Life is Full of Hurdles: An Inspirational Post About Melting My Windpants

05Jan12

Oh, the hurdles. The great equalizer. If you’ve never watched a track meet or enjoyed some schadenfreude on YouTube, you may not know that the hurdle can and will take anyone down without notice or respect for their athletic abilities. They certainly will have no restraint for a gangly 14 year old girl, either.

My freshman year of high school I was tricked into joining the track team by a good friend. I had grown up swimming year round, but now that I was in high school, the swim season was just a few short months, leaving me with several months throughout the school year to putter around. The friend encouraged me to join by telling me that really anyone can run, but more importantly that I would be bored after school while all of my friends did their winter sports.

I agreed and told my parents about my decision, was proud, eventually cried about it and kept on. This pattern can be applied to anything in my life, such a jobs, new pursuits, moves, colleges choices, you name it. The pattern is decide, announce, cry and persevere. Except when it came to the flute. I quit that shit no problem, no need to persevere.

Back to winter track. One thing I learned quickly once signing up for track is that while most people can run from, say, a maniac wielding a knife or a crossing light that is flashing that orange hand, running consistently isn’t something that is a simple “can do” for most. Self included. The first time I ran a full mile outside, my lungs burned so bad I was convinced I was bleeding internally. Screw distance running, it was short events for me! I should’ve countered this impulse decision with the fact I have never won a short foot race in my life, never the first on to “goo” and often got outran and tagged in free the box.

Winter track at my high school was a no-cut sport. So people like me would join the team and coaches would try to fill in the spots of the events and see where you fit. If they got lucky, they either found out your were pretty good or you just stopped bothering them. I started out with the 300, which is a short race, but not the shortest. I finished second to last consistently (which isn’t the worst, but again, “no-cut” sport,  you can imagine the people I was beating). So it was time to mix things up. Next came my flirtation with the 600. Third to last each time. Alright! Clearly I wasn’t cut out for either event, as I didn’t have much speed over the short course. But I did (still do!) have long legs. My coach noticed this and ignored the fact that I didn’t know much how to control them and invited me to try out some hurdles in practice. We practiced first in a hallway off of the gym and I managed to clear the hurdle a few times with out severely injuring myself. After a few days of this, it was time to practice around the track.

Being in New England and it being winter, most sports practiced inside, many at the same time. While the hurdles were being set up around the indoor track, the girls basketball teams (frosh, jv and varsity teams) were leaving the courts that were in the center of the track so that the boys teams could practice. This meant that six teams, all levels, were in the gym, possibly watching what was going on on the track at that time. My older brother was also a senior on the basketball team and was now doubt pretending that the gangly uncoordinated girl with a panicked look on her face wasn’t his sister.

The reason for the panicked look is that the hurdle requires you to gain speed and launch yourself over it, without catching your back foot and falling flat on your face. Even if you know me as a slightly more coordinated adult now, none of these things seem like something I can do. After getting uncomfortable sweaty palms and sizing up the hurdles, it was my turn to try to clear a few hurdles in a row.

I think the trauma of the event has been blocked out so I am not even sure that I cleared one hurdle before it all started to go wrong. Either way, in front of several basketball teams, I kicked the hurdle over and got my legs tangled before I even had a chance to clear it. I slid forward onto my hands and knees until I landed on my face.

Mortified by what had just happened, I lay on my stomach and thought what would be the best damage control. So I obviously gave a thumbs up. I like to pretend my friend Sarah on the basketball team saw the thumbs up but she either didn’t or was also pretending not to know me. Someone who did seem to know me was my brother’s teammate who promptly ran over to me, while I was still lying on the ground and yelled

“Oh SHIT! That’s Morell’s sister!” Pointing and laughter ensued. Not by me.

Valuable lesson is, no matter how long your legs are, it doesn’t make up for the fact your are uncoordinated.

Also the friction caused from eating shit on an indoor track will melt a hole in the knee of your wind pants. And you will keep wearing them for the rest of the season.

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