| My Final Lap Inhale. Inhale. One large intake of breath divided in two, feeding my tired lungs air in an almost rhythmic way. Exhale. Exhale. That same breath is expelled from my body, also in two rhythmic bursts. The double breathing technique falls in with my strides; every time one of my feet come down, there is a sharp inhale or exhale to go along with it. The technique doesn’t really help me that much—it’s just something that Coach urges us to do. If anything, it gives me something to concentrate on when all other images fade from my mind. But my lungs remain starved for air, and they let me know it, too. Every once and a while one of my inhales becomes a sudden gasp for air, though if anything, this is more a habit my body has gotten into than any real need for air; I always tend to look and act more tired than I really am. The soles of my shoes slam onto the hot asphalt repeatedly, and any noise they make never reaches my ears, probably because of my breathing, which always seems exceptionally loud when I’m out on one of these masochistic excursions. I still haven’t quite mastered the whole “roll from your heel to your toe” process that Coach keeps drilling into my skull, but again, it doesn’t hamper my progress terribly much—or if it does, I don’t realize it. I need new shoes, I realize as my feet react to the uncomfortable jolt caused by the connection my legs keep making with the ground. This is a pretty stupid thought, of course, since I just got new shoes at the start of the season. Expensive little buggers, too—comfort is never cheap. Truth be told, nothing seems really comfortable now except the thought of an icy sports drink waiting for me at the end of all this. But this is just how it always is, since while I know the rewards of success it’s the getting there, as usual, that’s the hard part. My right hand flies up from my side to swipe away another infuriating rivulet of sweat that thought it would be cute to meander its way into my eyeball. It’s a losing battle, I know, since more sweat will take its place soon enough, but sweat is salty and salt stings, so it’s a battle I’m willing to fight. I push on forward, passing an upperclassman in a red uniform denoting a well-to-do local school…the kind of school I have no particular love for. Money doesn’t buy endurance pal, I chide inwardly as I pass him up, adding length to my strides and ignoring the protests made by the muscles down there, mostly because I knew them to be the Democratic Protests—the kind where I felt pain, but it is reasonably light and just a warning. I will, of course, push the pain to its limits and then it will turn Fascist on me, which is when things will really get hard. But one thing at a time… Inhale. Inhale. Exhale. Exhale. I like this park. I really do. I just can’t think of anything good about it at the moment. The nice, green landscape and the generally well-kept playground facilities just don’t seem quite so important anymore. I hate this place, I tell myself as I round a corner, beginning the last stretch of street before entering the grassy park interior. It’s far too big. In my head, I know that the park is only about a mile in diameter, and the laps I’ve been working on are each a mile long as well, but I just can’t get rid of the thought that the park is the size of, oh, say, Antarctica, and my job is to circumnavigate the continent on foot. Of course, that too is a stupid thought. After all, Antarctica is rather cold, and it’s hot enough to melt the polar ice caps where I’m running, Take a look at that, man! I say to myself. There’s a guy right in front of you, another one in red. I decided long ago that the voice in my head is named Bob. Yeah, people might laugh if they knew, but your mind wanders a lot when you have nothing else to concentrate on besides a searing pain in your side, and if I am going to talk to myself then there might as well be a name behind the invisible persona. Of course, this could also just be the start of schizophrenia…cross-country running, the sport of the insane. But insane or not, nothing beats the feeling of personal satisfaction that you can probably only get when you succeed in this particular sport. And yet, of course, that’s all at the end, and I’m in the middle, and Bob has just presented an interesting opportunity to me. He’s in red, man—a rich boy. He’s the Enemy. And he’s right there I focus my eyes on his not-so-distant figure and realize right away that he’s a better athlete than I am. He’s going to beat me, and probably a whole lot of others, and I’ll need my big effort for the final stretch. It just isn’t worth the effort to pursue him. Oh, but it is. Curse you, Bob. You’ve done it again. Inhale. Inhale. Exhale. Exhale. I sprint forward, putting far more effort into my strides. I’ve had a good race, and I’m not going to let anyone down by keeping up at my original pace. I know that. But Bob has made an interesting point, as usual. All those reasons why I should let this guy beat me, they didn’t really make any sense. Why should this guy make it to the line before me? I’ve worked hard. I don’t have anything to prove, but it would look good nonetheless if I did. Good. Keep it up. It’s gonna be brutal, but money doesn’t buy