Within 32 seconds.
I was an extremely competitive runner. My biggest opponent was always the clock. PRs meant everything and training started from the time I woke up until I got my third run in for the day. I knew that if I wanted to be the best, I had to work hard and always push myself. That was..until I started passing out. Tests were ran for two years, doctors could never figure out how a healthy, physically active teenager could pass out by just taking a flight of stairs. Suddenly, my biggest opponent was no longer the clock...it was myself, my body. My heart condition was diagnosed two years after I had these passing out spells. Although it’s been a long time since I’ve had an episode, I still recall the exact moment of my very first time “hitting the dirt”. Maybe, someone else will be able to relate...
“Sweat drips down the sides of her temples, running down her sun kissed cheeks. Her clothes cling to her body, constricting every step she takes as she walks around the giant oval. The hair band that holds her hair into a wind-whipped, loosened pony tail sinks further and further towards her neck from the constant bounce of her stride.
She is exhausted.
Thirty two seconds is equivalent to pumping your arms at the speed of light and rearing your knees up to eye level in running terms. Thirty two seconds is the time she's pressed herself to reach for all twenty of her 200 meter sprints with each one falling within range of thirty three and thirty four.
This was it, her final 200 meters.
She plants her left leg on the very tip of the faded out dash mark signifying the distance on the track to the finish line. Her legs tremble as her breathing has began to slow from the last of her mad dashes. She watches her coach, over her left shoulder, standing beside the finish line holding her worst enemy, the clock. Raising her hand to signal "get set", time freezes. The air goes still. Silence is the loudest sound that reverberates off the trees, the goal posts, and hurdles. She faces forward, vision honing in on the heat waves radiating off the 8 black lanes. And as her coach throws her arm down to her side with a yell that could have been any word in the dictionary, she takes off. Her muscles ripple with intensity as she pushes her body through the air slicing it like a knife. Quick arms leads to quick legs she reminds herself and pumps her arms hard and fast. Her breathing comes in deep gasps, leaving time to take 4 steps between each inhale. She rounds the corner, a little under 100 meters to go. She begins to sprint full speed gradually gathering all of her energy and pushing her body past pain, past feeling, past the sense of reality. She crosses the line and collapses. Panting, she looks for some sort of easier way to relieve the pain invoked in her chest from running at a speed she didn't even know she had. The air is stale and comes in heavy gasps through her dry mouth. She focuses on her coaches silent words coming from her moving lips as she lays flat on her back on the hot tar. Spinning. Faster and faster her coach floats above her moving the sky around into a monstrous blur. And as suddenly as she had fallen, her world goes black. All within thirty two seconds.
- Anonymous