Running with my dog tonight, my new shoes didn’t feel right. My toes felt crowded, and my right knee seems unsatisfied despite any amount of icing it receives while propped on the coffee table. Years of minor injuries (some athletic, some party-related) give me mild assault, but I’ve never wanted to stop my light mileage habit. Creaking along, I thought of ways to improve my stride and form, and I thought of someone I will never forget: the girl who used to cheer for me at my indoor track meets.
She was from another high school – Haverhill or Lowell, maybe, and she kept vigil at my 1,000 yard dashes and, later in the season, my mile races, throughout the ‘92/’93 winter track season. “Pick up your knees!” “Lengthen your stride!” She yelled and clapped every time I passed her. Maybe this is just my memory of it, but I think she only cheered for me. “Come on, you can do it!” She was my personal coach, an embodied “Hang in There” kitten poster in the indoor track arena, and she willed my sour fifteen-year-old personage to achieve something - like ever breaking six minutes in the mile.
My friend Marny was one of the best runners in the state, and her mile time was nearly a minute faster than mine. I got a lot of 4th and 6th places, and she told me I didn’t try hard enough, that I should be unable to walk at the end of races, like she was, and I finished barely tired (This was an exaggeration on her part, I was definitely tired.). I had seen her writhing, hyperventilating, collapsed on the sidelines after a 5:35 mile, and likewise heard the stories of our greatest conference rivals running to the bathroom to vomit in the sink after blowing away the competition. I knew it wasn’t for me. Marny and Kitten Poster had a quality I never had, something I wasn’t willing to necessarily engage in myself to exploit whatever natural physical ability I possessed. Still, I loved Kitten Poster for believing and wishing that I would. Much more likely to finish a novel than a marathon, I stopped competing at sports shortly after that track season, but I never stopped being inspired by athletes.
Runners have always interested me because running is so easy and instinctual – you really just need legs, right? It’s like singing: you take these innate parts of you – your voice, your legs and feet – and then do something exceptional. You run ridiculously fast or far or you win American Idol. Well, imagine running with a badly maimed leg, and then imagine wanting to continue running so badly that you amputate that badly maimed leg and continue on with a prosthetic. This is Tom White’s story, and it is exceptional. Citizen Pictures recently completed a webisode for the Runner’s World magazine website. This piece profiles Tom as part of a series that follows a group in training for the 56 mile Comrades Marathon in South Africa.
We love to watch people overcome on all levels. It can be Lance Armstrong winning the Leadville 100 on a flat tire in “Race Across the Sky”, or Evan Lysacek taking the Gold without a quadruple axel. Being the girl who doesn’t want to throw up at the track meet, I am amazed by athletes who push themselves to extreme physical levels for passion. That Bart Yasso (the Chief Running Officer of “Runner’s World”, who suffers from Lyme Disease) and Tom White wish to run a 56 mile race in South Africa is startling enough. That they desire this despite their physical limitations is difficult for me to relate to, thus my admiration. I start to believe that the only limitations are in our minds, and exceptional feats are not just for the Lances and Evans of the world – they are for anyone with a goal and desire.
Katie Jewett