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It was the night before my race qualifications. I knew that Dahlia couldn’t come and watch me run; it was too public and it would cause too much of a stir, but she had arranged for a car to take me there and promised something special for after, no matter what happened.
I was going through my mental checks and mapping through the course. I had run it a few times, a road course. It had its pros and cons. I prefer street running in terms of terrain and running surface, but I miss the atmosphere of a stadium. This was only the heats, though. I would run the 10k once, in a group I had been preselected for based on my average time last year.
It was an advantage I could exploit because I was racing much faster right now than my average last year, meaning I could sit comfortably in the front pack before using the final thousand with a burst to take a good qualification time.
The key would be to finish with the right time. I had to make sure I qualified without giving myself too much noise. I didn’t want to be a target, spotted and stalked in the final.
So, for me, tomorrow would be a purely tactical race, which meant focus. Something that I had been lacking a lot lately. “Alexa, your phone is ringing.”
I reach for it on the table but I already know who it is.
“Hey, Grandmama.”
“Hello, you. How are you feeling?” I never tell her, but I know when she is nervous. She still has a landline and when she is fretting, she will start to wrap the cord around her palm, fidgeting and it gives the line a distinct rustle.
“I feel good. Andy is pretty happy; I just need focus but the speed and pace are there. I feel good.”
“Okay sweetheart. Well, I won’t be there tomorrow, but you know I will make it for the final. Call me after. I will be thinking of you, sending you some of my energy, what little of it I have left,” she adds with a laugh and I smile.
“Thanks, Grandmama. I will call you straight after and let you know in way too much detail how it went.”
“Oh, you know I love all the details. Get lots of sleep tonight. I love you.”
“I love you too, sweet dreams.”
I hear the line click and I feel Dahlia’s gaze on me. “She loves you a lot.”
I nod. “She does, I am very lucky. I don’t take that for granted.”
“You shouldn’t, and she shouldn’t either, although I can tell in her tone how much she adores you. She sounds like a very sweet woman.”
“She is. The absolute sweetest. Even sweeter than your tea.”
Dahlia drops her notepad to look up at me over her cute reading glasses. “Nothing… is sweeter… than Texan iced tea.” And from her tone, I’m not going to doubt it.
Dahlia would make a perfect wife. To the right person, not her asshole ex. I wake the next morning to a buffet. I struggle to eat on race mornings, but I manage to force some down me because I know I’ll need it. She has also laid out a beautiful new running outfit, tracksuit and shoes, I wear the outfit but I don’t have the heart to tell her that new shoes would be a terrible idea.
There is a whole kit prepared, which I can only assume someone had been sent to the Nike store and bought everything and anything on the shelf that looked like it might be useful and packed it all into a very fancy sports bag and then a holdall because they didn’t all fit in the bag.
“I didn’t know what you might need, so I got you a couple of things,” she says shyly with a blush that makes my heart melt.
“It is all perfect. I am sorry you can’t be there, but it is incredibly boring for the first 9.5k anyway. All of it will be on a screen.”
“I will be watching. I pulled some strings and I will have access here to the live stream. I thought maybe next time I can set that up for your grandmother too, if you want?”
“Oh, Dahlia! She would love that!”
“Well, maybe I can get it done today… leave it with me and I will see what we can have arranged.”
“You are an angel. Thank you.” She drapes herself slowly over my lap in her favorite position, curled around me with her hands locking around my neck so her nose can nuzzle in. She smells like honey and cinnamon. Her hair is soft against my skin as I take a long, deep inhale.
She will be watching. I suddenly feel like I have a whole new reason to focus.
I don’t get nervous before a race, but I do shake. It is the adrenaline, the rush of endorphins. My mind knows what it needs to do and it makes my blood surge, my pulse race, my heart beats faster so I can push myself as hard as I physically can.
My group has Leticia Jones in it, and she is a firecracker of a starter. She will set a high pace, and I just have to keep on her heels and watch the others drift away. Not challenging, just letting her set the speed. It makes it easier for me in the long run, but it is always difficult to sit back when you have a lot more gas in the tank. Which is exactly what I am doing now. We are 7k in. Resting on her heels, the urge to push her, to come round her on the outside and drive this front pack forwards… but I focus, remembering the tactics. Knowing I need to only just win, not set records.
There is a scuffle. It is every runner’s nightmare this kind of race. A clipped heel, a shoulder, then suddenly you feel the sting of gravel as you hit the floor. Precious seconds are lost and then you risk injury, your vitals plummet, you lose the pace. All your training has gone in a second.
