It All Starts Here

Posted on July 7, 2013 under Storytelling with one comment

When was the last time that you couldn’t sleep because of anxiety?  Was it the night before your wedding? Or, how about a final exam or a job interview?  In most cases, a person tosses from side to side but it can be much worse than just restlessness.  The worry factor can be so high that you may break out in a sweat, or worse, your unsettled innards compel you to make several trips to the loo. Welcome to the start line of a race and in particular, your first race.  I’m talking about running, lest you think I am about to don a helmet at Riverside Speedway.

It matters not if you are running your first 5K race or stepping up to run your first marathon.  Firsts are firsts, no matter how you cut it.  It’s hard to describe what it’s like at the start line of a race unless you’ve been there.  A first timer will experience a range of emotions from pure excitement to utter panic, and everything in between.  Fear of failure is probably high on the list but, as I’ve told my children ad nauseum, there is only one thing worse than trying and failing.  And that is not trying.

What you sense most when you stand in line with hundreds and, in some cases, thousands of others, is this incredible pent up energy.  With ten minutes to race time, the runners are pawing the ground like caged animals.  It`s little wonder that they call this holding area “the corral`.  As the minutes creep by, you wonder if the starter will ever fire his gun.  I have often thought that some inventor should come up with a device that could be attached to runners in the starting area.  The energy could be transmitted to a nearby generator that could power the lights of a small hamlet.

Just when you think you will explode from anticipation, some perky young thing is up on a platform exhorting you to stretch and get pumped up. Really?  You think that this particular group needs pumping up?  And then they always… always … play Survivor’s “Eye of the Tiger”.  If I hear that one more time at a race, I will single-handedly go man to man with that tiger and strangle the son of a bitch.

You will see a dazzling array of spandex at the start line.  For many, it seems to be a fashion show about to be marred by sweat.  Like an ostentation of peacocks prior to the courtship display … apologies to the peahens.

And you will also see a lot of port-o-potties.  Please review paragraph one.  Easily the most important piece of equipment at a race.

Mercifully, the executioner holds up his hand and in the time honored tradition utters the words, “on your mark, get set…..”  Before you know it, you cross the start pad as a thousand timing devices go off simultaneously.  And then it is your time.  You and your thoughts.

“This is the moment! 

This is the day,

When I send all my doubts and demons

On their way!”

(from This is the Moment – Jekyll and Hyde soundtrack)

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