As I'm running through the trees being chased by one girl, I suddenly notice that another kid is flanking me from the left (I suppose it was some sort of a team version of tag!). I don't have a moment to think and do the one thing that comes naturally - veer right and pick up the pace.
I feel fast. Really fast. The trees and the bushes zoom towards me and past me, in a green-black blur. I forget the feel of ground under me and not notice as I'm brushed by tree branches or bushes. I remember, with great satisfaction, the look of surprise on the flanking kid's face as I streak past his stretching hand.
"Я бежал как антилопа" or "I ran like an antelope" I think to myself that night, looking back on that moment. Why would a six-seven year old kid be thinking about running like antelopes? If I had to guess, it was because about that time I was reading lots of Mayne Reid - he writes about adventures in places like Africa, such as The Giraffe Hunters. Bottom line is the phrase stuck and is one of my earlier memories.
Though this was sprinting. My first encounters with distance running were hateful. Our PE teacher was an old, gruff and grumpy man. He was also short and skinny and walked with a permanent limp. He looked like the sort of guy who smoked a lot and spent lots of time in the sun. Or maybe he had some Caucasian in him. Not white, but someone who is from the Caucasus - I just don't know how to say it in English. He was strict, could weave magic with his hands and a basketball, but couldn't run to save his soul.
OK, so he did have a limp, but that didn't make me any less mad at him when he made us run circles around the Gym while standing on the side and barking commands. Oh, I hated those days. Unlike running fast and short, which is all fun and WEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE, running those circles, I felt pain in my side, pain in my legs, I sweat, I was short of breath. It was all sorts of bad news. I remember cutting corners, just wanting the whole ordeal to be over.
My feelings towards distance running didn't change much in high school. I dreaded the days we had to run the mile - or one lap around the school (it was a big school - 4500 kids - 3rd biggest in the US. We had to have three staggered tracks so only 3000 kids would be at the school at one time.) I was light on my feet and skinny, so I did OK - my time was typically in the low 6s and once I broke 6. But it wasn't any fun and I dreaded the pain and having to push myself as my legs didn't want to move and were turning to Jell-O. There was one guy who had his friend pick him up in a car and drop him off close to the finish line. If I wasn't so straight-laced, I would have wished I was him.
Where am I going with this?
Oh right, how I hated distance running ever since I can remember.
So in college, I didn't do any organized sports for the first two years. (I guess I didn't do any organized sports in high school, or ever.) Then one summer evening in 2004 I was watching the High Jump event of the Olympics. Those women looked beautiful, with their rippling quads, and it looked like SO MUCH FUN. I love to jump. Jump over trash cans, jump to reach the ceiling, jump over rivers, jump out of a second floor window. Jump jump jump. So the next morning I emailed the track coach and asked what it would take for me to be on the team at my college?
"Just come to practice," she replied. That's it??? Yay for Division III.
Despite what I consider a pretty good natural jumping ability (I cleared 5' with a scissor kick jump), I was not on my way to becoming a world champion high jumper. I could never get the flop down for the life of me... I just have a hard time multi-tasking and keeping track of so many things in such a short period of time. Stomach tucks in where and legs and arms and head and then reverse it all in the next split second.
In the meantime, I started dabbling in the sprints. Oh I LOVE the sprints. They're short, painless and I can run like the antelope again! Painless - that's before I discovered the 4. To my surprise I fell in love with the 4. It's the longest run that doesn't require any strategy. Well, maybe the pros have strategy, but my time improved by a few seconds when the coach told me to stop pacing myself and go all out as if I'm doing a 100 from the very start. I looked forward to putting on my spikes. I had these zebra spikes that made me run completely on my toes. It felt light and FAST. I hear my feet in those spikes clacking on the rubber track just thinking about it. But what I loved the most about a 400 (and what I dreaded too and anticipated every time) is the feeling of complete exhaustion at the finish line, from giving it all I've got.
That's how I became a snobby sprinter. When every once in a while Sarah convinced me to go running with her, it was all bitching and moaning the whole way. "I'm a sprinter," I would say. "I like my pain in short sweet intervals, and I'm done." I complained about the pain - that's the thing that got me the worst in distance running. I didn't have a very high pain tolerance. I bitched about her going too fast. I got mad at her for wanting to talk to me ("I don't want to talk when I'm in pain! Leave me alone, I'm only doing this for you."). Back then it was very puzzling why people would subject themselves to these things. Particularly the marathon, which Sarah ran. That's ~4 hours of non-stop pain!! What are they thinking?!?!
How did I go from that to wanting to run 100 miles? I'm frankly puzzled myself, but I'd have to write about that in the next post.
That's awesome about the guy who's friend would pick him up.
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