled the length of my leg. The only track event I competed in with any degree of skill was carbo-loading on Friday nights.

Nevertheless, for some bizarre reason, my track coach looked at my stumpy little body and bum ankle and thought “hurdler.” I suspect now that he was just as out of his depth as the rest of us were.

I sucked at the hurdles. I could at least make it through the shortest hurdle distance, but not quickly, and not without leaving a trail of downed hurdles behind me. The longer hurdle distance was completely beyond me, and I would frequently end up walking the last bit of it, halfheartedly stepping over the hurdles and trying to ignore the screams of my coach. I also fell down a lot.

Unfortunately, I was still good enough in our little bush league to make it all the way to the semi-finals before the State meet. I was completely fed up with track, and dreaded qualifying for State. I was in luck, however. Another hurdler had joined our team a few weeks before, and she was actually good. She was long, lean, and flowed over the hurdles like a gazelle on crack. I felt confident that she would blow past me and knock me out of the running.

So, I wasn’t too worried as we lined up for our race. I was in the lane closest to the stands. The Gazelle was in the next lane, and there were four other runners in the race. I exploded (read: stumbled) out of my traces at the crack of the gun. The Gazelle was already three strides ahead of me and leaping effortlessly over her first hurdle. I cleared my first hurdle, counted the paces to my second, and made it over that one as well. As I pushed off to jump the third, I heard a horrible noise from the lane next to me. The Gazelle had somehow gotten her feet tangled around her fourth hurdle and gone down, also managing to take out the hurdler next to her, who skidded into the next lane and tripped up a third runner. Of the other two racers, one girl was even worse than me and was well behind the pack. The other was far better than the rest of us, had already finished the race, and was now sipping Gatorade and chatting with her coach, probably laughing at the rest of us.

As I hustled past the struggling, bleeding form of the Gazelle, it occurred to me, Hey, I might get second. Then I would go to State. I felt my legs get a little wobbly. If I made it to State, that was another three weeks of training. Another three weeks of spending every afternoon at the public high school track, missing important social events and TV shows. Another three weeks of wearing our incredibly unattractive and itchy school-supplied track shorts, which made my legs look like bloated white sausages. I could hear the Gazelle behind me, breathing hard, trying to catch up. I’m going to beat her! I thought, horrified. The finish line loomed large and threatening, too close.

So I slowed down. In defiance of everything ever taught to me by my parents or my coaches about organized sports, I let the Gazelle get past me. After I felt she was safely ahead of me, I resumed my racing speed and came across the finish line in acceptable third place. The other two girls that had fallen were still on the ground, tending to their wounds.

As our parents came out of the stands to congratulate us and hand us our sweatshirts, I felt my dad’s eyes upon me. I turned and looked into his face. He knows! I thought. My heart sank. My dad has always been a staunch advocate of doing your best, even if you hate whatever it is you are doing. I knew I had failed and would probably get a thoroughly scathing lecture on the drive home about responsibility and integrity.

But, he merely handed me my sweatshirt, smiled, and said, “You probably shouldn’t go out for track next year. You’re really pretty awful.”