Invisible Elephants

Sometimes in life you just have to go for it.  I’m not sure what it is for you, but I imagine there must be a goal or a project or a dream or a position or a relationship that you have been meaning to pursue and that you fully intend to go after, but you are just not quite there yet.  Or maybe you don’t know how to begin.  Please believe me when I say that if you just put yourself out there, you will either make great things happen, or at the very least you will wind up with a good story to tell about the time you tried … win/win, right?

When I was a freshman in high school, I decided to join the track team.  I was NOT a distance runner.  But I was fast.  And I could jump.  So when winter indoor track season rolled around, sprinting and the 50 yard hurdles were my events.  I understood the concept of going full speed the moment a race began.  But I had no clue about how to pace myself during a race of any considerable length.  Nobody had ever mentioned to me that pacing was a thing – an important thing, at that.  I only knew that I had to get through my races as quickly as possible.

This lack of crucial pacing knowledge blindsided me early on during that first season when my coach decided to put me into a distance relay race (4×800 meters).  He asked me to run it because one of the girls who normally ran the leg I would be filling in for was not in attendance that night.  He thought it would be good experience for me to run with upperclassmen, plus we would have had to forfeit that event otherwise.  So I agreed, carefully memorizing the only bit of advice I remember receiving prior to the race: “Don’t drop the baton.”  Right, got it, I mused at the time.  How hard can this be?  

Though my memory fails me when I try to recall the many details of that night, some things are impossible to forget.  For example, the gasps and excited whispers from the small, scattered crowd in the bleachers saying things like “Look at her go!” and “She’s so fast!”  will be forever etched in my brain as I think of the glorious moments after I was handed the baton and I took off running like my life depended on it.  I blew by the other runners that had been ahead of our team just seconds before.  Then I began to create a hefty distance between myself and the other runners.  It was incredible!  My adrenaline was pumping and the crowd was in awe as I flew around that track.

One thing I should mention is that this was a small, indoor track that made it necessary to run an obscene amount of laps to equal an 800 meter distance.  So as I approached lap five or six, something awful happened.  I simultaneously felt like my lungs were about to explode, I was going to throw up, and my legs were going to buckle at any moment.  With at least as many laps still to go, I thought I might actually die.  Horrified, the reality sank in  that in order to simply survive, I had to start slowly jogging in front of these people that I had just recently impressed, all the while not knowing if I would soon have to be peeled off of the track and resuscitated before the race ended.  It was enough to send me into a slight panic.

I started breathing desperately, moving my heavy feet around the track the best I could, watching with wide, disappointed eyes as the other runners sailed past me effortlessly, pacing themselves beautifully.  I still don’t know how I did it, but somehow I finished my leg of the race, and I guaranteed my team last place in that event (by a lot).  I leaned over, sick, shaky, wheezing, trying to catch my breath, and my coach patted me on the back.  Then he looked at me and said something that I have never forgotten.  He said, “You started out so fast, and then partway through the race it looked like an invisible elephant fell on your back or something.”  I just looked back at him.  And then I looked over at the cute wrestler that I had a secret crush on who had come to watch part of the meet.  At that moment I welcomed death.

But I didn’t die.  It remains among my most embarrassing experiences in life to date, but I survived it. I didn’t quit.  And I gained a story I enjoy telling years later from that awful race.  I went on to win other races and even set a freshman record in the 50 yard high hurdles event that season.  I focused on my strengths. I learned about my weaknesses.  And I had a lot of fun.

Since the age of seven, my answer was always “a writer,” when I was asked what I wanted to be when I grew up.  And now I’m grown, and still have that dream, but am not quite sure how to start.  So I will start here, with this story, to introduce my blog.  Welcome to my beginning.  This is the time I tried writing.  Not sure where this pursuit will take me but I am going for it.  Really hoping to steer clear of invisible elephants along the way though.