Hurdles

“The whole race, I was stretching every stride just to get my three steps between the hurdles. I was taking lunging strides, not sprinting strides, and my hurdling form was terrible as a result. That race felt like it was a million meters long, and every time I thought I had cleared the last hurdle, there stood another one waiting for me. When I finally crossed the finish line, all I felt was relief that the race was over.”

“The first time I ran the 300-meter hurdles was a disaster. I’d been bamboozled by my high school coach, who had convinced me to run track as a sophomore by telling me I’d just be a jumper. “You’ll stay in shape for football,” he said. But when we got off the bus for a meet against Flint Northwestern, he told me I’d be running the hurdles. I had never run over a hurdle before, but I had eaten two roast beef sandwiches on the bus ride down. What could possibly go wrong? That day I learned a few things: first, I was a pretty lousy jumper; second, the 300-meter hurdles is just about the hardest race that exists at the high school level; and third, roast beef sandwiches taste a lot better on the way down than they do on the way up.”