Fear Part III

So I've actually been planning to write this for a while, but since tomorrow is our first "real" meet, I suppose now is a good time to actually post.

Here I am, a junior, who's been on varsity for three years now. And every year, I've been part of some form of the relay. Freshman year, I was the alternate for the 4X100, which meant that I didn't run at all; sophomore year, I ran third leg almost every week. And this year, I run first and second leg. So I've had tons of practice. We practice handoffs at least twice a week, and we run them in a real race twice (most of the time). So I shouldn't be scared of anything about the relay, right?

Wrong. My biggest fear is of the baton: a piece of metal no more than a foot long. A cylinder that sprinters throw to each other as a game. But to me, it's curse. It's the baton that needs to make it around the track in a relay, not the runners. It's the baton that has to be passed on to each leg, not speed or thoughts of encouragement. It's the baton that means anything at all.

The reason that I'm afraid of the baton dates back to freshman year, to my very first relay. Which I suppose makes sense, my first experience being bad sticks with me the longest. So I was put in as anchor leg, because the anchor had pissed our coach off and he was proving that she was making a mistake and that the relay didn't need her. Well, that was wrong. I was beyond nervous, and when I was supposed to put my hand back, I did my right instead of my left. Now, it may not seem that bad, but when the baton was supposed to stay in the middle of the lane, and the girl passing to me had to try and cross it over my body... well bad things happened. We were disqualified. But worse than that, I proved that I wasn't ready to be on a relay. I felt as though I didn't deserve to be on a relay ever again, and still, when I practice or when I'm in a race, that moment when I have to put my hand back, I think of that. I think of the moment when I didn't just ruin my chance of proving that I deserved to be on the relay, I let down the rest of my team who wanted to win. And I'm terrified of doing that again.

-Pippi