Running
I have been running my whole life. Not running, like in putting one step in front of the other in a fast motion in a competition, or like in running as an exercise. Well, I shouldn’t say that, because I have been running putting one foot in front of the other fast and fast sometimes, but not running as a competitive sport. I have ran, as in trying to get somewhere fast and the only way to get there was to use my natural speed and long legs to sprint as fast-or to get there as fast as possible, or at least faster than some other person. I have always been a natural athlete, and with that came natural speed. I might not have been the fastest, but I have always been almost fastest, and never ever have I been not fast enough. I have been fast on skis’, fast on ice, fast on the football field, fast in baseball, and fast on the basketball court. Fast on skis’ helped me becoming a very good cross country skier in my younger years.
When our family put on our skis’ outside the front door and went for a family ski trip, I was always fast ahead of the rest. I raced up the hills through the woods, just like a family dog searching for whatever lies ahead, just to realize that the rest is lagging behind, and I had to turn around and meet them again, before scooting out ahead again. Skiing with the family, I was like a busy longhaired German pointer, searching game in the tracks, always ahead, but never out of reach of the others.
I have always been fast, and I have always been running. But even if I have been running towards something, or away from something, I have rarely ever finished anything in my life. I might have crossed the finish line in an event that included running, but I have never finished the running. When I was running on skis’ as a child, I was running towards a finish line. I won many running on skis’ races a child, there was a race every Wednesday night, it was actually called the “Wednesday race”, and I won moist times when I entered. In the beginning, when I won the Wednesday race, I received a small tin cup, but for some reason after while they started giving out books and other items to the winners, and it became less interesting to win the race. No one looks up at your book shelf and asks how you got those books, but when the shelf is full of cups, the question of how they were won, might come. I raced running on skis’ every Wednesday and eventually became one of the best skiers, or runners on skis’, in my home town. Whenever I stood on the dark start area, skis’ with rottefella bindings on ready to go, or run, I had to pee. I don’t think it was deliberately that I had to pee, but I had definitely forgotten, every tome, to take a leak, and felt the urge to go to the side of the track and pee right there in front of everyone, but never did. Instead I raced, through the lonely kilometers in the dark woods of Nesodden, lighted up of course, but still quiet dark, and raced like I had no choice if I didn’t want to pee in my knickers. I raced on skis’, through the woods, crossed the finish line, usually first, and without stopping, then ran on skis’ down and in to the bathroom down by the locker rooms. I always ran (on skis’) fast, almost fastest, at least on skis’, but never slowest and never to slow. I won a lot of tin cups and almost as many books, and almost always ran the fastest, in the race that is. In the race towards the bathroom, I always ran the fastest. As I raced running on skis’ in the woods of Nesodden, I got noticed and was eventually to compete in the state ski (or running on skis’) championships. I don’t remember much from the events leading up to the championships, but I do remember standing on the start line, needing to pee. That hadn’t changed, state championships or not, I still had forgotten to use the bathroom, before the event. The event was set up so that my age group was to race three and a half kilometers, and the older boys five kilometers. The track was set up so that we all started in the same track, and went out a kilometer or so, before the tracks spilt up and the younger competitors was to follow the green markings, to complete the shorter 3.5 kilometer race, and the older boys to take a left on to the red marked longer 5 km track. Every boy went out with thirty seconds behind the previous skier (or runner on skis’) and thirty seconds to the next skier behind you, so unless you were caught by a skier from behind or you caught up with the boy ahead of you, you were pretty much alone in the tracks. I caught up with the boy ahead of f me after a few minutes, and passed him easily. I felt good about the race and about my prospects, maybe I need to pee so much that I had to race extra hard and extra fast, because I was running on skis’ like I have ever ran on skis’ before. I came to the area where there was a split in the tracks and took the left to follow the, what I thought was the green, and shorter, track. Later, when I was in the army I found out that I was color blind. I had intentions of become a fighter plane pilot, but that dream was easily chattered, as I apparently couldn’t determine the difference between green and red. Well, at 12, I did not know this of course, I still had, in my mind perfect color vision, and I still had a dream of becoming an Olympic skier, or a fighter pilot if the skiing didn’t work out. I skied to the left and the boy behind me followed after me. Weather he was color blind or not, I am not sure, but he must have thought I knew what I was doing, being passed by me after just a couple of minutes and all. Maybe he didn’t remembered what was our course, maybe he did, I certainly knew that I was to follow the green course; I just didn’t know that I had a difficulty in actually seeing the difference. I knew I was taking the green course, or at least that was what I thought I was doing. It was red all along the course, I just didn’t see it, I was racing the running on skis’ race of my life-speed wise that was. The boy that had leached on to me and that also was racing the running on ski race of his life, at least that is what he thought he was, followed me all the way to the finish line. I was sure I had won the race. I think the guy behind me also thought he had gotten a cup, or a book, because he had also raced the running on skis’ race of his life, even if he was not the winner. Color blind or not, he followed me around the longer track, the red track, all the way thinking, just like me, that we were to win and get second place in the race. When after the race I continued running, skis’ on, to the bathroom, he did not follow me. He had finished the race, and did not need to pee. Maybe if he had also forgotten to pee, and had an urge to almost pee in his pants, he might have not been caught by me, the urge to pee runner on skis’ from behind, and might have taken the right track, the green track, and done better for himself, but I strongly believe that he had done better, even if we took the long track. I ran to the bathroom, and he stood at the officials table looking for the results, knowing he had race the race of his life. As I came out of the bathroom, slower now, as the urge to pee had been relieved, but sure of me that I would receive a state cup, or a state book, as the winner.
Not to be of course, there were many good skiers, or runners on skis, and someone else had won the race. On paper, they were the faster skier, and therefore the winner of the race, but the fastest runner on skis was me and my tag along non urge to pee skier. We were the fastest runners on skis’, me for the entire race, he from the point that I passed him and he followed me, me for the entire race. We just didn’t win the race. We didn’t win, but neither did we lose it. There were other skiers that had actually come in after us in the race. We had also beaten some of the older racer that was actually racing in the red-and longer- course. Weather the younger boys we had actually beaten in the race had taken the longer course by mistake or if they were color blind, I do not know. Maybe they didn’t have a big enough urge to pee to be a great runner on skis’, or maybe they just didn’t care about winning another book. I stood there in front of the officials table and knew that I had won the race, yet I was not in first place in the race. I knew that I was the fastest skier, or runner on skis, but apparently that was not good enough for them. I don’t know if it was good enough for the non-urge to pee, tag along skier, but it was good enough for me. I decided then and there that if I was the fastest skier and didn’t win the race, I was done completely with skiing, or running o skis’. I packed my skis’ and poles up and walked out of the arena, done with the race of skiing forever. Then and there, I decided that there were other ways to run in life.
