The Wall

Everyone on the high school cross-country team had the same Steve “Pre” Prefontaine poster on their bedroom walls, but I was the only one who took it literally. “The best pace is a suicide pace, and today is a good day to die.” That was the quote. And I bought it, hook, line, and sinker. During my hard runs, I would picture the “red line” as a brick wall, and the idea was to somehow gather enough steam that when I hit the wall, I would crash right through.

As I vault off the grassy section of the 5K cross-country route and crash into the cover of the woods, navigating a slick winding downhill over a golden trail of wet fall leaves, under the dappled yellow shade of the canopy, I can tell by the fluttering of my heart that I am close. I steal a glance at my Garmin. 5:15 pace. I need to go faster for the course record. My airway constricts. My breathing shallows with the acceleration. 5:07 pace. The sweat on my forehead is icy cold, even though I know I am shedding body heat like a furnace. The smell of the sod and mist of the forest calm my storm.

There it is. Dizziness. Yup. A tug. In my hamstring. The wheels falling off. Step on the throttle anyway. 5:04 pace. The part of my psyche screaming “Push f**king harder” is drowning out the voice of doubt. 5:02 pace. Break through. The inner governor is just playing it safe; the real line, the true limit, is way past the red line my body set up to protect itself.

If I am going to be a front-runner, like Pre, it is a psychological game. I have to show guts. My pace has to torment the other runners who dare to consider hanging with me, cowing their will—stealing all their resolve. The price has to be unthinkable. If Pre hit 3:54 on the track, I can make 4:44 on terrain for the last mile.

Everyone gets sick. Everyone dies. But not everyone can say, straight-faced, honest to God, that they ever really went for it. Even once in their life. 5:01 pace. Not fast enough. Dig deep.

I remember when Michele and I had taken the pilgrimage to Eugene, Oregon, a few weeks back, the third week of September. To Pre’s Rock. I hung up a singlet and a race bib. Michele left a ripped-up pair of racing flats. The same ones that she wore when she won regionals last year. “This is for you,” she’d said. Our dream was to be recruited by the University of Oregon track team, go to college together, and run for the Ducks, practicing together most afternoons on Hayward Field, and living together off campus.

Maybe it was a teenage thing to do. Maybe it’s weird. Unsanitary even. I mean, we were only newly dating. But I took out a pocketknife and we made a blood oath, right there, by Pre’s Rock, to “go for it.” But maybe we meant different things by that. We shook our cut palms, and shed our collective blood, letting it drip from our clasped hands, down onto Pre’s Rock. When we both toed the line of the 10K Memorial Run in Coos Bay the following morning, we both stayed true to the oath. We both put up PRs. But this was not just a PR. I am in uncharted territory now. Course record pace. Approaching the wall.

I know every step by heart. At my normal stride length, this course is about 7,000 steps. I am halfway. Running negative lap splits. The tapping of my footfalls. The beating of my heart. The rhythm of my breath. The swaying of my arms. The balance of my hips. The rolling of the grade. The holding of the pace. Out in front—completely alone. 4:58 pace. Keep accelerating. Increase the breathing with the pace. Ignore the body. No thoughts. Only movement. Only breathing.

I can never understand why it feels so freeing to reach these paces on the way out, but why holding steady on the way back against the diminishing returns feels like it is going to tear me in half. I know the physiological science. Lactic acid buildup. Oxygen debt. Fatigue. But the internal drama feels like life and death. Every cell screams ‘danger’ at the top of its lungs. My rapid heartbeats spread the fear throughout my limbs. The first half of the course is just a buy-in. This is where I play my hand.

As I emerge from the clearing onto the back edge of the baseball and soccer fields and make the long loop around the backstop, I hear Michele’s voice, screaming “David! Let’s go!” A high-pitched sound. Wobbly in my ears. 4:55 pace. There has to be more.

The force of my breath and the strokes of my heart create feedback that muffles the outer world. My left foot slips on the grass. But at the speed I am going, it is more like floating and briefly tapping the ground. The spikes of the racing flat glide to the next footfall and my right foot digs into the sod—without missing a beat. 4:53 pace. Motor function starting to go. Vision narrowing. A knot in the back of my skull. 4:51 pace.

My legs now feel like pistons. The second each leg pushes off it feels like it is already touching down again. The hamstring recoil is like a propeller. It feels like flying. My knees sail toward the finish line as if propelled by a gust of wind. I try to lean forward, lean into the pace. Balance with my arm swing. Two wings, catching the lift of the strides. 4:49 pace. Just about 400 meters left. No one in sight. 4:47 pace. A weird chill. Like water poured over my head and down my torso. I can’t get in enough air. Raspy rattling breaths. Head feeling light. Lean into it. Almost there.

