I don't think the middle school ranking system was always the most accurate, but it lined us up and kept us still enough at the start, which was saying something for a bunch of middle schoolers. The waterfall stagger put the fastest people on the first tier, closest to the inside of the track, and lined the progressively slower runners on the outer and upper lanes.

This was only my second time running the 800, so I found myself squished up next to four other anxious distance runners on the second tier, farther out in the 5th lane. The first tier hosted the ferocious runners, the girls who would actually run this event once they got to high school. The rest of us were the leftover hooligans coach needed to stick somewhere, and right there in that fifth lane seemed to be the best place.

"All right, ladies, you can cross over into the inside lane after the cones on the other side of the curve. Be careful and good luck!" The starter climbed to the top step of his footstool and pointed his small starting pistol into the air

The loud bang startled my heart but my feet responded without hesitating. Pounding one foot in front of the other, I joined the nervous jostle of junior high joggers up around the curve. Elbows jutting, ankles angling, we tripped along in a 10-legged race before we finally reached the blessed line of cones that would allow us to spread to a single file line.

I lengthened my stride, squishing off the ruby tarmack like a small child off a trampoline. I extended my dominant leg out over the mini cone, anticipating a burst of speed and renewed determination to catch the first tier girls when

a third tier girl knicked me in the heel and the ball of my left foot could feel every bump and crevice in that ruby tarmack as my 410 New Balance distance flat slipped off my foot and bounced to the third lane.

Momentum like that is hard to stop, but what's a race--even for a second tier novice--without a shoe? I turned head on into the tumult of a merging traffic lane and scooped my shoe from off the track and into my arm. Jetting ahead, I caught up with my second tier soulmates and trotted along until I melted into the line up, 410 snugly tucked under my armpit.

700 meters later, I hurled my head over the finish line and followed the guiding hands of the finish line supervisors which placed me behind the third place girl.

One shoe gone? Take that, first tier.