Graceful. Gliding. Effortless. Precise. Powerful. Poetic. Beautiful.
See, these were words going through my head. I was watching the Olympics. Hurdlers, actually. A special breed, the hurdler. They are like no other. Don’t categorize them with track and field athletes. No, they belong in a special grouping of adventure-seeking sportsmen. Like hunters who wrestle bears. Motorcyclists who jump through rings of burning gas. Snowboarders who race avalanches down mountainsides.
You know, idiots. But in a good, thrill-seeking, “hey-look-my-pants-are-on-fire” kind of way.
Well, maybe idiots is a strong word.
But it does take a special kind of loony to be a hurdler. Either way, when they do it right, they are mesmerizing artists.
And if you ever ran hurdles yourself, then another thought also runs through your head: Boy, did I suck!
That night you are visited in your sleep by the ghosts of horrifying, awful, painful races you ran back in the day. I was. I found myself back on a high school track. It was my first meet. My coach — a sadistic, horrible person … she answered “torture” and “punish” when asked about favorite hobbies — selected me — gangly ‘ole me! — to run the 330 meter hurdles.
It was evening, under the lights of some track in the middle of Florida’s vast supply of nowhere. There were cows roaming through the infield, if I’m recalling correctly, and the lightest runners were carried off by swarms of mosquitoes.
Like everyone else, I was dressed in thin, little shorts and a slim tank top. It felt like I was running in paper napkins. I felt naked. Like that other nightmare when you show up for school without any clothes on.
I had practiced for the hurdles once or twice. But nothing prepared me for dropping into the blocks and staring down the line at those towering blockades. I saw castle walls topped with spikes. I saw spinning saw blades in a mill. I saw looming, intimidating barriers laughing and calling me a sesame seed. A sesame seed!
The gun went off. As I approached each hurdle, my brain panicked. Oh gosh! Oh gosh! Oh gosh! Who put a freakin’ hurdle on the track!?!
BAMMMMM!!!!
If I was lucky, I would crash right there and spend the rest of the race rolling around on the track, waiting for medical personnel to locate my knees.
If I was unlucky, I was still on my feet and staring down the next hurdle.
Oh crap, I made it over! Oh crap, I made it over!
BAMMMMM!!!!
I rarely ever cleared a hurdle clean. I slammed into them with tremendous force. It felt like a 600-pound gorilla swinging a Louisville slugger at my feet. I feared I might be catapulted backwards. The sound of hitting the hurdle was a crack. Like a bolt of lighting. Or a tree branch snapping. Or an interstate pileup.
Often my foot would snag one like a hook, tossing the obstacle violently across the track. Lucky for the other runners, they were always well-ahead of me. They sent their hurdles tumbling my way.
Oh jambalaya, they’re coming from everywhere!
BAMMMMM!!!!
It wasn’t graceful. It wasn’t effortless. It wasn’t in the least bit beautiful. I stutter stepped. Sometimes I all but stopped. Should I search out a step ladder? Keep the momentum, I reminded myself. Plow through. Nothing could be worse for a boy — boys have sensitive private regions, you know — than landing squarely on top of the hurdle like a cowboy leaping onto a horse. I’ve seen it happen. Those runners spent the next week in a fetal position praying for death.
I would remind myself of my goals: Survive, or at least die quickly. Ignore bystanders who were pointing and saying, “What’s wrong with him? Was he born that way?” Have the strength to talk when I finished. That way I could walk over to my coach and tell her: “I quit!”
I was a mess. I resembled a sideways free-fall — arms and legs flailing about, mouth wide open screaming in terror, eyes closed …
Wait a minute … eyes closed?!? Open your eyes, stupid!
BAMMMMM!!!!
These Olympic runners didn’t run with their eyes closed. Even when they crashed, they did it with grace. Gliding. Effortless. Beautiful. Crazy loonies, those mesmerizing artists. Thank goodness it’s no longer me.