The finish line is right there. 14:24 on the race clock. One hundred meters. Push. Give it everything. The cheers of the team seem muted. Coming through sporadically. Crashes of sound and silence. The forms blurred like fuzzy gauze. 14:41 on the clock. 4:44 pace. Just…a few…more…steps. And I crash through the wall.

I black out as I cross the line. I lay in the cool grass hyperventilating; I keep getting colder. Nauseous. I feel a throbbing in my head. Feel faint. I can hear someone over me say, “Get an ambulance.”

And then the world blinks off.

* * *

The next thing I know I am waking up in hospital clothes, in a hospital bed. A Jamaican nurse peers in the door.

My mom, Sue, is there tapping on her teeth with her long manicured red nails, looking like Fran Drescher having an anxiety fit. She is mumbling under her breath, “Damn it, David. Goddamn it.” Michele is across the room, transfixed on the wall. The drab hospital room is dimly lit with the dust mites glistening in the penumbra of the overhead lights. Everything glimmers a little bit as if laced with flakes of gold.

I try to sit up, and “Nice Nurse” swarms me at a pace that would be enviable on the final turn of a 400. “Not so fast, speed racer,” she says as she pushes me back to a reclined position. “You’re coming off some powerful sedatives. So, give it a minute.”

“What time is it?” I ask.

“Seven PM,” Nice Nurse says, “And I’m off for shift change now, so I’ll wait with you for about fifteen minutes until after the Doc sees you. I’ll be just outside the room at the nurse’s station. Just hit the button if you feel ‘off’ at all, you got me?” I nod. “I’ll go get the Doc,” she says.

I look at Michele and say, “14:41 – I made the course record!”

She breaks out in tears. My mom and Michele start talking at the same time. I close my eyes for a moment. I am groggy and limp. Am I really in a hospital? This is “legendary,” I think, like Pre. I can just hear my competitors saying, “Don’t even think about it. This kid broke the course record by over thirty seconds and pushed so hard he had to be taken away in an ambulance.” But looking into Michele’s eyes, I see what I am putting her through reflected back.

A minute later, a Latino-looking doctor named “Enriquez” appears by my bedside. He looks down at me, with a serious-looking bearded face, and says, “Your running days are numbered. I know you don’t want to hear this, but it might be time to hang up your spikes, kid. If you want to live.”

“Doc, I’m sixteen,” I say, propping myself up on the hospital bed, against Nice Nurse’s orders. “Running is who I am.”

“Listen, son. You went into exercise-induced ventricular tachycardia—V-tach. The next time could kill you.” This is fascinating.

“Let me ask you something, Doc. How close do you think I was to, uh, the red line?” My mom screams ‘David,’ like she is calling me down for dinner, thoroughly disapproving of my question.

“You mean how close were you to death?” Dr. Enriquez asks.

“Yeah, Doc. How much further do you think I had before I’d actually…die? Was I at the red line? What do you think?” This time it is Michele screeching my name. No one is amused by these questions. But I am dead serious. I need to know.

“Look, son, I don’t know how to say this—you’re going to have to quit running. Traditionally one does not suffer V-tach unless there is some underlying heart defect. We recommend you quit all high-end endurance activity—to prevent another episode. Don’t do any exercise that brings your heart rate out of Zone 2. We also may have to consider an ICD. An implantable cardioverter defibrillator.”

I am still stuck on the words “quit running.” He says it as if running is something I can just turn off. Doctor Enriquez clearly doesn’t understand. Running is my religion, my medicine, my recreation, and my purpose. It is everything.

Sue is on the other side of the bed from the doctor, with her hands on her hips, nodding ferociously at all of Doctor Enriquez’s warnings. Michele is in the chair in the corner, tears in her eyes, looking down at the just healing cut from the pocketknife and the similar fading mark on my palm. The same intense focus as I had staring down the wall. Behind the intensity, jumbled emotions. Love, guilt… and determination. She makes a fist.

Nice Nurse gives me my medications with some water, before signing off. I swallow. And she is gone.

Then, I am alone with Michele.

She gets up, walks over to my bedside, bends down, and gives me a forceful kiss—that seems to declare ‘I love you’ and reprimand me at the same time. She smells clean. Her breath and skin give off a faint trace of the scent of baby powder. It excites me. The press of her lips is soft, moist, and a bit cold, like a puppy’s muzzle, and her waves of curly hair tickle my skin. The warmth of her hand on my cheek and her breath next to mine pull me in. Pulling away, she says, “You are such an asshole, you know that.”

“What the hell?”

“You scared the shit out of me.”

“I thought we agreed we were going to go for it?” Michele laughs, mockingly, putting her arms out in front of her, palms up, as if displaying something.

