Can't Stop

My hospital room is cold, my sheets too thin. The TV across from me plays through the millionth infomercial, with me staring at it, mouthing along with the words I now know by heart. Three days. I've been in here for three days. I feel fine physically. Mostly, anyway. Certainly well enough to leave. But apparently that's not what the doctors are worried about anymore. Until I show some sign of improvement, they aren't going to let me leave. Not since I slipped up and spoke my mind for once. Now they're talking about transferring me to another facility.

I've tried faking it, acting far better then I feel, but I simply don't have the energy anymore. I've been chugging along for far too long, I can see that now. But I still don't know how to stop. I still want nothing more then to just get back out there, back into my routine.

The door hinges squeak as someone enters my room. I haven't told my parents that I'm here, so it can't be them. I don't have any friends. There's no one to visit me, so it must be a doctor. Coming to take me away.

I force a smile onto my face, giving it one last shot.

The smile falls from my face when I see my coach standing in the doorway.

"Oh, hon." She says, in a voice so soft and gentle, so kind, that my eyes well with tears.

Wrapping my knees in KT tape has become a daily routine. I recently discovered a cream that goes with it, soothing muscle pain, which very quickly was added to that routine.

Both of these routines were established to support a hobby, along with the ankle braces, electrolyte drinks, iron supplements, and protein shakes. Numbing the pain of running is almost as consuming as the running itself. One run in the morning. One at midday. One before bed. Showers after each one, and then a protein drink and an electrolyte drink. Iron pill in the morning. Three Tylenol at night so my sour muscles will quiet down enough to let me sleep.

A painless day is a bad day. A failure of a day.

I can't imagine not running. Taking a rest day. What would I even do? Read a book? Sitting still for that long sounds like torture. No, I'd much rather be out all day moving. Sitting still inevitably leads to thinking, and I've been avoiding that since I started running a year ago. And I've been pretty successful, thank you very much. This past year has gone by in a flash, and it's been my best year yet. Hardly a bad thought I can remember.

Today, though, marks my first day of running as more then a hobby. I have officially joined my universities track and field team.

The team corrals in the schools weight room to start our first day of conditioning. I'm anticipating it to be like the rest of the first week of a new semester--getting to know each other and going over syllabi. And I'm not wrong. We start with a hellish get-to-know-you game that involves trying to memorize everyones names--I forget everyone's names, even my own for a moment, but that's okay. I'm not here to make friends. I'm here to run.

The next meeting goes much better. Treadmill for thirty minutes, strength training for another thirty, with a short rest in between. I don't rest, though. I stay on the treadmill in between sets. Coach gives me a look, one that says she sees me. Knows I'll be an asset to the team.

For the next month, I settle into this routine, adding it to the running routine I'd already established. A run in the morning. On Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays its conditioning in the midmorning. Get home, shower, run again before lunch. Then yet another run before dinner, with the usual protein drinks and gatorades, and supplements in between.

I'm so busy I don't have time to stress about the first real track meet.

My first race, a sprint, came and went without a hitch. I won, of course. I won my second sprint, too. and my third. And so on and so forth until the last game of the season. My last sprint, where I was sure to ring in an undefeated season.

Crouched at the starting point.

Heart beating fast.

Protein shake and iron pills roiling in my stomach. The nerves hadn't hit all season, and now here they were. I suppose it was inevitable.

The starting shot range out, and I was off.

Something was wrong, though. I could feel it right away. Not wrong enough to stop me, but... wrong.

I was accustomed to tunnel vision during a race, but this was more literal then usual. My vision had narrowed to what was directly in front of my, my peripheral shrouded in black.

I kept running.

My heart was beating even faster, thudding in my ears and my throat and my head.

I kept running.

Now the black vision was accompanied by white spots, dancing across my line of sight, obscuring the crowd around me, the contestants in front of me.

In front of me?

No, the sprint was almost over, no one should be in front of me.

I pushed harder. Why was this so much harder then usual? This should've been a cinch. It had been all season.

My field of vision shrinks even further, the white spots exploding like fireworks. I can't see anything, but I keep running, I have to win. The tip of my shoe catches on something--maybe the heel of another contestant, maybe the grass beside the track, I have no way of knowing--and my knee locks. I fly forward, there's a flash of pain, and then... nothing.

I can't stop the tears from falling. I don't know how to. I've been running for so long that they haven't had a chance to fall in the first place. And then here comes my coach waltzing in with tears in her eyes as she looks at me, freeing the tears that I've fought so hard to keep at bay.

She closes the door behind her as she rushes to the side of my bed, taking a seat on the bed, grabbing one of my hands.

For a long while she doesn't say anything. She just looks at me, brushing through my hair with gentle fingers, working out the knots that have accumulated from three days in bed.

When she does finally speak, her words aren't what I would have expected. Not empty condolences, not commands to get well soon. She doesn't ask when I'll be out of here. Instead she says; "I should have kicked from the team that very first day." Her voice cracks on the word day. More tears stream down her already blotchy cheeks.

I just stare at her.

Was I really that bad?

"I know that's not what you want to hear right now." She continues. "You want me to ask when you'll be well enough to race again." I do, I really do. I need to get back out there. "But you can't. Race again, I mean. I'm sorry hon." Were the doctors not telling me something? I wiggled my toes. I could still feel them. That had to mean my legs were fine, right? I could still run. I had to be able to run.

I spoke for the first time that day. "I can run."

Another soft head shake.

"No, no, that's not what I mean."

"Please, I'll get better soon, don't--"

"I knew from the first day you walked into conditioning that my assistant made a mistake."

"No, he--"

"Please, let me finish." She turned into my coach again when she said this, rather then the mother-like figure that had walked into the room. "You should never have been allowed on the team. I should have said something then. I had a friend in high school who was a lot like you. Always busy. Swimming was her poison, though. I didn't see it at the time, the life draining from her face. The energy leeching out of her." She made eye contact with me again, a fresh wave of tears pouring down. "Graduation was the last day I saw her. She cut everyone out of her life after that. Even her parents. Joined a swim team in college and just... kept going." I was enraptured in her story. I had no idea where this was going. What it had to do with anything. But I couldn't tune her out. "After your last race I looked her up. She died two years ago." She paused brushing my hair to wipe my face with the sleeve of her jacket. I hadn't even realized I was still crying, but now I was hyperaware of it. "I can't let that happen to you."

"I'm not dying, my leg just--"

"You know that's not what I'm talking about. Your leg is the least of your concerns. You've been running for a long time, and not just literally. But you can't run forever, hon. It's time for you to learn to slow down."

Her phone starts ringing in her pocket. She pulls it out, glances at the screen, and then back at me.

"I'll be here for you while you learn how to do that. I'll be back tomorrow, but I have to go now."

She answers her phone, bringing it to her ear as she leaves the room, closing the door behind her.

I'm sure she keeps her promise to come back the next day, but I’m not there to see her. When my doctor next comes to check on me, I ask to be transferred.