Again, Michelle cups a hand over her ear. “Okay, Marty, I heard you that time. Let’s go to Jeff Grimsley, who I understand is on the ground…” – she laughs – “…at the seventeen-mile marker. Jeff, are you there?”
֍ ֍ ֍ ֍ ֍ ֍ ֍ ֍ ֍ ֍
“Yes, Michelle, I’m here… and I’m doing much better, thank you. As you said, I’m standing at the aid station at the seventeen-mile marker. Sunshine O’Malley, who has led the women’s race literally since the very beginning, ran by here maybe five minutes ago, and I have to tell you, it seemed to me that she was looking more than a little tired. And she was favoring her right knee too, just like Jill Kendal. So injuries may well turn out to be the determining factor…
“Wait a minute, Marty, judging from the noise I think that someone else is… Yes, Marty, another woman is running up to the aid station. Let me see if I can spot her number as she goes by. She’s slowing down a little to grab a cup of water… it’s number 77, Marty, can you tell me… Carla Kwan? Thanks, Marty. We’re looking at Carla Kwan, number 77, and she looks really good, very strong, much stronger than Sunshine O’Malley did when she ran by my position a few minutes ago. Carla’s only about a mile behind Sunshine now, and it looks like she may be making a move. Marty, can we get a shot from the drone so we can take a look at…
“That’s good, Marty, I can see it on the monitor. We’re looking down at Sunshine O’Malley, who is still the leader at this time, but if we swing the camera back… yes, there’s Carla Kwan who just ran by me at the aid station a few seconds ago. Remember how far ahead Sunshine was the last time we checked from the drone? Carla’s really closing the gap. If she can keep up this pace, and if Sunshine keeps slowing down, I think that Carla’s going to take the lead well before the finish line.
“And let’s scan back a little more to see if anyone else is moving up… okay, Marty, even from that high up I can tell that we’re looking at the Kelso twins, Sharlyn and Carol Ann Kelso, the big surprises in the race. It looks like they’re running about half a mile behind Carla, so they may be getting ready to challenge Sunshine too. Nobody gave them much of a chance coming into the race, but that’s one of the great things about triathlons, Marty, you never know who’s going to have a good race on any given day. And the Kelso twins, two relative unknowns from Rice University in Houston, may be well on their way toward representing the United States in the Olympic long-distance triathlon.
“And then as we continue to scan back, you see that there’s really nobody else very close to the leaders right now. It looks to me like we basically have four women – Sunshine O’Malley, Carla Kwan, and the Kelso twins – competing for the three spots on the Olympic team. Sunshine seems to be fading, but Carla and the twins look strong, so I don’t know that any of the other women really have much of a chance to…
“Wait a minute, Marty, Michelle tells me that Jill Kendal, injured knee and all, has passed something like ten women in the time since Michelle and I last spoke. So even though she’s still a good ways back, it may be a little premature to count Jill Kendal out of the race just yet…”
3.1.20: Dallas
“How many are ahead of me?” Jillian demands as she grabs for a cup of water without slowing down.
She’s asked the same question at every aid station, and for a while, the answers were discouraging. At first, all she got in return were blank stares, like – you don’t really expect me to count that high, do you? Then, after a while, she started to get numbers in response. Although the numbers seldom agreed, at least she was getting regular – if inexact – feedback on how she was doing.
And now, for the first time, all the responses are all the same: There are four women in front of her.
Only four.
I’m in fifth place already. I just have to pass two more people to come in third.
I haven’t seen Sunshine yet, Jillian thinks as she runs along, so she’s probably one of them. But she’s not a strong runner. I should be able to run her down sooner or later.
And… who else? I don’t remember seeing Carla, although she might have been in the pileup. But I’ll bet she’s out in front of me. She’ll be tough to run down. Especially if she smells blood.
Who else? I think I’ve passed everyone else that I know. Maybe it’s somebody new. But two somebodies? Not likely. Must be some girls that I just can’t think of right now.
But I’ll know soon enough, Jillian thinks, picking up the pace. Because whoever it is, I should be catching up to them in a few miles.
If my knee holds out.
