Adventures in C Minor (finished)

Happy wednesday evening everybody. It's been a crazy long day, and I haven't written for a while, so let's get down to business.

In reality, I don't have any business. Nothing really. No pressing things I gotta talk about. I've got plenty of stories to tell. So, without further ado, it's story time.

We had a track meet today, but it was just a tri-meet. Tri meets are pretty fun, because it's just 3 schools. Sometimes there's 4, but usually just the 3, and it's inter-region play, so it's not too competitive. They only last 4 or 5 hours, and they're generally alot of fun. So, I was looking forward to it. Not too much pressure, and the weather was looking great. I was gonna smash my mile time into the ground, and just dominate.

So, I get my awesome shorts on, and we book it on the bus over to Alta. Our track has really spoiled me. When I show up to a meet I expect a world class track with awesome field stuff and some quality bleachers. Nah, they've got a 6 lane blacktop. Not bad, but not amazing. I don't really mind what I run on, but I sure mind what kind of rake they use on the longjump pit.

I don't long jump. I tried it once, it didn't work. Basically, you run along a little bit of track off to the side of the real track, and then at a certain point you jump, propelling yourself up and forward. You then proceed to land in a big strip of sand. The sand is supposed to be soft and happy and great, but for some reason it never is. So, you run and jump into a bunch of sand, sounds like kicks.

And sure, it is. I'm not sure why, but coach henderson was in charge of the long jump pit today. Why wasn't it some alta guy? No clue, but usually at tri meets we switch jobs around. So, henderson is over there, and he says he needs some people that don't have early races to go help. Since I don't have any races till after the mile, I figure I'll go help.

Screw it all. I'm tired. I didn't get home till 9:00 tonight. I'm finishing this later. Just you try and stop me. Cliffhanger? Nah, that story wasn't going anywhere anyways. I'll finish this tomorrow, of, if not then, later. Yeah, have a nice night y'alls, I'm sleepy.

Alrighty, I'm back. It's now 11:32 Thursday night. I'm a little bit sleepy, but tomorrow is friday, and if there's nothing good up here by then, bad things happen. So, happy times!

Anyways, I'm put in charge of raking this long jump pit. See, when people run and jump in the sand, it gets all screwed up. It's supposed to be a happy level strip of sand, but when somebody jumps in it there's a huge hole where their feet went and a bunch of sand that they pushed. The next person can't exactly jump right into that, that'd be terrible, so I'm supposed to rake it onto nice even action so it's fair and not dangerous and happy.

If you'll notice, alot of emphasis was placed on keeping the sand happy.

Anyways, it was a terrible sand rake. Not even good. It was a one way rake. You could rake it one way all nice and even, but if you tried pulling it back, oh no. You dug holes when you tried to pull it back. Bad things happened when you pulled it towards you. You only get to push, no pulling. Don't even try to pull.

So, with my strategic options cut in half, evening out the sand pit was a daunting task. I however, prevailed. I suceeded in thoroughly dominating that sand pit. That sand now fears me as the greatest sand-leveler ever, even with a crappy rake.

The moral of the story? If you're going to run a long jump pit, be sure to get a good rake. Honestly.

Anyways, the other cool part about the meet. Generally I run the mile. That was my main event back in junior high, and probably my best event. I did alright in the 800, but I was definitely a mile guy. So, that's what I expected to run in high school. Well, either I didn't make that clear enough, or coach just likes to mess with my brain or something, cause I rarely run the mile these days.

I was way excited to run it at the meet though. I was gonna get myself signed up for it no matter what they said. I was gonna smash my time into the ground. My personal best is 5.22. That's great and all for junior high, but in high school that makes me look like a fatkid. So, I was way excited to beat it, and I was confident. The weather was great, my body felt ready to go for it. Don't worry, coach didn't put me in the mile.

I got signed up for the 400 open, the 3200 (that's two miles) and the 4 X 400 relay. You've got to understand here, 400 meters is just one lap around. That's not very far. That's a sprinters race, not a distance race. I guess coach wants me to work my speed or something, but wow, I got tramped. I ran a 59.6, just barely barely under a minute. Not too great, I'll have to work on that.

So, that was a draining race, but I had alot of time to chill out before the 3200 started. I was pretty excited about the two mile though, because I ran a pretty good race last meet, and I was just excited to run today. I don't know what it was, I usually dread meets, but I was so ready, it was gonna be great. So, they do first call for the 3200, then second call, then final call, then final call again, and then a third final call. I don't know what it is about these guys, they did about 3 final calls on each event. It sorta cheapened the whole experience. Final call is supposed to be final call, but it wasn't even close to final call. I was infuriated.

So, we line up, and since we don't have too many people running the 3200, we run the guys and girls together. There's only 4 girls running or so. Whiting was awesome and let me borrow his spikes for the race, and I was pretty excited about that. Spikes are pretty amazing things. They are these tiny tiny shoes that weigh almost nothing, and they've got spikes on the bottom. Like, spiky things, that did into the track, giving you pro traction. They're designed to make you run like a gazelle. You fly with these things on, I don't know what the deal is.

The catch is, they're like 60 bucks a pair, so I've never invested in them before. So, I'm excited to be wearing spikes, and I'm excited to run. We line up at the line, and I look around. Checking out the line, I figure out that I'm probably the biggest guy there. It didn't look like there were any seniors around. There were probably only 15 or 20 people running anyways. Nobody likes the 3200 anyways, so none of the all stars were running.

