My high school track coach was always telling me to pick up my feet.
“You’re six foot two,” he would remind me. “You should be done with the race in fifty steps. Stop running like there’s a rubber band between your ankles.”
My race was the 100-meter dash – the shortest sprinting event. Tall, lanky and white, I was about as out of place in this event as a person could be. But when I put my coach’s advice to work, the results were instantaneous. I shattered my personal record by nearly half a second.
“See what you just did?” he shouted. “Remember that. And do it in every race for the rest of the season.”
I nodded, thanked him, and went to stand in a bucket of ice. But when I tried to reflect on the race, something strange happened: I found myself drawing a total blank. I finished the race in eleven seconds, and I couldn’t remember a single one. Continue reading
Metawhimsical 