Post by Sarah Crestwell on May 4, 2015 1:20:34 GMT -5
“Faster!” She shouted at herself as she felt her legs losing track with the rest of her body. She stumbled but didn’t fall, her ribs still sore from the past few weeks of being at this place. She felt the lines pass her under her feet as she worked from one end of the football field to the other, each step bringing another small spray of mist to her ankles from the wet grass below. She would have worried about slipping but had pretty great traction on the shoes that she was wearing. As she came up to the edge of the end she noted that she was probably 3rd or 4th depending on what was happening to her right at the moment that she turned left hard and reversed direction. The downbacks had been one of the exercises she least enjoyed. It was all burst and no sustain but the sprinting was definitely something that got her heart rate elevated.
She could feel a bead of sweat make it’s way down her forehead, dripping from her nose violently and landing on her arm as they swung back and forth. She lifted knee after knee as she practically drove each foot through the ground launching herself forward harder and harder. As they came up to the other side she realized that she had in fact been 4th and not in the top 3 during the exercise that they were doing. She walked around slowly with her hands on her head, fingers interlaced as she took in breaths through her nose, exhaling out of her mouth as her chest heaved with each breath.
”That’s not bad but you gotta push yourself harder than that if you want to be a sprinter,” One of the track coaches told her as he began giving feedback to others. Some it was something along the lines of ‘you move like molasses!’ to comments like ‘run that slow again and I swear to fuck I will bring a wild bear here to chase you all.’ Sarah counted herself as lucky, but not as lucky as the person who had gotten ahead of everyone, who had received a lot of praise from the coach. It turns out that person had been pretty slow when they started but she had since gotten pretty good about it all. ”Good job Jennings, why don’t you go ahead and stretch it out some alright? Don’t want you cramping up on us. We got some more to go yet!”
“Yeah wouldn’t want you cramping up,” Sarah muttered under her breath, one of the others walked up to her and tapped on her shoulder before whispering.
”That’s Selene, we’re pretty sure she’s uhh… well…” She made a crude gesture with her hands that suggested some sort of relationship between her and the coach. Sarah gave a shrug and waved it off. She didn’t know if all that was true, she didn’t care and didn’t think it mattered much. She was getting treated that way because she was first, the ones doing worse were being treated badly. That was no way to motivate, so Sarah walked over to one of the people who had been hounded by the coach.
“Hey, keep it up okay?” She said before giving them a small side hug. “Just focus on beating your last time with each time we go kay?”
They went again in just a moment, this time Sarah noticed herself keeping an eye on Selene, her eyes focused on the girl as she quickly put some eye drops in her eyes. As she stashed them and got ready she saw the coach raise his arm and then, Selene took a half step, and then the arm dropped. Sarah nearly hesitated on her step had it not been for a quick jerk of her leg that put her back on track. But she saw it, she was sure this girl took a slight edge. Sarah frowned as she found herself pushing herself a bit hard. She was behind the girl by a good three feet but that wasn’t too bad considering. At the turn Sarah turned toward the girl, noticing that the girl’s foot didn’t quite touch the edge and Sarah found herself another two more feet behind her. She pushed herself and got third this time, but Selene was still taking the lead.
“God DAMMIT!” Sarah said as she almost punched something. The person she had helped came over and patted her on the shoulder, Sarah looked over at the girl, “What’s up?”
”Don’t do that to yourself kay? Like you said to me, focus on beating your last time. You did that I think, plus you beat more people this time. I could tell cus, well, I was so far behind you if I’m being completely honest.
“You’re right, huh.” Sarah looked up for a moment and thought about it. She needed to take her own advice on the matter if she was going to enjoy her time here. “Alright then, I’ll think about it that way. In which case, wooo! I’m Sarah!”
”Me too! Mine is spelled kinda funky though. S-e-r-a.”
“Better make it Louie then, I don’t pull that name out for just anyone so tell others my name is Sarah, but you can call me Louie. Sound good Sera?”
”Sure, hey let’s get ready for the relay.” Sera number two had said, and the two made their way over. Sarah was placed after Sera in the group that she was with. She noticed that ahead of her was Selene. It seemed that the fastest always got placed later, as if they wanted to come back from behind rather than get a good start that gets beat out. Sarah readied herself in her position on the field and waited, watching as the first girl went, passing the baton to Sera who dropped it for half a second and had to recover. The coach let out an obscenity and Sarah got ready to try and make up the distance.
