REMEMBER WHEN

Instead of running the usual short route around my neighborhood today, I ran to my old elementary school and ran around the trail there. I've run there since graduating obviously but not extensively. It's only around .3 miles a lap so it can get boring doing the same thing over and over. Whenever I've done more than two laps there, there has always been someone with me. Today I was alone as I ran around in the 40 degree weather. I didn't wear my headband so my ears are still recovering.

I was surprised about how focused I was during my run. It all seemed to click as I ran around the trail. I had finally found my rhythm for at least part of my run today. What really got me though, was how emotional it was. I mean, I wasn't bursting into tears or anything but at different points along the trail, I remembered all that I had done there.

The trail was basically the start of my running career. Without it, I might not be running now. That was where I learned how much I love running. Sure, we didn't do much running but it was so much fun. Once I got older, I used to run the trail during recess just because I wanted to. We had to run/walk a lap everyday before recess and I always ran it. Sometimes I'd run two or three laps. One day, I decided I would run the trail for the entire recess, around 30 minutes long. I made it 9.5 laps, beating the boy who thought he could beat me by .25 a lap. I had only told one friend about this but it had spread during recess and the guys were always cheering my oppenent on. I was congratulated after I accomplished this though, by both girls and boys.

My running career didn't start out in recess though. It started out in gym. And this is where it gets embarrassing. Our gym teacher brought our class of kindergarteners to the trail for the first time. She made us all sit in the grass off to the side while she explained how we'd run a lap around this trail for almost every warm school day the rest of elementary school, or something like that. Everyone was really excited, so we all jumped up when she said we could finally run our lap. And me, being the talented runner I am, took about two steps, tripped and fell on the trail. My hands were all scraped up but my knees took the worst of it. Both of my knees were incredibly scraped up and started bleeding heavily. I still have scars where this happened but I still can't figure out how I scraped myself up this badly. It was only a gravel trail and I had only taken like two steps. I think I started crying when this happened, it must have hurt a lot. My gym teacher told this boy in my class who had just started running to take me down to the nurse's office. So this boy, who still goes to my school although I don't talk to him, walked with me down the hallway while I had blood running down both of my legs. I don't remember much about that, except for the fact that I got these huge bandaids for each of my knees, they covered basically the whole knee. I thought they were pretty cool. The nurse called my mom and said she could take me home, because I was a hurt little kindergartener. This was only the second or third day of school, but as you can see, my running career didn't start out the greatest. Everytime I passed that spot on the trail though, I remembered that day.

Another point, further on, made me remember a day in gym where we had outdoor relays. This was the first, and last, time we did this. Everyone was really excited though, because we got to pick out teams of four. Despite being the fastest girl in the class, and able to keep up with the three fast boys in our class, I wasn't immediately talked to by any of the girls when we were deciding our team. I was a shy little girl, and still am, so I didn't have many friends, but since this was a running event, which I excelled it, I thought I had a chance of getting on a good team. The three fastest boys in my grade had formed a team and were in the process of choosing another member who would make sure they would win. When they came over to me and asked me to be on their team, I was delighted and surprised. These were the "popular" boys and they often ignored me because I could beat them. Once we formed a team and then we, of course, won the relay by more than 100m, all the girls were angry at me because I betrayed them by choosing to be on a boy's team. It was okay that they never asked me and would rather talk to boys than me but it was not okay for me to assist them in winning. It didn't matter though because the boys all gave me high fives.

This post is getting really long but I still have so many more memories I want to add. Most of them have to do with beating various boys in my school while running the mile. When we ran it in 1st grade, I received a time of around 9 and a half minutes, beating everyone but 4 boys in my combined 1st and 2nd grade class. By fifth grade I had gotten my time down to 7:09. (No, it's not weird I remember all my mile times in elementary school.) One time when we were running in gym, probably just a lap, we had to run on part of the extended trail to the gym. I was running with this boy, who I desperately wanted to beat, who probably felt the same about me. He had refused to let me pass on the trail, moving to the same side I was trying to pass on (I have many memories of this, it was incredibly annoying, but now I can totally beat those boys so I forgive them, mostly). We were around 100m from the gym when the boy noticed his shoe was untied. I started laughing and he tried to stop me from passing him. But this was more of an open area and when his shoe fell off with around 20m to go, I beat him. I was laughing hysterically after this while he had to put his shoe back on. It still makes me laugh.

I have many more memories but this post is getting a little bit too long. It's a little weird how 5 laps around your elementary school trail can make you remember so much. I still like that small gravel trail.