Track & Field: A True Story
Please join me for an embarrassingly slow jog down memory lane.
Let me set the scene: it was springtime in the early 2000’s, and I was a freshman in high school. After failing to get the desired results with a bottle of Sun In, I made my dad highlight my dark hair using a $5 box of blonde hair dye. Justin Timberlake had just broken up with Britney Spears via text message.
It was a tumultuous time for both of us.
For some reason I can no longer remember or comprehend, I decided to join the Track & Field team. I was never a particularly athletic child. I dreaded going to gym class, and I was afraid of the ball in pretty much every sport. Maybe it was the lack of balls being thrown at my face that made Track somewhat appealing.
When the time came to choose which events I wanted to compete in, I was able to narrow it down pretty quickly.
I wasn’t fast, so I knew all of the sprint events would be out of the question. I settled on the mile, since that was about endurance vs speed, but I quickly learned during practice, that while I couldn’t run fast, I also couldn’t run far.
Every afternoon, I would head out with the other distance runners, trying to keep up with their pace. I was always towards the back of the pack, but I tried my best, striving to get a little better with each practice.
When it was time to compete in our first track meet, I lined up at the start on one of the inside lanes. I tightened my ponytail as we got into position and waited for the gun to fire, signaling the start of the race.
As I heard the shot, I took off, then tried to maintain a steady speed that would allow me to keep up, without tiring too early into the race. Almost immediately, I saw one of the other girls passing me out of the corner of my eye.
Then another.
Then another.
Then another.
THEN ANOTHER.
By the end of the first lap, I could see ALL of the other competitors ahead of me, the gap between us widening with each step.
As I pushed through my last lap, out of breath and legs exhausted, I saw each of them finish the race from across the other side of the track. That’s right, I didn’t just come in last. Everyone finished the race, and then the crowd still had to watch me run at least 1/8 of the event by myself. The winner could have quite literally ‘lapped’ me if she took a victory lap.
But unfortunately, I couldn’t just be bad at running, because you had to choose at least two events to compete in.
I knew that there was no chance I was going to choose one of the sports that involved jumping, as those all ranged from mildly terrifying (long jump), to highly terrifying (pole vault).
I’m sorry, you want me to run while holding a giant pole and then use it to launch myself many feet into the air over a very high bar? Absolutely not.
You’d like me to leap over (multiple???) hurdles while I run very slowly? The running part is embarrassing enough, you want me to fall on my face while I do it, too?
So, what option did that leave me with, you might ask?
Friends, I signed up for Shot Put.
If you don’t know, Shot Put is the one where you throw a heavy metal ball as far as you can. Do you know how much a regulation High School Girls Shot Put weighs?
I do, because I just Googled it.
8.8 pounds.
Fun fact: when I go bowling, an 8 pound ball is kind of too heavy for me to roll, so I always choose the hot pink 5 pound children’s ball. Yet I signed up for a sport where I essentially had to chuck a bowling ball as far as I could with my tiny twig arms.
According to the internet, a good throw for a high school girl would be about 30+ feet. I threw it at most, maybe 6 feet? I was basically doing the track equivalent of an air ball.
I was so bad at this event, that it was absolutely not worth me competing. I knew if I told the coaches that, though, they would be all like, “oh, you can do it, just try your best!” Like we hadn’t both seen me attempt to run a mile.
So instead, I started going to the bathroom right before it was my turn, so I wouldn’t be there when they called my name, then when I came out I could be like, “Oh no! I can’t believe I missed my turn! Darn! That is unfortunate.”
After hiding in the bathroom for the third time, I thought, “hmm.. maybe Track is not for me?” I assume the coaches came to this realization long before I did.
I competed in just two track meets during my illustrious career, but I went to a few more practices before making my grand exit from the team.
One afternoon after practice, a group of about 20 of us — 19 athletes, and me — were waiting outside of the stadium for our parents to pick us up.
Suddenly, a brand new car pulled up. This navy blue beauty was unlike anything anyone had seen. It was retro-inspired, but also totally unique, and as one of the first of its kind in our town, it turned heads everywhere it went. Kids were clamoring to get a look at it and making comments like, “Woah, what is that?” and, “So cool! I wonder whose it is?”
As my stepdad rolled his window down to wave, we could hear one of the great poets of our generation, Sisqó, crooning through the speakers:
“She had dumps like a truck, truck, truck,
Thighs like what, what, what”
I walked to the car, flipping my hair over my shoulder, as I felt everyone staring in envy. I imagined that this must be what Lindsay Lohan felt like leaving the club as paparazzi shouted her name.
I put on my white sunglasses and waved to my former teammates from the window of our PT Cruiser.1 Then, I thought to myself, “this must be what it feels like to be a winner.”
I vehemently maintain that the PT Cruiser WAS COOL when it came out! People don’t believe me now because of how quickly it became the Nickelback of cars, but I swear this was real! People genuinely stopped and stared at us (in a good way!) when we drove around town for the first couple months.
