Volume 2, Number 6 -- June, 1997
  
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On Running Fast... By The Professor
The Professor had some idle
time on his hands over the weekend, what with the NHL and NBA
playoffs having been all but decided and Major League Baseball
having entered that June too-late-to-be-early/too-soon-to-really-matter
time frame, and found himself surfing the channels in search of
some sporting entertainment that did not feature Tiger Woods.
(Not that I dislike Tiger, mind you, just that I can't stomach
golf.)
What I settled on was some
sort of collegiate track meet on NBC. Having tired of Bassmasters
and old World's Strongest Man reruns, I tossed the remote control
to the cat and settled back to watch people with no body fat run
really fast.
Track is a very odd sport,
when you think about it. Most sports tend to require a certain
amount of physical exertion, but it's always secondary to the
main objective. Put the ball in the hole, carry the ball across
the line, knock the man out, throw the ball, hit the ball, kick
the ball, catch the ball. All of these things may, from time to
time, require you (the athlete) to run down the court or up the
field or around the bases or into the gap or where-ever it is
you need to get to quickly.
The difference is, in all
those other sports (read: REAL sports), the running is secondary
to the actual goal, and the less you do of it the better. In
track, running IS the actual goal, and everyone does the same
amount of it no matter how fast they go.
Sure, Michael Johnson can
run 200 meters in ... what, 5 seconds? Big deal! So he ran it
faster than everyone else. Everyone who ran that race with him
still finished, sooner or later. Maybe if they played defense
it would be more interesting.
"Michael Johnson moves
into the lead and starts to pull away from... OH! He's been tackled!
Tackled from behind by the young runner from Latvia, I can't
see his number, but what a hit he put on Johnson! You know he's
gonna feel that tomorr ... Wait! Johnson's up! He's up and he's
dragging the Latvian toward the finish line as he tries to overtake
the East German runner who is involved in a scuffle with the runners
from Bulgaria and Paraguay and ... OH! A knee to the groin and
here come the benches!)
See? Wouldn't that be far
more interesting. I'll tell ya, what track needs is fewer Donovan
Baileys and more Ulf Samuelsons.
Note to Donovan Bailey:
Great, you beat Michael Johnson in the 150. He still gets to
go home to the U.S. and you have to go back to Canada. I think
we all know who the real winner here is.)
Now, I know you're saying
to yourself, "I wonder what it would be like to have sex
with Terry Hatcher." I know this because our research shows
that 95% of our readers are men and the other 5% are women who
would like to have sex with Terry Hatcher. The answer to your
question is, "Probably pretty great. For you, not so much
for her."
Back to track. Believe it
or not, the Professor used to run track way back in high school.
Mile, two-mile, long jump. He was pretty good too, if he does
say so himself, though he never would, humble as he is. But if
he were to say so, he wouldn't be lying, and it wouldn't be like
he was wallowing in his past glories in an effort to come to grips
with the harsh reality that he is now little more than a pathetic,
aging, pot-bellied, well-on-his-way-to middle-aged man whose hair
has, for whatever reason, decided to relocate from his head to
his ears and who compensates for these shortcomings by being an
absolute sexual dynamo (Terry Hatcher, are you reading this?).
No, he would not be doing
that. But the Professor does remember what it was like to run
track. To pit oneself against his peers in a contest of muscle
and sinew against muscle and sinew. To push oneself to the limits
of one's speed and endurance and beyond, running farther and faster
than ever before simply because the other guy is still a step
in front and beginning to weaken. The Professor knows the surge
of adrenaline as he comes out of that final turn and there's nothing
between him and the finish line but you and you're fading fast.
He knows the feeling of exhilaration as, stride by stride, he
reels you in, pulling up along side and just hanging there for
a moment or two, just enough to make you think you can hold him
off and then, he grabs that extra gear that even he didn't know
he had and pulls away, leaving you sucking his exhaust.
Oh, yes. The Professor knows
the feeling of a well-run race. The Professor knows that it F&$#ing
hurts!
The taste of blood in your
mouth, the way your lungs ache for hours afterward (no matter
how many cigarettes you smoke to alleviate the pain), the way
your spit clings to your lip until you pull it away with your
finger and then it clings to your finger. All this so you can
end up ... exactly where you started. You didn't actually go
anywhere.
And then, to top it all off,
your coach, who himself weighs approximately 600 pounds and hasn't
run more than a step since he heard they were giving away free
brownies in the school cafeteria, walks up to you and says, "Not
bad. We can still shave a few seconds off if we work on blah
blah blah..."
To be honest, I never heard
the rest of it because I was too focused on trying to lift my
arms so I could strangle the bastard.
Anyway, I think I've written
enough to get my editor off my back for another week. I'm going
back to my Terry Hatcher fantasies now.
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