Synonyms for Scorched Earth

 Southern Athletics - Woodford, London.
13/8/22

It’s our final meet in the Southern Athletics fixtures. There’s talk of how close we are to winning in our division - to upgrading to five fixtures instead of four. We’ve all been made aware of who our rival club is in this pursuit, and everyone who toes the line has clocked their key competitor. But it’s due to be 32 degrees celsius. The surrounding grass is so dry it invites visions of wildebeests. The athletics track is exposing and exposed. 

In the 800m, I’m racing myself, our rivals and, as I (unhelpfully) learned the night before, the club record. On the start line my body is a mess. It knows what is about to happen: burning lungs, tingling hands and tasting blood. I kick my legs out and jump in the air, pretending none of those sensations are happening. We lean, we settle. The gun goes. 

I chase our rival club but I know I won’t catch them because I am already giving everything. Adjust. Dig. Go hard then push harder. The club record is all I’m looking for now. Embrace the fade and see it over the line. I’ve done it. I am a ghost on my own shoulder, but I’ve done it. 

Back at the bandstand, we are a gaggle of electrolytes, safety pins and musical chairs, all chasing the shade. When someone does well, we tell them how remarkable that is considering the conditions. When someone is disappointed in their performance, we tell them how well they did, considering the conditions. I deny the conditions profusely. I run the 3000m and focus only on effort. I’m pushing the pace as much as I know I can without blowing up. I finish. I am dizzy. I wait for my heart rate to go down. It simply doesn’t.

The bandstand is audience to a chorus of coughing. Lactic meets gasping meets debris. Our very lungs are parched. We kick up dust in sprints and jumps and there’s nothing to absorb it, only the moisture of our own mouths. A fortunate few are escorted to the start line with umbrellas. Seeing these rainy day accessories is jarring. It only seems to highlight the very thing we’ve been seriously, worryingly lacking.

A woman sits on the floor by the high jump with a t-shirt over her head. There is only a bottle visible beneath its neck, the contents lazily disappearing. We’re fading. Events are running late. We’re all pulling off astonishing performances, but it’s just gone on for too long. After my tango with heat exhaustion, I’m kindly encouraged to do no more. “It’s not worth it,” they say. But it is, we all know it is, because otherwise why are we all here?

It’s nearly 5pm and the light has chased us up the tiered seating until we’re all squeezed onto the back row. Our steaming shoulders are braced for impact until we are submerged. Now the race is really on. Win every last point you can before you run for shelter. Run for home. 

We take the win. 

I feel a strange grief that the athletics is over for another year. But there’s next year to look forward to, and in the winter when I’m gazing out of the window at yet another grey day, I’ll fondly remember these relentless, scorching laps of a blazing running track. When January descends into its quintessential endlessness, when time yawns before us so wide that you can see its fillings, I’ll wonder at how much a 58 millisecond PB meant to me.