Work, Life, Growth

It was my last year of collegiate track and I was going into my favorite race seeded to win and defend my Big South Championship title. I was feeling confident out of the preliminary races and already knew who my biggest competitor would be. Her and I had met numerous times before and were always cordial to one another. Our teams were sprinting rivals because we had the best in the conference, and a level of mutual respect existed between us.

The last day of conference is when finals for the sprinting events were held and we were going into the last day feeling pretty confident. That morning my coach looked at me and asked, if I felt okay. Honestly, something just did not feel right. Nonetheless, I responded that I was fine and my coach gave me her normal stare when I was lying about how I felt. (Because of my history of hamstring injuries, she started to watch how I was walking and even took careful watch of me during the warm-ups.)

Then, it happened.

Sharp pains flooded my abdominal region and at times I could barely stand up. I was supposed to be preparing for the 4×100 meter relay and after a few practice hand-offs I needed to stop. When our race was called, I remember walking over my mark with the other the second leg runners , and I was in tears because of the excruciating pain.

I still had several races to run, and my coach somehow managed to find the meet’s doctor. She dragged me kicking and screaming to see them. (So, I may not have been kicking and screaming because of frustration and it may have actually been related to the pain.) The doctors had no idea what was wrong and asked me if I wanted to drop out of my races. They could find nothing wrong with their exam and probably thought I was exaggerating. They concluded by telling me it was my decision if I wanted to compete. My stubbornness would not allow me to drop out. In retrospection, I probably should have dropped out of the meet because we did not know the cause of my symptoms.

After crying my way through the 400m and somehow winning the race, I curled into a ball on the in-field. My coach walked up and tried to pull me out of my last individual race of the championship meet and shook her head as I walked towards the starting line once they called “last call”. I completely ignored her recommendation to stop.

How could I just not run my favorite race? The race that brought me the confidence I searched so many years. There was no way that I could not run this race, and plus there was no way I could actually lose this race. I was the reigning conference champion!

I wish this confidence would have stayed, but the moment the starter called “Runners! On your Mark!” and I had to go down into the starting blocks the pain made it presence known and rudely told me that it was there to stay. It was at this moment that I realized I would lose this race. It was at this moment that my confidence dropped and I immediately felt that all I had worked for was worthless. It was at this moment, that I realized I should just false start on purpose and get disqualified.

“Get set!”

I started thinking to myself this is your last chance so go ahead and move forward and just fall. It was too late. The gun had sounded off. My block start was not the greatest and as I took the first few steps, I began to think it still isn’t too late to just drop out.  

I literally watched my competition win the title as I strolled across the finish line in second. I was able to beat the remainder of the field, but I had lost all that I had fault for in just a few seconds. I watched someone else get my gold medal on the podium and had to stand in the second-place spot while in both physical and emotional pain.

After seeing multiple doctors and being poked and prodded without any answers, I gave up looking for answers to the pain. The pain was only reminding me of what I had lost and the victory that was stolen from me. It was not fair that something like this had happened to me! (Disclaimer and brief soap box: If you are having pain, please do not ignore it and seek medical attention until you get the help that you need!)

If my tone in the past few paragraphs has sounded selfish and self-absorbed, it is because I was. Out of respect, I congratulated the winner of the race, but held the bitterness on the inside. It wasn’t my race and it wasn’t my title. On that day, I was not the winner. Nor was I the one deserving to be celebrated. It was simple, it was her time and she deserved the victory.

I made the decision to continue to compete despite knowing that I was in pain, and then I made the decision to blame my loss on this situation. The honest truth is that I cannot say for sure that I would have won this race even if I was not sick. Just as I had trained and prepared for that moment, so had she. She had spent the time training and pushing her body to the limits to work both on her speed and endurance, just as I had. Both her and I had spent the time practicing our starts and learning how to properly run the race at hand. The only difference is that on that day, she was the better competitor. She was the victor.

Although, this was a crushing experience, it was one that I needed (talk about a humbling moment). It reminded me that I should be thankful for my health and that failure was still a possibility despite all of the hard work. One, I’m proud that I pushed myself to run this race because I learned how arrogant I was despite many people seeing me as being a humble competitor. (Disclaimer number two: I would not advise that you push yourself to these limits. As a current medical provider, I fully admit that this was a mistake.) Two, I learned the never-ending life lesson that hard work may not guarantee you a win, yet life goes on.

The reason why this race for me is probably the most memorable, is because it was my greatest defeat. I was so close to obtaining the goal, but the character that needed to be developed in me was much more important.

Gaining humility crushed every bit of confidence I had, but it also ended the concealed arrogance.