As the baton came her way she got ready, took a few steps to get up to speed and ran alongside until the switch happened. Sarah grabbed the baton tightly and made off like a bat out of hell looking to make up the difference that was caused by Sera’s mistake. She pushed and pushed, finding herself in a bit of a goofy run that actually felt faster to her than she had managed in the practice and the coach was even cheering her on a bit, when the time came Selene started up and Sarah passed the baton off, taking a few slowing down steps as she caught her breath, leaning forward at first out of bad habit but remembered to keep her chest open. She stretched up and pushed her chest out, pulling her shoulders back and resting her hands on top of her head to breathe in through her nose and watch Selene run.
Something seemed a bit off though, Selene wasn’t performing as fast as she had been, though in truth before she had certain headstarts that weren’t really showing up here. Sarah watched the coach get more and more excited, shouting out her name repeatedly and cheering her on. Once it finished though he looked at the time and immediately began to chastise Sera. Sarah watched from a distance and began walking over, her hand grabbing the girl by the shoulder and resting her chin on the girl’s head.
”I’m horrible, I’m like the worst I can’t believe I fucked up that badly. I should just quit… “
“Ding dong you’re wrong,” Sarah said as she pulled her chin away and patted her on the head. Selene came over with quite a look and grabbed Sera by the collar.
”The fuck is your problem, you jackass! You screwed up our time with that stupid mistake. I can’t believe you!”
Sarah’s fist gripped tightly as she shoved Selene off of her, “I can’t believe you either. There’s no way you pushed yourself on that one, I saw you run a hell of a lot faster in practice. Hell, you could at least have bothered to cheat on this one like you did in the down and backs.”
”The fuck did you say to me newbie?” Selene had let go of Sera when she had been shoved, but it seemed as though now all her focus had shifted away from Sera altogether as she stepped up and tried to stand as tall as possible in front of Sarah. ”If you got shit to talk, if you’re going to go lying like that why don’t you try not being jealous and just accept that you’re second rate too.”
“Oh please, like I couldn’t beat you in a fair match. Besides, with how lazy you are taking shortcuts you probably can’t keep that top speed up for long.”
”You wanna try me?”
Sarah grinned as she picked up a nearby shotput and tossed it as far as she could. The girl looked with amazement as the thing went pretty damn far. “I’ll prove it right now. So here’s the deal you little shit. I’m gonna give you a two second head start to run in any direction you want, anywhere, away from here. Then? I’m going to start running after you. Only here’s the real kicker, if you get away you can trash talk all you want because you know that you can. You will know from that day forward that I can’t catch you when you do. But if I catch you? And I will, I will catch your weak little ass. I will tear you apart limb from limb, I will bruise you so badly CPS will look at your parents funny. Do you understand me?”
The girl seemed to be stressing a little bit, ”You can’t, that’s not…”
“And… you will note that I will do this again and again so long as you trash talk me, or people like Sera here. That’s a promise. Hell, maybe I’ll just break your fucking knee cap.”
”I’m in line for a scholarship, you can’t do this!”
“I can do anything I want. At least, for the next ten minutes. I’ll deal with the consequences later, you ready?”
”COACH! HELP!”
“One mississippi…”
She took off like a bat out of hell, leaving Sarah and Sera behind as Sarah bent at the knees, her hand touching the ground.
“Two mississippi!” Sarah’s foot dug hard as she took off as fast as she could. She was behind the girl now watching the lines pass. The girl was losing her a bit, showing that she did actually have some speed. She was running toward the coach it seemed but once they left grass the girl didn’t seem to have her speed with her. She started to miss her stride and Sarah caught up closer foot by foot until finally she was within reach. “Boo!”
The girl screamed as Sarah grabbed her by the back of the shirt, pulling hard enough that the girl’s feet flew in front of her and Sarah threw the girl down hard onto her back before putting her foot on her chest. “I’m going to enjoy this.” Sarah said as she started to crack her knuckles nice and loud like to try and put a little more fear in Selene the running Queen.
”Please, I’m sorry! I’m sorry let me apologize, I’ll do whatever you want, I’ll let you run last in the next relay! Whatever just please don’t hurt me! I need this!”
Sarah thought about it calmly and looked down at her, “You know what you have a point. If I break your knee cap that does send a message, but then you can’t run and you don’t get to correct the behaviour.”
”That’s right! That’s right!”
“So instead I’ll break something you don’t need that badly.”
”Wha- NO!”
