The worst decision of my entire life was to start running competitively. I do not know what made me decide to do it, but I am guessing it was Satan. Like every freshman in high school, I decided to “try” and do track. I decided I wanted to do hurdles. I picked this event because in elementary school, we had a field day every year where students participated in countless “fun” events, and there was a little hurdle section, and it was a joke. There was no “jumping” involved. With my miniscule brain kicking into action, I allowed that elementary school memory to weigh on my new decision to do hurdles in high school. I thought to myself “How hard could it be?” and boy, was I wrong. That event sucked heiney, and it was too late to switch events (it actually wasn’t too late, but I am a pussy, and I didn’t have the balls to tell my coach).
Each week of Spring since 2009 has been the same routine. I wake up, look like a douche at school (since we had to dress up), and then leave school a bit early for a track meet. Each meet would most likely always consist of a few things. I would always eat beef jerky a few hours before I ran (I couldn’t tell you why I did this, but I just did). After I ate some beef jerky, I would chew some gum before I, and I say this with absolute humiliation, would mediocrely attempt to woo a fellow hurdle girl. There was one time where I got pretty close (her head lay on my shoulders as she rested), but other than that, Tyler got shut down.
So where does the story go from here? Well, I will tell you. I decided to take my second-rate track abilities to college. I decided to go to Baker University to run, and it was great and it also sucked. I enjoyed all of my teammates because they were really easy to make fun of, and they also were some pretty cool people (for the most part). While the athletes were cool and all, but holy hell, does running suck. It sucks more than listening to NPR radio during a transcontinental trip with your brother-in-law.
Anyways, track sucks. There is no feeling like waking up at 4:30 a.m. on a snowy Saturday morning, then heading to Nebraska to run 9 hours later and have your event be done in a little over a minute. When I say there is no feeling like it, there may be one, and that is getting each one of your fingernail/toenails removed by pliers. Also, there's nothing like watching a wiry man that just looked like he got liberated from a concentration camp try and jump over some hurdles while sprinting his little heart out (the wiry man is me by the way).
For being such a crappy sport, the memories I made at Baker and during high school were pretty dank. I have made some good friends while I was at it, and hell, I even got a little more fit doing it. If you are looking for a crappy sport to take up some time during your eventless spring, why not try track? I am sure you’ll hate it, but just go out and try it. At least you are not one of those jabronis who tries to do lacrosse so they can call themselves a lax bro.
