Summer Time Trial
July 7, 2044- Thursday
The students in their gray suits grab the green apples for a snack from the dining table. Someone sat at the dining table in civilian clothes, a young man who just arrived at the dormitories having a pack at his feet. Rise gave a glance and recognized the young man’s dark black hair and sharp jawline as Han from the Ohio state meets. As their eyes interlocked, they stood looking at each other, the recognition in their eyes. Rise waves his hand up at him, turning to go to his summer school class. Han stares back at him with his dark eyes and returns the wave. Jackson was already waiting for him at the dormitory's front door.
“We have time trials today?” says Jackson, nudging Rise’s shoulder as they walk across the grass.
“Do you think we will all go at once?” asks Rise.
“I think so,” says Jackson.
They hurry into Miss Pine’s classroom, which is abuzz with the excitement for the time trials after class. The other students are talking to one another about their running paces.
“Settle, settle. Let us focus on class. Run only for the outside,” says Miss Pine, smacking a ruler against her palm. It makes a clear and echoing sound in the classroom that gets everyone's attention to the front. The classroom begins with some science concepts. Rise munches on his green apple. Soon the bell rings and the students rush to eat their lunch at the dormitory’s dining hall. Rise picks a light meal today, his stomach turning, but not only from hunger. The nervousness from today’s timed trials looms ahead.
In his room, he ties his shoelaces and double cheeks on the knots, pulling the blue string taunt. Jackson and Rise walk to the track and field, and within reaching it their fitness trackers light up green. Rise looks down at the words appearing across the small screen: PREPARE FOR TIME TRIAL.
The wind is lightly blowing the grass in the infield while the runners stretch around the area near their coach. Some of the other runners turn to look at the treeline to see the new person walk to the track. Han is wearing workout clothes.
“You think he’ll do the time trial too?” asks Jackson, speaking the thought inside Rise’s mind.
Rise shrugged his shoulders and said, “Dunno, probably,” as he continued the dynamic stretch on his right leg.
Everyone has a moment to spare before there is a whistle cutting through the air.
“Gather around for instructions!” says Coach Palmer.
He tells with his body language and voice the course of the time trials. There will be a mile on the track, then they run out onto the road by the school to do two laps and come back for a mile.
It's an approximately 5k run.
“Everyone, do your best, as it's timed. To the start line!” says Coach Palmer.
The young men and women line up on the yellow line of the track. They look down at their tracking devices, which have now become a part an extension of them. There is a countdown clock on the face of the clock. 3…2…1.
“Go!” says Coach Palmer.
The runners take off onto the black track that has begun to get hot from the day’s ray of sunlight. The blinding light shines harshly into Rise’s eyes as the first corner of the track rounds out with his stride. The bodies of the other runners are close to his body as they all run close together. By the end of the first mile, they have spread out more into smaller packs of runners.
Even though they are all running fast, some are running at a quicker pace than others. To his mild surprise, Han is doing much better than Rise in the time trial as he is in the front of the pack. And to think he only just arrived at the training! Rise shakes his head a millimeter, trying to refocus his thoughts. He should focus on himself. Maybe he wasn’t as tired as he pondered while passing the dormitories for the first lap. The sunlight shone on the freshly cleaned windows. The glare caught in Rise’s eyes as he passed on the road beyond the building. He picked up the pace to catch up with the group in front of him. Jackson’s back was just a few passes ahead.
There was a cool breeze from the slight downhill slope it took to reach the gate.
Before reaching the gate, runners had to take a sharp turn to turn back. On the second lap on the campus, Rise and Jackson had almost closed the gap to the front of the pack. Once the first half dozen runners reached the track, the pace turned up a notch. Rise felt his body pushing to a new limit. His face felt hot even apart from the summer heat, a deep heat from inside. Yet he ran. He watched from the last corner turn as Han finished first. As Jackson and Rise finished within seconds of each other in 3rd and 4th place, they sprinted to the finish line, leaving other runners behind at the last seconds. The number 4 blinked on Rise’s wristband. They breathed in the air. Some of the other runners were in awe at Han’s finish. Han came up to Rise and Jackson.
“That was a fast sprint,” says Han.
“That was a fat run,” says Rise.
“We finished in time, you think?” asks Jackson, looking at the two of them with a raised eyebrow.
Rise and Han nod their heads in agreement.
Coach Palmer waited for the last runner to cross, which did not take long after.
There is time for a few choice words by the coach praising them, yet stating there is a lot of work to do. The afternoon ends with stretching and a cool down.
Jackson taps on Han’s shoulders after they cool down.
“We should sit and chat in the lounge after showering. Care to join Rise?” asks Jackson to Rise.
The three boys meet up in the lounge area in the corner. Han is already sitting down when Rise enters the room. Rise walks awkwardly to where Han is sitting; he is aware of the open space in the lounge with the noise of the other people around.
“Hey, you didn’t follow me or something did you?” asks Rise, joking.
“Yeah, like this is the place to be,” says Han.
Jackson walks up behind Rise.
“What is the place to be? New York City,” says Jackson.
“Here,” says Han.
Jackson and Rise nod their heads. Rise looks into Han's dark black eyes. There is a depth to them in the yellow light of the room as if there is more to the sentence he wants to add but won’t say.