Finishing Four

Remember those insane days when I thought I could run cross country? Turns out the only thing I really got out of it was writing material.

"Finishing Four"

Grayish-brown dust particles drifted up my nose and down the back of my neck where they clung to the sweat. A thousand little forks gouged the inside of my stomach. Mexican jumping beans bounced atop my full bladder. Dry sand coated the inside of my throat. I hoped that if I sat still enough the ground would suck me down into the dark brown dirt. Mom stood beside me as she had always stood beside three of my older siblings at their meets. They too had run on the Rogers High School cross country team and had proven the Kay family to be good runners—or at least to have good attitudes—a feat I had yet to accomplish. This was my last opportunity to prove myself, to set a personal record, to come in some other place than second to last.

Why did I do this? Was I trying to prove something? Did it have something to do with “upholding the family honor,” as Disney princess Mulan put it? After four years on the cross country team, the only thing I had to show was a pair of ratty, holey, beaded running shoes. The beads came from the coaches for joining the team; completing races; running “Monster Hill” and “Armpit,” two of the biggest, most treacherous hills in Puyallup; attending the annual Breakfast Run; and, perhaps more coveted than the beads given for first place, donating blood to our course—if you fall while running and start bleeding, you get the Blood Bead, a red heart that holds the topmost position on my shoelaces, right next to the small yellow string given to us after practice on September 11, 2001. But I could hardly say I did it for the beads. How many people want to walk around school bragging about beaded shoelaces? Maybe in first grade.

“Are you ready?” Mom said nonchalantly, but I couldn’t speak for fear of losing my lunch.

As Coach Lynch shot the five-minute warning gun, girls from three different teams clumped together near the starting line and began stripping down to their singlets and shorts. Boys from each team collected the girls’ warm-ups and sweatshirts. The fastest runners jumped to the front of the line, rolling their shoulders and jogging in place. The slower runners slumped to the back of the crowd and pretended, unconvincingly, to stretch like the others. I was among the latter group. As I stood, all the saliva I had managed to collect instantly fled my mouth. I awkwardly climbed out of my warm-ups and stood for a second or two, my face set and sullen. Before I had a chance to get in starting position, the gunshot blasted through the air, and my feet began moving automatically. The crowd of cheering parents, siblings, friends, teachers, and teammates rang through the school grounds, but I heard none of it. My only thought was, “I can’t do this for the next half hour.”

In the middle of the massive herd of girls I ran. One passed me. Soon another, and then another. As I sprinted around the first corner on the track, I glanced back hoping to see a horde of girls, but found I was last. Ahead, one by one, girls disappeared as they turned off the track and onto the course that wound through fields of tall, tan-colored grass, then over the “camel back,” a mountainous hill of trees and bushes. I gulped back the lump of ping-pong balls that began forming in the back of my throat as I trotted into the tall grass. I wanted to cry partly because I knew there was no hope for me to be as good as my siblings and partly because my energy had dissipated in the first two hundred meters. My back ached and my muscles tore. And I still had two miles left to go. “I can’t finish this race even with a walker,” I thought miserably to myself.

The sun vanished behind thick gray clouds, and small pellets of Washington water parachuted down to wet the dust that had collected on my face, legs, and head. My cheeks couldn’t tell the difference between the raindrops and the tears that started leaking from my eyes. Rather than dirt clouding in my wake, mud gummed on my shoes and sloshed up onto my back. I willed myself up the camel back, and then let the descent carry me down to the track. With only three hundred meters left I began thrusting my arms out as far as they would reach, grabbing at the air in front of me as if to pull me toward the finish line. Instantly, with the larger movement of my arms, my steps also began growing larger and faster. In a great eruption of adrenaline, I dashed down the track, my feet pounding into the black rubber, my arms swinging in front of my body, my lungs filling with and releasing gulps of cold oxygen in perfect synchronization with my steps, my insides writhing with pain. With all my energy focused on moving me steadily toward the end of my final race, I could hardly keep my eyes open as I gained speed. Every three steps, I allowed my eyes to close for four. The finish line got closer, but the screaming crowd seemed to be farther away from me than the sun. At last both feet crossed the white painted line. In ten steps I slowed to a walk. My side throbbed as I dry-heaved a dozen times. Every ounce of energy completely gone, my legs collapsed.

“I’m proud of you for finishing that race,” Mom said as she scooped her arm under me, though she looked more worried than proud.

“I…came in…last,” I said hoarsely between breaths.

“That’s okay. You finished. You did well.”

Although I wanted to believe Mom, I couldn’t. Merely finishing the race should have been enough, but it wasn’t. I wanted to be proud of myself for completing four years of a sport I hated, but I didn’t. I forced a smile and walked one hundred yards through the gravel parking lot to my car, unnoticed by the rest of my team as they cheered for the three fastest runners.