endurance, right? Sometimes I really hate Bob. Especially since this isn’t the first time he’s done something like this. “Jog the back arc,” Coach barked as our school cross-country team marched along the predetermined path, “and take this straight stretch here at a sprint! I want everything you got, you hear? Use the back arc to recover, but don’t you dare dog it on me. You’ll do this for fifteen minutes starting—now!” We were running in the parking lot in the same park that is hosting my current meet. A road curved around the back of the lot to allow easier access to those who wanted to bypass the parking area altogether and follow the road to the nearby highway. It formed a letter D of sorts, and the straight part of the D, the parking lot itself, was perhaps 75 meters long. The back arc, in comparison, was at least 150 meters, so this really wouldn’t be a hard task. We all started in the parking lot—of course—and no one really put their all into the short sprint. We gathered speed on the back arc, since we had little need to recover. I was one of the first to reach the parking lot, and I was making a little race out of it with another of my teammates. I remember that losing to him was not entirely unexpected—he was a bit better than I was—but it stung nonetheless. I had sprinted fast enough this time that I needed the recovering time, but not much. I sprinted even faster on the next run through the parking lot, but my adversary was still in the lead when the sprint was over. Sweat poured down my body and drenched my shirt already. It had been a rough day, and in the hot summer sun, no less. My lungs were burning, and my side hurt to the point that I figured I must have come down with appendicitis. Well, of course. You just finished the 400-meter sprints, and you always outrun most of the others there. This wasn’t even the final exercise. I wasn’t going to catch the guy in front of me, and when I came near the parking lot again, I knew it all the more. It just wasn’t worth it to use the effort I might need later on in the day to catch this guy in some nonexistent race. Oh, but it is. Curse you, Bob. I sound like a nutcase…I just know it. There is no “imaginary friend” named Bob; it’s just a name I give to my own thoughts, a sort of game. Puerile, perhaps, but when you’re running it’s really amazing how little you care about people’s notions of childishness and maturity. You just have to use whatever methods you can that might work. And work they did, strange or not. My teammate had the lead, and so he began his sprint before I did, since he got to the parking lot first. It didn’t matter. I increased my pace even before I was technically off of the back arc and just flew. It’s really an interesting feeling, knowing you’re actually moving as fast as you can, especially without being asked to. You just kind of lose yourself in euphoria briefly…I think my health teacher called them “endorphins” or something like that. I don’t know how I convinced my body to take me to those speeds, but it happened, and that was all that mattered. Of course, no matter how exhilarating the drunken aura is, the hangover is always the more memorable phase of the process, and never for good reasons. Spent, exhausted, and with lungs that were fairly ready to explode, I took the back arc slower than I had in a long time. I was afraid that Coach would scold me for “dogging it”, but it mattered little to me then. Besides, seeing Coach’s jaw drop like that, like some cartoon character that’s just witnessed something terribly shocking, made everything worth it. I’d impressed him. Inhale. Inhale. Exhale. Exhale. Don’t die. Inhale. Inhale… We are on the grass now, having left the asphalt behind. Hard as that surface is, I miss it already. The hills are full of holes that are just waiting to catch my ankle and twist it off. Still, I go faster and faster, becoming lost in the final stretch. Inhale. Inhale. Exhale. Exhale. Exhale. Inhale. Exhale. Inhale. Inhale. Oh forget it, I’m all messed up! Faster! I know you can move faster, legs! Do it! My face and eyes are drenched in sweat, and I’m ready to bet money that my lungs are in the process of crumbling. Still, I force my legs to go farther and farther, until… Yes, it’s over! I beat the red guy, too, and he was giving it his all as well. The crowd is roaring its congratulations. The red guy jogs past the finish line while I continue at my breakneck pace. I would just love to join him over there with the spectators and the cold beverages, and I will. I know I will. Just as soon as I complete my final lap. People won’t understand why I tried to tie the sixth place boy even though he was a whole lap ahead of me. Did I forget I had another lap? How embarrassing! But no, that’s not it, and only certain people will get it. I’ll finish in the middle of the pack, and my race time will be loads better because of that particular race. Probably even a career best. But, of course, I won’t know until I get there. Inhale. Inhale. Exhale. Exhale… |
| Entry into Ball State Creative Writing Contest, short story category. This is more or less how I feel running a race. There's no bloodshed, which, compared to most every other story here besides the comedies, makes this a bit unique. |