The track springs under my feet, alive, breathing with every step. There’s a breeze. My body is adjusting to the curve of the lane. My path snakes around the others as we round into the final straight. One hundred meters to go. Under 15 seconds left.
There’s a shrill scream in my biceps and a pulling in my shoulders. My head starts to fall back, but I keep my chin down. The weight of my feet begins to multiply. Fifty meters until the end.
The roar is deafening, chants echoing the names of the men in the arena. “Finish, finish...” the voices drone. Panicked eyes and mouths agape look back at me.
The white line is approaching faster now, pulled in by my drowning legs. The front of my head is pounding. Have I forgotten to breathe? Ten meters.
The merciful line, a white stripe drawn across the eight lanes of red rubber. It’s just a second away now, the punishing clock just beyond, ticking away. Each second feels like an eternity, but the clock disagrees. Five meters.
I can feel the line under my feet, but somehow it’s still another hard step. I continue my lunge forward, every muscle in my body screaming for rest and a small voice refuting. The clock is ticking up and up. One last step and then––
There’s a business card taped to my monitor, next to a smaller handwritten sticky note, “endure.” The computer tower is covered in various notes, all surrounding a cutout from the Sept. 9, 2024, issue and a Far Side cartoon, courtesy of Mr. D.
Just a week ago, I turned 24. I’ve been engaged for six months, with our wedding planned for July. For almost a year, I’ve been the boy-editor of my hometown paper, and my first apartment, just upstairs, makes for a 30-second commute each day.
I’ve always loved my birthday, and 24 was no different. But the past year has been so different; in many ways, this last year was the first of forever. (Norah would be quick to remind me that come July 25, forever will start again.)
For the first time in my life, I wasn’t in school, and I was paying rent. I wrapped up my post-grad studying the same time my running career came to an end. On Friday, I was a student-athlete; on Monday, I was a full-time member of the workforce, and shortly after I moved out on my own into a downtown Main St. apartment.
I remember the moment that switch flipped last May. My extended youth ended, and my delayed adulthood began.
I’m sitting on my parents’ back porch. The sun is warm, and I’m exhausted. That morning, we drove back into town after a week spent racing in South Carolina. After a few hours of sleep on my teammates’ couch, I was a spectator at graduation.
The rush of the day has worn off by 4:30 p.m., and my eyes are opened to a new reality. Racing is over. All those repeat 200 meter reps, 30 seconds, 28 seconds, 26, those long 13.1 mile runs on Sunday mornings, the many tired walks back home, it’s all over. Was it all for naught? I begin to inexplicably cry over what’s lost.
It was time well spent, I tell myself, truthfully.
For professional athletes, often time ends when their body can’t handle the stress of competition anymore. For college athletes, it ends when you are at the peak of your powers, stronger than ever before in mind and body. But you can’t beat time.
Time.
The bane of my athletic dreams. How fast is fast enough? A little faster. In racing, the difference between a heroic effort and devastating defeat is often determined by hundredths of a second. Precision.
But while you are battling the stopwatch, the sand of an ancient hourglass keeps pouring to the bottom. Time was always going to win, even if you could beat it once or twice. But what if, just once more, just one last chance…
The hourglass is still pouring, and I’ve learned in the past 11 months that there’s more out there than racing. But I’m still learning. Some days more than others.
It is harder than I like to admit. I liked who I was in the uniform, looking into the mirror. Isaiah Atkins. Greenville Panther, or in a past life, Hillsboro Hiltopper. It always made me feel like a superhero, at age 10, 14, 18, 23...
I don’t want to lose that feeling. But the past isn’t the place to go to find it. It’s time to find the next thing that makes me feel that way, whether it be Isaiah Atkins, Journal News Editor or Norah’s husband or Josiah’s brother and so on.
Remembering the past, but not chasing it. The green light across the bay never gets any closer.
Finding a new passion, but not a new identity. My identity was secured on the Cross, in my Lord Jesus Christ, Savior and King of heaven and earth. From that truth I can live freely in His grace. At age 24, my prayer is that the Lord will lead me in this next stage of my life, the next adventure, the next track race––
The gun goes off. An elbow catches me in the side as I jockey into position for the next ten seconds. I settle in right behind the leader as we approach the 200-meter mark. 26, 27, 28... Eli tells me I’m right on pace. My heart rate is climbing rapidly as I cross the white line and begin the second lap.
