The Race of a Lifetime

Racing three miles is by far the most adrenaline pumping, pain filled and least time consuming thing you can do. Here i am, standing on the starting line to the hardest thing I'll ever do in my life. The starter's voice was inhuman, it was all like a really bad dream. When the gun went off it was a frenzy, a scrambling of body parts. My ears were buzzing as if millions of bees swarmed the inside my head. I imagined what a cheetah felt like when it was chasing its prey across great African plains, I'm sure that how I felt then was exactly what a cheetah felt. A kind of awe at how fast my body can move when well motivated. I flew by the other competitors with ease, they fell back like soldiers struck in battle during a charge. It was a charge, a mad dash for the trees, the first one to the turning point would surely be the winner. I was in the middle now, trapped like a hyena in a cage. Frenzied by the lack of motion, I pushed and tore at the people surrounding me breaking free from the group and taking the lead. I was miles behind the front packs, but I still had a chance, the race had only just began. My mind was already pushing me to tear free from my encumber-some body, I felt trapped even inside of myself. My body could not handle this it would tear my muscles to the point of no repair. My bones were creaking like an ancient rocking chair, my lungs were screaming for air, my tendons were tighter than piano strings. I kept going ignoring all the signs of defeat, telling myself it was just my doubting voice. I knew I was able to do this, I'd done it so many times before. It's just like dying when you feel those things, the pain was horrible, I kept ignoring it and pushing forward. I had so much to fight for, so much motivation.

“It's only going to last twenty minutes, that's all, just run your heart out for twenty minutes and you'll be bound for glory. Remember that the pain is just the doubting voice telling you to stop, after it starts talking you can still push yourself up another twenty-five percent before passing your threshold ” That's what I remember the coach telling me the day before the race.

Maybe he was right, maybe it was just the doubting voice. No! There was no maybe, he was right, he had to be right, he was right that i could push myself this hard and survive. I would not die just yet, no matter how much my body protested I was going to finish this. I was possessed now charging with the fury of all my ancestors. I must do my best, my mother would wish that from me, she always did her best to fight off illness. My legs began their screaming at me, they begged me to stop, they resisted my commands. I had to do this, I'd begun and I was going to see it through. Only a mile to go that's all I had left of this seemingly unending torture. I was coming up on the hill for the 3^rd and final time, I swear it got bigger everytime I saw it. It was gigantic now, at least three stories high, and now it was almost straight up, I had to crawl the hill, what used to be a bump in the easy course was now a mountain. At the top I wanted to stop my body screamed at me, begged me to let it rest, I refused. I continued on, my team needed me. One guy passed me in those last stretches, he flew by me on the next downhill, he was lightning fast, all I saw was a blur of red and black. By now my body had given up and the only thing that kept me moving was my will to help my team. Now at the final uphill the crowd was roaring around me, one voice stood out. I don't know how, but I heard her, my mother, telling me to beat the guy ahead. He was weak, he was my prey, my final prey. All I had left was my kick, it was something rarely relied on for runners. This is what it came down to, my life or his life, I knew what I had to do. I kicked it up a notch to bridge the gap between life and death for me. My mother's voice was gone now, all I could hear was the croud. Another voice popped out at me, my coaches', he was screaming something. He sounded like a monkey surrounded by bananas, or at least what I imagined that would sound like. I was on the final downhill, I let it carry me to it's base, and carried the speed. I was a cheetah now, he had no chance, he knew not what was coming. By the time that he knew I was upon him, I was long gone. I passed him with the speed and grace of cheetah, the very ground beneath me was on fire, my shoes had been burned from my feet, it was over now. The weight lifted. All that was left was the bile I could feel in my stomach. I shook his hand at the end of the finish shoot, that's what I remember. What my coach told me later is that I let him pass me at the finish line. My foot had been sucked into the mushy ground, it had sponged in my foot. I had gone down faster than a bullet. My head smashed into the ground with the ferocity of a tiger. I had collapsed right at the finish line. When the competitor I passed came upon my body he'd taken pity and picked me up and brought me through the shoot. I was a rag doll to him, heavier than an egyptian pyramid, but he carried me and himself through the shoot. He knew my fight well, all runners knew my fight, and he chose to help me through it. When I'd come to consciousness I was propped against the refreshments truck. I went back to the shoot and shook his hand. My own hand felt inhuman to me now, everything was hazy, it was expected after a race to be a little woozy. My ears were ringing for days afterwards. The next day my muscles and tendons were once again tighter than piano strings. My legs screamed for a week at the horror I put them through. I was relentless in my training none-the-less next time I raced him, I would win.