Sarah grabbed the girl’s hand, forced it up into view and grabbing her pinky snapped it hard backwards to hear the crunch. Sarah let go of the hand as the girl started crying out and walked away. Sera looked a little bothered by the whole ordeal but grinned really big after that. Sarah wasn’t sure if track was for her, but she did enjoy beating Selene just then, catching up to her had been fun.
She could feel a bead of sweat make it’s way down her forehead, dripping from her nose violently and landing on her arm as they swung back and forth. She lifted knee after knee as she practically drove each foot through the ground launching herself forward harder and harder. As they came up to the other side she realized that she had in fact been 4th and not in the top 3 during the exercise that they were doing. She walked around slowly with her hands on her head, fingers interlaced as she took in breaths through her nose, exhaling out of her mouth as her chest heaved with each breath.
”That’s not bad but you gotta push yourself harder than that if you want to be a sprinter,” One of the track coaches told her as he began giving feedback to others. Some it was something along the lines of ‘you move like molasses!’ to comments like ‘run that slow again and I swear to fuck I will bring a wild bear here to chase you all.’ Sarah counted herself as lucky, but not as lucky as the person who had gotten ahead of everyone, who had received a lot of praise from the coach. It turns out that person had been pretty slow when they started but she had since gotten pretty good about it all. ”Good job Jennings, why don’t you go ahead and stretch it out some alright? Don’t want you cramping up on us. We got some more to go yet!”
“Yeah wouldn’t want you cramping up,” Sarah muttered under her breath, one of the others walked up to her and tapped on her shoulder before whispering.
”That’s Selene, we’re pretty sure she’s uhh… well…” She made a crude gesture with her hands that suggested some sort of relationship between her and the coach. Sarah gave a shrug and waved it off. She didn’t know if all that was true, she didn’t care and didn’t think it mattered much. She was getting treated that way because she was first, the ones doing worse were being treated badly. That was no way to motivate, so Sarah walked over to one of the people who had been hounded by the coach.
“Hey, keep it up okay?” She said before giving them a small side hug. “Just focus on beating your last time with each time we go kay?”
They went again in just a moment, this time Sarah noticed herself keeping an eye on Selene, her eyes focused on the girl as she quickly put some eye drops in her eyes. As she stashed them and got ready she saw the coach raise his arm and then, Selene took a half step, and then the arm dropped. Sarah nearly hesitated on her step had it not been for a quick jerk of her leg that put her back on track. But she saw it, she was sure this girl took a slight edge. Sarah frowned as she found herself pushing herself a bit hard. She was behind the girl by a good three feet but that wasn’t too bad considering. At the turn Sarah turned toward the girl, noticing that the girl’s foot didn’t quite touch the edge and Sarah found herself another two more feet behind her. She pushed herself and got third this time, but Selene was still taking the lead.
“God DAMMIT!” Sarah said as she almost punched something. The person she had helped came over and patted her on the shoulder, Sarah looked over at the girl, “What’s up?”
”Don’t do that to yourself kay? Like you said to me, focus on beating your last time. You did that I think, plus you beat more people this time. I could tell cus, well, I was so far behind you if I’m being completely honest.
“You’re right, huh.” Sarah looked up for a moment and thought about it. She needed to take her own advice on the matter if she was going to enjoy her time here. “Alright then, I’ll think about it that way. In which case, wooo! I’m Sarah!”
”Me too! Mine is spelled kinda funky though. S-e-r-a.”
“Better make it Louie then, I don’t pull that name out for just anyone so tell others my name is Sarah, but you can call me Louie. Sound good Sera?”
”Sure, hey let’s get ready for the relay.” Sera number two had said, and the two made their way over. Sarah was placed after Sera in the group that she was with. She noticed that ahead of her was Selene. It seemed that the fastest always got placed later, as if they wanted to come back from behind rather than get a good start that gets beat out. Sarah readied herself in her position on the field and waited, watching as the first girl went, passing the baton to Sera who dropped it for half a second and had to recover. The coach let out an obscenity and Sarah got ready to try and make up the distance.
As the baton came her way she got ready, took a few steps to get up to speed and ran alongside until the switch happened. Sarah grabbed the baton tightly and made off like a bat out of hell looking to make up the difference that was caused by Sera’s mistake. She pushed and pushed, finding herself in a bit of a goofy run that actually felt faster to her than she had managed in the practice and the coach was even cheering her on a bit, when the time came Selene started up and Sarah passed the baton off, taking a few slowing down steps as she caught her breath, leaning forward at first out of bad habit but remembered to keep her chest open. She stretched up and pushed her chest out, pulling her shoulders back and resting her hands on top of her head to breathe in through her nose and watch Selene run.
