September/October 2024

The narrator pushes through self-doubt at the cross-country Junior Olympics I am standing on an open field with Anna, Bea, and Eva, and I am seriously wondering how I got here. If someone had told me a few months ago that my cross-country running season would end this way, I don’t think I would have believed them. Not only because we are in Texas, not only because this is national ranking, but because I never would have thought that I could accomplish so much in one season. I should be more confident, but really I am just nervous. “It’s not that big of a deal,” Katie had said after her race. Oh sure, there’s only 347 other girls with us, all either 11 or 12, all preparing to run 3 km. If that’s not a big deal, I don’t know what is. But then again, all I’m doing is putting one foot in front of another, for at most thirteen minutes. So why am I so anxious? I haven’t always had nerves. Maybe it’s because it’s important to me. Maybe it’s because there has been so much talk about this race. It is Junior Olympics, after all: I’ve had to make it through two qualifying races to get here. Maybe it’s because I know it will be hard. There’s no pressure, I tell myself. All I have to do is try my best. This does not reassure me. Because trying my best means starting as fast as everybody else— which is definitely faster than I’d like—and finishing even harder. Somewhere in the back of my mind I know that I’ve done all the training I needed to to get here, that I’m fit enough. But I still wonder, can I get myself to do it? We start our warm-up strides, one foot in front of the other, arms from ear to hip, ear to hip. We jog back. Do it again. Anna continues to repeat the same three words she’s been saying ever since we got to the airport yesterday: “This is it!” On the sidelines, hundreds of parents, coaches, grandparents, siblings, and volunteers are making a general ruckus. The sky is cloudy but the air is humid. Personally, I do not find this pleasant weather for cross-country. It’s so muggy I’m already sweating a little. As we are coming back from one of our strides, another team of racers from our section comes and takes our place on the line. Darn. Now I have to stand behind a racer from Mount Diablo Heat. Eva is the only one to stand firmly on the line and claim her territory. Of all the people I couldn’t be less surprised—she is easily the fastest runner on Oakland Cubs, as well as one of the fastest in our section, and people know it. That’s another thing I didn’t think I could accomplish: I can run with someone who can run an eleven-minute 3K. Two race officials come past us with a camera to wave to. I have to stand on tippy toes so that my mom, who is watching from home, will be able to see me. We finish one last set of strides before the official tells us to step up to the line (or in my case, runner-who-stole-my-spot-on-the-line’s shoe). Anna says “This is it!” one last time before everything goes quiet. All I can think is, Oh gosh. This really is it. The race official speaks into a megaphone: “Racers on your marks” (as if anybody else should be on their marks). I hunch my back a little and put one arm by my waist and the other by my chin. The next command will be the pow! of the gun, and it is only mere seconds away. The suspense is terrible. My nerves stay with me until the very last moment, but as the anticipated pow! goes off they all disappear, replaced by a thought: all I can do now is to focus and keep an eye on Anna and Bea. If I can stay with them, I’ll know I’ve started fast enough. I am presently lost in a sea of multicolored singlets. The ponytails of the racers in front of me swing from side to side, showing off shiny ribbons. We have ribbons in our ponytails as well, blue and silver ones. The loud pound of footsteps mixes with the uproar of the crowd. Focus. Relax. Those are the two magic words, I’ve found. The rest will do itself. It’s a fast start, one of the things I’ve been working on this season. It’s quicker than I’m comfortable with, but this is better than having to make up for it later, Andrea says. The challenge now is, can I keep it up? We come to the end of the first stretch and turn right as the noise from the crowd dies away. I’m doing my best not to go too close to the inside, where I could be trampled to death, or to the outside and having to make up those extra meters later. The amount of people doesn’t make this easy, though, because everybody is trying to do the Exact. Same. Thing. This is a pretty flat course, all grass. They must not have had very much space to work with, because we go back and forth a lot. There are a lot of bushes and some small trees. Fences mark the course on some stretches, and there are occasional pillars indicating the distance. The grass is damp and the air is still as muggy as ever, but I don’t really seem to mind the heat. As a matter of fact, not very many things seem to bother me, and I am surprised at how alert I am. We come to a stretch that goes in the opposite direction of the field we started on. On the side, a bunch of excited parents are yelling, all trying to be heard by their kids. If it wasn’t for