This is the conclusion to my feature article. Once again let me re-emphasize the fact that in no way am i attempting to cast a negative light on Katie Hickey. She is a great runner and has all my respect.
With two laps to go the pace suddenly picked up more and more. Now the run was a full on sprint. As these runners came back from behind, the questions began to creep back in as well.
“Shake them off. Keep up the pace. Keep going. KEEP GOING.” She told herself these things, but her body wasn’t listening the way her mind wanted it to.
During the struggle with herself, Hickey did not notice what was going on around her. She had gone on auto-pilot and became self-engulfed. When she came to her senses she had realized something. This was something she couldn’t help, and it was something she was now helpless to fix.
Hickey was boxed in.
Runners had surrounded her. It was now more strain to follow in the footsteps of these runners, and not run over them, then it was to bust out and take the race over. But she had no choice, she had no where to go, no where to run. Katie was stuck. Stuck, boxed in by two inferior runners, while the pack passed her by.
By the last 300 meters of the race Hickey was beat, emotionally from not being able to escape being boxed in while the pack raced away, and physically from having to watch her every step so she wasn’t disqualified for bumping another runner in an attempt to break out.
When the pack made the turn for the home stretch everyone seemed to take off. They sped up and gave everything they had for the final bit of the race. Hickey followed suit. When she took off it was like she was running in quick sand. Her legs felt like rubber and her wind was gone.
She crossed the finish line. Even though she was one of few to make it that far, it wasn‘t good enough for her. Making it to nationals proved she was one of the best in the nation. Not the conference, not the region, but the whole nation. But where she finished wasn’t good enough. “It just wasn’t enough.”
She felt sick. Like she could throw up, like someone had punched her in the stomach, then kicked her in the head while she was down. Some of it was because of the physical strain of running at such a high level for an extended amount of time. But most of it was she was sick from herself. She was so dissatisfied with the way she ran. It wasn’t her best run, and that is what hurt the most.
This instilled a hunger into Hickey . She was like a shark that just got its first taste of blood. This blood was the National meet. And her prey was the other runners she will face. She knew she was better than that. She still knows this today.
Now she has been there. She has done that. No more surprises. Next time she will not be boxed in. Next time she will win. She will win.
Young Hickey has now grown into experienced, strong, fast Hickey . Is she an All American? Can she win the National meet? She doesn’t know the answers, and no one else does, only the future knows what lies ahead.
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