Bounce Back

If you think you've had the worst race imaginable but you're yet to run a crappy 10000 on the track, you haven't. Thirteen laps in your legs feel stale and what was once ninety-two is now ninety-six and getting slower and slower and you tell your legs to pick it up and they don't listen and as if to mock you, some lady is standing at the 400m line telling you "twelve laps to go!" Seriously?

And when it's done, you care. So you pay the price of caring. Haven't you always envied the apathetic?

It's OK though. Somewhere between the ice cream you eat straight out of the pint and the fancy cocktail drinks, killer short ribs, and dancing with your teammates that make up your evening, you'll get over it.

No, seriously, you will

Wedged between the insanity were two hours of clarity. You helped with the high jump. For those two hours, it wasn't about you and how slow you ran and how terrible you felt and how badly you wanted to go home and sit in your bed and eat ice cream out of the pint. It was about making sure the bar was the correct height, getting it back up every time it fell down, lifting it up five centimeters at a time, being swift and attentive. It was about the high jumpers. And it made so much sense.

Soon you'll run fast again. You're ready.