The joy of running

I am about to embark on retelling a powerful running story that has a lot of historical accuracy, as well as unfortunately many, many, cliches. However if you plan on only reading a segment of this post I plead you to skip it entirely, because without the full picture the story loses its greater meaning.

Running is pain, the only way one can run fast is to take that pain and put it into the back of their minds. What I just typed is commonly known as a lie. Running hurts but you cannot put that pain in the back of your mind. To run fast you must take the pain and love it. Each agonizing and painful gasp as the cramp on your side slowly begins to creep across and cramp the other side.

Yesterday I ran a race in which I was able to achieve my sole purpose in racing. Now the goal that I have may be different from others, and some may try to say they never have the same goal in mind, but they are liars or a saint. My sole goal in running is to find a kid who I should be able to beat and beat him. However, beating them is not enough. I find a person I can beat sure, but I choose that person who has a large crowd cheering for him, that way when I beat him, I destroy him.

Now what justifies beating? For me a loss in running is being passed within the last 400 meters of the race. Naturally I work this into my scheme. I will purposefully slow my pace during that last 400 meters so that the person I have chosen believes he has some sort of hope. His parents and friends are cheering for him. "GO EVEN GO!" The part I love however is with 100 meters to go. I begin to pick it up and immediately the shouts change to, "EVEN RUN, EVEN DON'T GET PASSED, WATCH OUT!" but even more satisfying is the silence that follows.

In the race yesterday I chose who I wanted to beat at around a mile to go. His name was Even and he had more fans than he had skill. He pestered me which of course meant he had little chance I would not chose him. We had been close enough for the majority of the race for me to find out that many people were hoping he would pull through and run a great race. The part that really angered me and forced me to chose to crush him in the end was when we were on a very slim path in the woods, so slim that we had to go single file, the cocky little kid snuck by me and then tried to pick his pace up. Could he add insult to injury? You better bet he could. We had to make to laps around this 1.5 mile loop and toward the end of the loop there was a bell hanging from a string. The previous time I had hit the bell before him, then he hit it behind me. This kid hit the bell so hard on this last passing that the bell swung around the branch it was hanging from several times, putting it out of reach of my swinging arm to hit it. His fate was sealed with that mockery of my pride.

The last 300 meters of this race was on the track. I was feeling surprisingly good for the end of a 3.1 mile race, so I began to set my trap. I slowed my pace a little and let him edge out in front. Screams of "GO EVEN, You got this" filled my ears and I laughed a little on the inside. Never before in my life have I lost a race once I hit 300 meters to go. Sure many people get there before me and are far out of reach, but any kid who is within ten meters of me when hitting 300 to go, is about to see my sprint. Anywho, Even was just another one of these kids, as we reached 200 meters left, I picked up my pace and was dead even with him by 150 meters to go, then I began to toy with the poor boy. Vengeance persay for the incident with the bell. I started wheezing and gasping and slowed so that he thought he had me beat. I let him get 20 meters up on me, a fine challenge I thought. Screams for Even doubled. Just then the fatigue faded from my face and I began my sprint. If you go to X-C races you will know few people have a kick left for the end, I always make sure I do even if it means running the race slower. Now I rocketed up to where Even was so that there was around 50 meters between us and the finish line, when I was on his shoulder, I felt his pain as he tried to go faster but couldnt. I saw the look in his parents faces as I slowly crept ahead of him, then let out my real sprint and destroyed any chance he had at catching me. I had won.

Raphael Addante