#80. Running on Adrenaline (Wednesday, April 19, 2006)

#80. Running on Adrenaline (Wednesday, April 19, 2006)

What was your best day…of getting it done while being half-asleep?

Despite what my past instances of athletic prowess (#116) or my extracurricular activities of choice (#89) may lead you to believe, I actually did do sports in high school. Granted, it was only cross-country running and track and field – the only two you didn’t have to try out for – but all things considered, I was all right at both. Wasn’t going to win any city championships, but could at least do it semi-seriously and not totally embarrass myself.

That Wednesday was the first track meet of the season, and it was being hosted at the Ottawa Lions track stadium in the south end of the city.

For this meet, I was unusually sleep-deprived. There had been a history project, writing essays explaining a bunch World War II photos, that I left to the last minute the night before. And when I finally finished, it was almost four and I could hear birds singing outside (first time, definitely not the last). So this morning, while this guest speaker was doing her long speech1 in the auditorium, I slept through the whole thing.

So, completely out of energy, I go to my first ever track meet. Though this is only a smaller unofficial event before the actual regionals, the whole environment – with all these schools and their athletes gathered in one place – just feels really cool. So I spend the better part of those four hours just exploring every corner of the giant facility with my two close friends, Liam Luo and Devin Pham (#86).2

My event is the 200-400-600-800 medley. I run the 600 meters, and all I can recall is feeling really, really good throughout that – like I was sprinting all the way without getting tired at all. It was probably the greatest I’ve ever felt while running. And so, I do an excellent split, and we end up getting second. Pretty good.

There’s also this Lisgar Mile thing at the end (we were technically the hosts), where 16 people on each school team run 100 metres each. So I take part in that too, with Liam and Devin and them, and we place second. Which is also damned impressive. (Of note, Liam and Devin place first in both the men’s and mixed3 4 x 100.)

So, despite the circumstances (or perhaps because of them), definitely my most fun track and field experience ever…at my first meet.

(NB: I would miss Top 8 for district finals by 1 millisecond in the 200-meters a month later, and that would be the peak of my track and field career.)

  1. On what specific topic I never found out.
  2. As well as having a way-too-deep, and very ironic (see below) discussion with Liam on us being ahead of the curve in recognizing our future adult responsibilities.
  3. One of the girls on the mixed team, Mariana, embraces Liam after the win; and he spends the rest of the day going on about how attractive she is. That’s the first and only time, in all six years I went to school with Liam (plus the years I connected with him after, while he was doing his Engineering PhD at Harvard), that he ever expressed an interest in girls.