Something seemed a bit off though, Selene wasn’t performing as fast as she had been, though in truth before she had certain headstarts that weren’t really showing up here. Sarah watched the coach get more and more excited, shouting out her name repeatedly and cheering her on. Once it finished though he looked at the time and immediately began to chastise Sera. Sarah watched from a distance and began walking over, her hand grabbing the girl by the shoulder and resting her chin on the girl’s head.
”I’m horrible, I’m like the worst I can’t believe I fucked up that badly. I should just quit… “
“Ding dong you’re wrong,” Sarah said as she pulled her chin away and patted her on the head. Selene came over with quite a look and grabbed Sera by the collar.
”The fuck is your problem, you jackass! You screwed up our time with that stupid mistake. I can’t believe you!”
Sarah’s fist gripped tightly as she shoved Selene off of her, “I can’t believe you either. There’s no way you pushed yourself on that one, I saw you run a hell of a lot faster in practice. Hell, you could at least have bothered to cheat on this one like you did in the down and backs.”
”The fuck did you say to me newbie?” Selene had let go of Sera when she had been shoved, but it seemed as though now all her focus had shifted away from Sera altogether as she stepped up and tried to stand as tall as possible in front of Sarah. ”If you got shit to talk, if you’re going to go lying like that why don’t you try not being jealous and just accept that you’re second rate too.”
“Oh please, like I couldn’t beat you in a fair match. Besides, with how lazy you are taking shortcuts you probably can’t keep that top speed up for long.”
”You wanna try me?”
Sarah grinned as she picked up a nearby shotput and tossed it as far as she could. The girl looked with amazement as the thing went pretty damn far. “I’ll prove it right now. So here’s the deal you little shit. I’m gonna give you a two second head start to run in any direction you want, anywhere, away from here. Then? I’m going to start running after you. Only here’s the real kicker, if you get away you can trash talk all you want because you know that you can. You will know from that day forward that I can’t catch you when you do. But if I catch you? And I will, I will catch your weak little ass. I will tear you apart limb from limb, I will bruise you so badly CPS will look at your parents funny. Do you understand me?”
The girl seemed to be stressing a little bit, ”You can’t, that’s not…”
“And… you will note that I will do this again and again so long as you trash talk me, or people like Sera here. That’s a promise. Hell, maybe I’ll just break your fucking knee cap.”
”I’m in line for a scholarship, you can’t do this!”
“I can do anything I want. At least, for the next ten minutes. I’ll deal with the consequences later, you ready?”
”COACH! HELP!”
“One mississippi…”
She took off like a bat out of hell, leaving Sarah and Sera behind as Sarah bent at the knees, her hand touching the ground.
“Two mississippi!” Sarah’s foot dug hard as she took off as fast as she could. She was behind the girl now watching the lines pass. The girl was losing her a bit, showing that she did actually have some speed. She was running toward the coach it seemed but once they left grass the girl didn’t seem to have her speed with her. She started to miss her stride and Sarah caught up closer foot by foot until finally she was within reach. “Boo!”
The girl screamed as Sarah grabbed her by the back of the shirt, pulling hard enough that the girl’s feet flew in front of her and Sarah threw the girl down hard onto her back before putting her foot on her chest. “I’m going to enjoy this.” Sarah said as she started to crack her knuckles nice and loud like to try and put a little more fear in Selene the running Queen.
”Please, I’m sorry! I’m sorry let me apologize, I’ll do whatever you want, I’ll let you run last in the next relay! Whatever just please don’t hurt me! I need this!”
Sarah thought about it calmly and looked down at her, “You know what you have a point. If I break your knee cap that does send a message, but then you can’t run and you don’t get to correct the behaviour.”
”That’s right! That’s right!”
“So instead I’ll break something you don’t need that badly.”
”Wha- NO!”
Sarah grabbed the girl’s hand, forced it up into view and grabbing her pinky snapped it hard backwards to hear the crunch. Sarah let go of the hand as the girl started crying out and walked away. Sera looked a little bothered by the whole ordeal but grinned really big after that. Sarah wasn’t sure if track was for her, but she did enjoy beating Selene just then, catching up to her had been fun.
