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Ever since seventh grade, I have run on the track team. I learned rather quickly in high school track that distance events, my original area, were not my rightful place because I had not been conditioned like all the other distance runners had. My dad suggested that I try hurdling. I talked to my track coach, Coach Gleason, and he said he would put me in the 300 hurdles at the next meet. I started watching the other hurdlers and looking at their times. Most were around 60 seconds so my goal for the race was to finish in less than 70 seconds, since it was my first time at this height and distance of hurdles. The race went well, and I finished in 57 seconds. I was hooked on hurdles and I didn’t look back.
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The rest of freshman year was a great experience, meeting the other hurdlers and improving to around 53 or 54 seconds. As the spring of sophomore year approached, I was itching for the snow to melt and the temperature to rise so that hurdling could resume again. The year started off uneventfully, but by midseason I managed to get a personal best time around 50.76 seconds. The focus of the rest of the season was to break 50 seconds. I wanted to break it at our Big 9 meet.
When I arrived at Faribault’s track the day of the conference meet, I was confident that this was my day to break 50. Then for my heat I got lane nine, which meant that I was one of the slowest in my heat and that I could not easily see my competitors. I have pre-race rituals that I go through, and the second bad thing to happen was that the guy hurdlers I usually do my rituals with had to find out their lanes during my race. I was a little flustered, but I approached the race just as any other.
The gun sounded, I burst out of the blocks, and I powered to the first hurdle. After a smooth first five hurdles (there are eight in a race), I was on the final 100 with only three hurdles standing between me and the finish line, and amazingly, no one in the inside lanes had made up the stagger on me -- I was winning the race! But then I heard people screaming in the stands, and I knew they weren’t cheering for me. Someone else was on my shoulder, on the brink of passing me. I jumped over the sixth hurdle—no one passed me. I powered through the hurdle but exhaustion was dawning. I made it over the seventh hurdle—my form was getting sloppy, and I was very tired from how fast I went at the beginning of the race. I was running as fast as my fatigued legs would go. 3 steps to go until the last hurdle…two…just as I was about to jump over the last hurdle, I saw out of the corner of my eye what all of the people in the bleachers had been screaming for; a girl no longer on my shoulder but right next to me. I tried as hard as I could to get over that last hurdle, but on my way up, I heard a crash and the next thing I remember was hearing a groan from the crowd and then being sprawled out over lane nine on the track, a mere 7 meters separating me and the finish line.
Track in general may not be a contact sport, but hurdling is. While I was down in lane nine, I had a burst of anger rush through me. I got up and stumbled over the finish line and then I cried. I didn’t know if I was crying because I was in pain or because I was overcome with disappointment in myself. I went and got my scrapes and “track rashes” looked at by the trainer and then I went back to our campsite where all of our team’s clothing and bags were. I was still crying and I still didn’t know why. I wanted to be left alone so I could ponder what could have been.
After a few minutes, Coach Gleason came over to me and said, “Megan, that was the best race of your life.” I didn’t believe him for the longest time, but after the season ended two weeks later I started to think about it even more. I did every possible thing right in that race, but it just wasn’t my day. Bad things happen and they give us the drive to go and try it again. I just wish I could have thought of it like that right after it had happened.
Big 9 was not the first time I fell over a hurdle, and it definitely won’t be the last. Coach Gleason’s words brought comfort to me in a time when my emotions were running high. His words have inspired me to work more in the off-season so I am able to finish what I started at Big 9 last year. I could have gotten very close to breaking 50 that day, but sometimes people need to get that close and fail to give them the drive to keep trying. I learned from Coach Gleason that day to never give up and to keep trying.
I will never forget those lessons for the rest of my life. The next time a hurdle of any kind tries to bring me down, I will approach it saying, “Hit me with your best shot.”
About the Laws of Life Essay Contest: Each year students at Cotter and Winona Senior High schools submit essays that reflect on the values, ideals and principles that mean the most to them in the annual Laws of Life essay contest, organized by Saint Mary’s University and sponsored by Winona-area businesses and organizations. Winners of individual categories receive cash and or varying-level renew-able scholarships to Saint Mary’s.