“Going for it. Right. Is this what that looks like, David? Is this your idea of going for it? What exactly was going through your mind out there?”

“I mean...”

“How am I supposed to compete with… this?” she asks, turning her hands and pointing at me, at what I’d done to myself. “Being a runner isn’t enough for you? You have to compete with legends who are mythologized for driving themselves to death? It’s all not enough. I’m not enough?”

“I just want to be the best. Isn’t that what being an athlete is?”

“You were one minute off the Oregon State High School 5K record. Those were Galen Rupp paces. Olympic qualifier paces. On terrain! What the hell? This was just a regular track meet. States isn’t for over a month. What are you trying to prove? Do you want to die? Is that it?”

“Ever since I can remember, I promised myself I wouldn’t run away from my problems like my father did when he gave up on us. I promised I’d run at them. I’d give it my best. Even to the point of being tits up on a stretcher. I never want to regret not giving it my all.”

“I know all that, but there’s a limit, David. Did it ever occur to you that if you hurt yourself, you are hurting me too? Do you think of anyone but yourself?”

“Why you are so flabbergasted. Didn’t you mean it when you took that blood oath?”

“F**k you. I would follow you anywhere. That was what the oath was for. Not running. Are you so thick that you don’t understand that?”

“I love you Michele, but it isn’t like I was going to die. You’re overreacting.”

“You broke your heart. And you're not going to break mine too. Overreacting? Do you see where you are right now? I almost lost you.”

“I know it’s scary, but that’s running. Alberto Salazar was given last rites. Emil Zátopek red-lined several times. Let’s not be so dramatic. I’m not the first one to hit the wall.” I am feeling a little hot around the collar, feeling a bit agitated, and I can see that it is having a bad effect on Michele. She makes a fist again.

"There you go again. I will take this fist and put it through your f**king stupid wall. Don’t you see? All you care about is having a place up in the pantheon of the running gods. But I’m right here."

"That's not fair," I say.

“Isn't it? I’ve got to go,” Michele says, “How’s that for fair?” Another small tear drops down her cheek. Then stopping by the door, she looks back and sweetly says, “I’ll check in on you tomorrow. Take care of yourself till then, will you?”

I nod my head.

* * *

When Michele walks into my hospital room the next morning, she is wearing her tracksuit. I can smell her Herbal Essence shampoo wafting off her curly black hair. And there is a layer of sweet-smelling sweat warming on her neck. I am so jealous that she has gone for a run before coming to see me. Doesn’t she know how cruel that is?

“Hey hot stuff,” she says, returning to her upbeat and cheerful demeanor. Am I forgiven?

Doctor Enriquez comes in with a chart and gets right down to it. “MRI is good. EKG is solid. Heart catheter imaging looks normal. Blood work is good. I’m starting you on Metoprolol. 100 milligrams once a day. It’s a beta-blocker. Will take some load off your heart and help it to heal.”

“Will that have any effect on my times? State Championships are in November, and I am planning on taking first in the 5K.”

Dr. Enriquez just looks at Michele, dumbfounded. “I’ll talk to him, Doc," she says.

As he walks out, she says, “What’s the plan, big shot?”

“I’m running States,” I say.

“Okay. As long as you don’t start training until you get medical clearance.”

“Done.”

“And you stop if you feel anything wrong—no heroics.”

“Fine. You know, Michele, we are still going to make it to U of O. You have to believe we are going to make this. You know I need a scholarship to make it happen, right? I need you by my side or it is all for nothing.”

“I’m just afraid that this mission you are on is going to break us apart, that’s all.”

Medical clearance is tough. But we get there. And the time flies by.

***

Toeing the line at the State Championships, I know two things for certain. I will be all alone out there. In front of the pack. And no one is coming with me.

Time stalks everyone, but we few stalk time. Most flee from death, but we few race after it. Most seek length of life, but we few prioritize swiftness of foot. Some want the fullness of long years, but I seek the glory of a singular moment.

As the gun goes off, I take those first deep breaths. My legs churn as I pull away from the pack. A moment earlier I felt no fear. But knowing now the evil I can visit on myself, racing again; I tremble at my own power. Not knowing what choice I will make.

Looking to the side of the course, I see Michele cheering me on. I could play it safe. Avoid the wall. But something inside me tells me that if I am not true to myself out on this course, here, today, I won’t be good for anyone, anywhere, ever again, let alone Michele.

Looking into her eyes, I run up against another wall. I know what I want. But the things I want oppose each other. Racers vying for the lead. For a place in the field.

I smile back at Michele, with love, and run my heart out—charging for that wall.

I think of the Prefontaine quote on my wall, and I laugh as I rewrite it in my head, “The best pace is a suicide pace, and today is a good day to live.”