The burst of speed reminds Jillian of the nagging pain in her knee that simply refuses to go away. As she gains speed, her feet hit the ground with greater force, and the throbbing in her knee worsens. She’s trying as hard as she can not to favor it. Any unnatural running motion, she knows, would put a strain on her other muscles. If she favors her hurt knee too much, she risks injuring an ankle, or a hip, or even her other knee.
Run through the pain, she tells herself. And don’t let it affect your gait. But she feels just the tiniest bit awkward, and she knows that she’s not being entirely successful at maintaining her natural rhythm.
And so, possibly for the first time in her athletic career, Jillian Kendal feels like a clumsy novice as she runs down the road toward her Olympic destiny.
3.1.21: Dallas
“Hi, Sunshine!” Carla effuses. “How are you holding up?”
“I’m tired,” Sunshine admits. She’s been listening to the footsteps close in on her for several hundred yards, but she’s been assuming that it was Jillian. So she was more than a little surprised when Carla Kwan pulled up along side of her. “And my knee hurts really bad,” she adds, unprompted.
Carla relaxes. She had tried to act exceptionally perky when she pulled up next to Sunshine. Running behind Sunshine, she couldn’t help but notice that Sunshine was starting to drag her feet, and was obviously tiring. If I act like I’m fresh as a daisy, she had thought, maybe I can discourage Sunshine enough to eliminate her as serious competition.
But now Carla can see that eliminating Sunshine won’t take any effort at all on her part, as Sunshine is well on her way toward eliminating herself. If it had been anyone else admitting to being tired and sore, Carla would have been suspicious that she was being suckered, set up for a strong finish. But Sunshine’s sincerity is so transparent that Carla actually feels sorry for her.
Don’t worry, she almost says, we’ve only got about five miles to go, you can make it. But at the last minute, her competitive instincts kick in, and she says, “Gee, maybe you shouldn’t be running so hard with a sore knee, Sunshine. You could injure yourself. Seriously.” She tries to look concerned.
“You think so?” Sunshine sounds so worried that Carla feels guilty – but just a little, and only for a few seconds. Hell, this is a race, not a support group.
“Sure.” Carla nods. “You know Michelle Stackhouse? No? Well, she’s covering this race for TV, but she used to be one of the top woman triathletes. She did the fastest transitions I’ve ever seen in my life.” Carla shakes her head sadly. “I know she’d rather be in the race than covering it from the sidelines.”
Sunshine gobbles up the bait. “What happened to her?”
God, Carla thinks, this girl is so gullible! “She tore up her knee in a race. Just flat-out tore it up. She probably would’ve been okay if she had quit running when it started bothering her. But no, she had to keep going.” Carla pauses for dramatic effect and gazes off into the distance as if she’s momentarily overcome by a painful memory. “She won the race. But she tore up her knee so bad that she had to have surgery.”
“Golly.” Sunshine mulls this over. “Was she able to race anymore?”
“She tried.” Carla sighs and shakes her head sadly. “But she was never the same after that. If you mistreat your body,” she adds meaningfully, “it doesn’t always give you a second chance. That’s just something Michelle’s going to have to live with for the rest o
f her life. What a shame.”
“Do you really think I ought to slow down a little?”
This girl is too much, Carla thinks. Here we are, racing neck and neck not five miles from the finish line, and she’s asking me if she should slow down. Not that she has much choice, she looks so tired that I doubt that she could keep up with me if I turned on the juice. But why should I knock myself out when I can get her to slow down instead?
“I don’t know what to tell you, Sunshine,” Carla says. “It’s your body.”
“I think that maybe I should slow down a little,” Sunshine says hesitantly. “Only I hate to feel like I’m not doing my best.”
“If you mess up your knee,” Carla points out, helpfully, “you might not be able to do much of anything anymore. And I don’t think you have to worry about making the Olympics. You should be able to finish second or third without a whole lot of trouble.” Actually, Carla has no idea whether anyone is close behind or not, but it seems like a good thing to say.
“I don’t care about the darn Olympics,” Sunshine says. “I just want to make sure that I do the best that I can do. So I don’t disappoint… anyone.”
