Moment

Maybe the grass had stood straight at one point, but with a combined torrent of sprinklers that morning and a hoard of anxious runners that afternoon, it was squished flat like a floppy disk beneath our spiked running flats. I hopped from foot to foot and glanced around at the other gladiators, lining up before the kill.

“See that girl over there?” Lynnea was pointing at a slender bean pole three boxes over, flanked
by two other skinny girls in red spandex singlets. “That’s Jen. She’s the one that took first in the Cougar Classic last year, and I’m going to beat her this year.” It was a tone of voice I was used to hearing in hushed tones every time we squeezed into the starting box.

I bent down to touch my toes, grazing my head against Jordan’s leg on my way down. Sardines had nothing on us—they stayed put in their squished state. Once that gun went off, we would travel in this huge pack, sandwhiched in our sweaty spandex for the next 3.2 miles.

Taking extra care to step on the right side of the painted line which marked our box, I looked down the fairway. He appeared. His silouhette against the trees behind him was nothing more than a blur of authority, a threatening shadow on the horizon. He held the power. It was in his right hand, and he was using his left to squish a neon orange ear plug into his right ear.

After successfully protecting his ear drums, he bent down for a white megaphone on the ground. My stomach doubled up on itself, and the sudden extra room in the box told me mine wasn’t the only one that had.

“Runners on your mark,” He breathed. I didn’t. “Get set,” A pause. My heart at least, was already racing. I heard the bang before I saw his knuckle bend, tickling the trigger.

“GO!”