Roger Bannister would turn in his grave. . . . wait he isn’t dead yet.

I ran on The Track today. It was laughable. It took me about 10 minutes to muster the courage to walk onto it (as there was a soccer match going on in the center). When I finally entered, I decided to do a 400 as fast as I could. There was a super tall, skinny guy going ’round and ’round the track rather quickly and seemingly endlessly. I synced my start with his passing the start for his next lap. Casually, I started my watch.

I stated in my title that Roger Bannister would turn in his grave if he were dead. This is why: I ran as fast as I could on that 400, and my time was 1:13. That would be an incredible half mile split, but for a 400. . . . . !

I did manage to catch the lean, mean running machine, but it was kind of a deflator to realize he had been doing 1:15 400 splits for, I’m guessing, at least half an hour. So I just stood panting at the finish, laughing at myself and shaking my head in bemusement and horror until a track official told me the track wasn’t open to the public that day. Because of the football (soccer) match. But that I could use the other side of the track for sprints if I wanted to.

Thanking her, I left the track at a wandering amble. There was no spirit in me. I stretched on the pavement and drifted home. I wrote this to get the strange, awful feeling of “I’m going to have to train reeeaally hard when I get home” out of my system.

Farewell, farewell.

PS it hasn’t left. . . .