Winning Means Very Little, In the End
A story about a girl and a race.
The only time I ever won a race, I was not happy. I was baffled.
I was seventeen years old and obsessed with running. It filled my life the same way an addictive substance might — it was my every thought. Not getting faster, just sinking into that meditative place where my mind finally shut the hell up. That was bliss to seventeen year old Sam.
The race started out as any other. 5k or 3.1 miles, my favorite distance. After the starting shot, the faster girls pulled ahead and I settled into my normal pace. I was at the back of the leading pack, which was a surprise. It didn’t mean I was good — this group of girls were made up of athletic track runners, whose muscular bodies weighed them down in a distance race. Realistically, most of them were there for cross training, and not to compete seriously.
I, however, was in my last cross country season of high school. After two years of training, my body was in top form, and I would go on to bash personal record after personal record that fall, before I eventually got injured and had to stop forever. Not only that, I was captain of the team, and eager to beat my past times.
I’ve never been extremely competitive. Maybe in silly games, but not in anything serious. It gave me too much…
