Did you ever notice?
How track and love go together? I don’t know about anyone else, but they do for me. Normally success in one will lead to success in the other. Run a race with your significant other watching you. With the most juvenile thought about courting, I want to impress her. No one wants to date the slow guy. These are some examples of what happens when you these instances occur or don’t.
Nike Indoor Nationals 2010: As I was speeding around the track I couldn’t focus on anything, no distinct visions or sounds. Coming into the home straight for the first lap, I saw my girl cheering for me by the end of the turn. I went H.A.M. The next lap, Passing four teams in one move and putting mine into first.
NY State Meet: After day one my team qualified for finals in the 4x4 and my girl had finished 2nd in the 3000m. I snuck into her room and we spent most of the night together cuddling. Around 12:30 I decided that I should leave because I didn’t want to ruin her focus or mine. Her 1500 was early in the morning and the 4x4 was the last event so she left in a group early than the relay team. We were about to make the turn into the track when I get a call from my best friend (also the alternate on the relay team), who my coach made go early saying that her race had started. I immediately had the oh shit feeling everywhere. By the time we parked, I had missed the race entirely by several minutes. This wouldn’t have been a big deal if she had done well. But she finished 7th/8th(?) after being seeded 3rd(?). After almost all of her races, good and bad, I snuck my way onto the infield, help her get her spikes off and her warms ups on, sometimes I did the cool down with her too. My team finished 4th, a great accomplishment considering we were seeded 12th coming in, we dropped 4 seconds in 2 days, everyone ran sub 50 (finally) that race. It should have been a really happy day. But it wasn’t because my girl was mad at me. She felt abandoned because I left her in the middle of the night, right before she was going to go to sleep, and I wasn’t there for her when she needed me. Sucked.
Last Dual Meet of XC (ever): It was against our rival school and I was the captain of my team. I battled the entire 4k, and in a 200m kick off edged out my competition by under a second. I had an 18 second pr, broke 14 minutes for the first time ever in the 4k (on my worst course), won my last dual meet, and beat my rival school. When I was through the shoot and walking back to our team’s area, my girl can up to me and gave me the biggest hug ever, even though I was drenched in sweat. She watched me the entire race and knew how badly I wanted it. One of the high points of my senior year…too bad I was diagnosed with achilles tendonitis the next day.