Now, you've got to understand. Sometimes people do dumb things. Seeing that there were no amazing all stars at the line made me think: "Hey, you've got spikes on. You've got amazing track shorts on. Your hair looks good, and your neckbeard is coming in great considering it's only been 3 days. You can win this race champ."

And so I decided then and there, that I was going to win this race. I was gonna be a mad man. I was determined to anihilate everybody else in that race. It was go time.

Now, aside from not having a good rake, the guys running the meet were short on ammo. About halfway through the meet they ran out of bullets for the start gun. So, the commands were "Runners, on your mark" and then a man shouting "go!". So, we all line up, and I scoot out to the outside of the waterfall, so I'm a tiny bit ahead of everybody else, but on an outside lane.

The guy yells go, and I just sprint out of there like a madman. I'm pretty sure I cut some people off, and for that I apologize. I was just a little too enthusiastic. But anyways, I popped out there in front, and I was definitely in first place coming around the first curve.

Being in first place is a new feeling for me. I'm never in first place. That just doesn't happen, but yesterday it did. I was the man. I was it. It was me. I was in front of EVERYBODY. and good crap, it felt good. With my spikes of death, and the happy sunshine pushing me on, I was running like a graceful giraffe.

Now, I'm not sure why, but every time I passed people from Taylorsville, they'd shout "Good job Thatcher, pace yourself!" This was markedly different from what they usual yell; "Good job Thatcher, push it!" I wasn't sure what the change was all about, but I sort of liked it. I was booking it.

The important thing to remember about a 3200 is that it's 8 laps. That's 4 more laps than a mile.

Graceful Giraffes can only run for 2 and a half laps until they start to want to die.

So yeah, I had 2 and a half laps of glory. I was running so fast, and I felt so good. There was nobody even close, I was ahead and I knew it. I even tried to look like clements as I ran, because he just looks so cool when he's in first place. I like to think that I made a pretty good likeness. For 2 and a half laps, that race was mine.

And then, I sorta died. Yeah, you can only run fast for so long until you remember how much lap 3 hurts. After a couple seconds of that, you remember that you've got 5 more laps to go fatty. By now people are passing you, and you stop caring. You'd love to take first, but it's just not gonna happen. You had your moment to shine, now you're just here to burn some calories.

And so it was, 2 and a half laps. I got 8th place or something. No girls beat me, that was awesome. I learned 2 very important things during that race. Number one, was that when I begin to think that I'm going to win a race, I should probably sit down and take a breather, because there's something wrong, and I'm gonna end up making a fool of myself. Number two was alot more important though, and alot more life altering. Number two, I learned that they really are out to get me.

So, as I'm out there running, and then subsequently shuffling, I realize that there are alot more people yelling for me than usual. I mean, I knew that the spikes were cool and all, but I didn't think they'd make my life that much better. As I passed the skyline coach, he kept giving me advice, encouraging me. The only problem was, his advice was always 5 seconds late.

In fact, everybody's cheers were 5 seconds late. Random people I didn't know kept telling me I was doing great 5 seconds after I ran past them. I didn't know what was up, but I sort of liked it. I mean c'mon, everybody loves fans.

Coming around the 300 curve for lap 5 or 6, an emotional brick hit me in the chest. I could hear a couple guys coming up behind, and I knew they'd pass me sooner or later, but I was going to delay the inevitable as long as possible. I'm just running along, and then the skyline coach, as clear as a bell yells "Thatcher! Make your move now, get around this guy as soon as you're on the straightaway!"

And then it hit me. The skyline coach didn't know my name. He didn't think I was cool. He probably wasn't even jealous of my track shorts like I had assumed. Right then and there, I figured out the saddest thing since my pet cat died.

There was a kid named Thatcher on the skyline team, and he was definitely about to pass me up.

I got beat by somebody with my own name. Somebody who's cheers I had been riding the whole race. Somebody who probably has a better neckbeard than I do.

My life is meaningless.

All kidding aside, wow, that was a shocker. Sort of a hurtful shocker, I'm not gonna lie. There's another Thatcher out there, and he beat the crap out of me.

You know what this means? I've got two options. Train crazy hard so I can beat him next time, or, better yet, kidnap him and assume his identity. If he's got a better neckbeard, I see no reason to keep on being me when I could just as easily go on being him. He runs faster, and c'mon, neckbeard.

So there it is. Neckbeards and track meets.

Life is going pretty good. I'm trying to install solaris on the Annie-computer I got, but I'm not having too much success as of yet. I'll have to work that all out tomorrow, it's getting pretty late. The T-ville invitational is this saturday, and it ought to be pretty good. It's gonna be forever long, but it'll be a fun meet. We'll see some really good athletes, and then we'll see clements beat them at the mile. Hooray!

So, that's all I got folks. The MS paint competition is still going on, if you want to submit anything else. I'm going to close it down soon, I'm basically just waiting for kyle. Thanks to everybody who participated, I'll figure out a way to vote soon.

There's some good stuff on the horizon, just you wait.

Things are looking up, in fact, things are up. Every time I say that they're gonna be good. Well guess what, things are pretty good. Today, things are good. Yeehaw.