Last week I heard a witty woman on the radio suggest an alternative Olympics. She was wondering what would happen if each country had to pick their competitors via “random conscription,” instead of sending elite athletes to the Games. Letters would be sent out to ordinary folk and then she continued, “You would have some three months to do what little training you could before being thrown into the fire.”
Although she was sharing this idea as part of a discourse on the bravery of those who take part in the game of life rather than just sitting on the benches and possibly criticising others, as this woman was talking, I suddenly remembered how I’d been forced to represent my boarding school house in a Sports Day event that nobody else wanted to do – the 800m race.
Now at that time – about 13 years old – I hated physical exercise. On arriving at that school the year before I had to choose between playing hockey i.e. getting my ankles smashed or lacrosse i.e. getting hit on the head by a hard ball. I chose lacrosse because I had friends in the class who forgave me for ducking every time the ball was thrown towards the net on the end of my stick which you’re supposed to keep aloft. As for gymnastics, I was embarrassed by my teenage body often described by others as chubby and in swimming I felt inadequate for not knowing how to do the crawl. I constantly gave my PE teachers excuses and they accepted them, although it’s impossible to have ‘the female time of month’ every two weeks.
It shouldn’t have been like that because at my primary school I played in the netball team and ran like a leopard to first place in all my class races. When I was about eight or nine years old I won the cup for Best All Rounder, and I recollect how for days afterwards I would happily go on errands to the local shops down our road, running there and back – never bothered by the incline – and all decided that when I grow up I would be a runner.
I tried to beg my way out of being the house representative for the 800m race. I think I went to bed that night crying. The next morning I told one of my closest friends about my terrible predicament. Now this friend just happened to be the fastest runner in the school and when she ran 100m or 200m, it looked like she was trotting to everyone else’s galloping, and she never ever had anyone on her tail as she crossed the finishing line. She told me that she would train me for the 800m race and she wanted nothing in exchange.
As our days were so filled with classes and homework, the three weeks of training had to take place before breakfast out on the athletic track that my school was privileged to have. Still to this day I carry with me the glory of winning that race. I remember how at the starting line a wide-eyed PE teacher, starter pistol in hand, said to me, “What on earth are you doing here?” Perhaps that remark also gave me the determination to stay out front for the entire two laps.
Besides the exhilarating experience of achieving that which had seemed so impossible, I got two valuable life lessons – I guess somethings can only be taught outside the classroom. Firstly I understood that, unless like my coaching friend you have an innate gift for something, there is no success without thorough and consistent preparation. There were times in our training sessions when I refused to get my exhausted body moving again, but my friend was firm and she wouldn’t let me give up.
I also had to overcome the fear of being laughed at on Sports Day as I had a reputation, at least in my schoolhouse and year class, for being least likely to do sport. I knew that I could finish the race but there was the possibility that I would be unsurprisingly last. My coach, who was always having to deal with her extraordinary height and how she towered over her peers, talked me into mental resilience and her dedication to help me, her unquestionable friendship, are reminders all these years later that with the right kind of support, significant golden moments can be made. Or as the woman on the radio said, we can know “the triumph of high achievement.”
Photo Credit: Stock Photo by Venti Views