Boy, she sure is bitter about something, Carla thinks. It almost sounds like she’s been forced into this against her will. Why is she even here if she doesn’t care about the Olympics? God, there are girls who’d give their left tit to make the team, and to hear Sunshine, you’d think it was some kind of horrible punishment.
“I’m going to slow down,” Sunshine announces. “Thanks, Carla.”
Thanks? “Sure thing, kid, no problem. Take care of yourself.”
And sure enough, true to her word, Sunshine does slacken her pace a little, leaving Carla in sole possession of first place.
God, that was easy, Carla thinks, allowing herself to smile now that Sunshine is out of sight. But just as quickly, she wipes the smile from her face. Don’t ease up, she reminds herself, not when you’ve come this far. Don’t forget that Jill Kendal’s back there somewhere. She could be breathing down your neck right now.
And, God knows, there’s no way I’ll be able to sucker her out of the race.
And so, resisting a strong urge to actually look over her shoulder, Carla Kwan calls on a reserve of strength and begins her final push to the finish line.
3.1.22: Dallas
At this point, Jillian Kendal is no longer overly concerned with trying to win the race. Instead, she’s made an uncharacteristic and painful decision to concentrate her energies on trying to finish third and make the team.
And now she’s making an important move toward that goal: She’s pulling even with the two women who, she believes, are all that stand between her and third place. If she can pass them, then all she’ll have to do is maintain her position and she’ll qualify for the Olympics.
Where, hopefully, her luck will run better than it has today.
And where her knee, with the benefit of some much-needed rest, will not be the constant source of pain that it is right now.
“Hi, girls,” Jillian says, as she pulls up next to them, trying to sound considerably more cheerful than she feels.
“Hi!” they both respond enthusiastically. “You’re Jill Kendal, aren’t you?” one of them asks, with more than a hint of respect in her voice.
“That’s me,” Jillian confesses. Good, she thinks, they know who I am and they’re a little intimidated by my reputation. That should make it easier for me to drop them. If they don’t think they can beat me, they might not even try.
“I’m Carol Ann Kelso,” the woman running next to Jillian says. “This is Sharlyn.” Sharlyn is sucking on the spout of a plastic water bottle; she holds it up jauntily as if she’s offering a toast, but she says nothing.
“You’re twins,” Jillian says, looking back and forth from one to the other. Although they don’t wear matching outfits like the other set of twins that Jillian is used to racing against, the women are nearly identical, down to the matched ponytails that bob behind them as they run.
“No shit,” Sharlyn says, and snickers.
Well, Jillian thinks, so much for them being bowled over by my reputation.
“Sharlyn!” Carol Ann scolds. “She’s just a little tired,” she explains to Jillian apologetically. “She’s not usually like that.”
“No problem,” Jillian says, magnanimously brushing aside the offense. Well, this isn’t so bad, she thinks. One of them thinks I’m great, and the other one’s tired.
And who the hell are they, anyway? she wonders. The Kelso Twins? Never heard of them. How could they just come out of nowhere and be doing so well against one of the strongest fields ever assembled for a women’s triathlon?
And the scary part is that they both look pretty fresh. Even Sharlyn, the supposedly “tired” twin, looks a whole lot better than I feel.
As if reading her mind, Sharlyn looks toward Jillian, a malicious gleam in her eye, and asks, “Having trouble with your knee?” She grins malevolently, as if to say: I can see right through your act, I know your knee’s bothering the hell out of you.
Jillian looks studiously blank. “Why, no,” she says, trying to sound puzzled. “Why do you ask?”
Sharlyn nearly laughs out loud. “You’ve got it all taped up! Don’t tell me you always run like that.”
“Well, as a matter of fact, I do,” Jillian responds, nonplussed. Good, she thinks, I was afraid that I was noticeably favoring it – God knows, it feels like I am – but Sharlyn is only reacting to the bandage. “I’ve never run a race in my life without a brace on my right knee. It’s sort of my trademark.” She laughs. “I thought that everybody knew that.”
“You didn’t wear it in the Olympics,” Sharlyn says accusingly, but she’s not as cocky as she was a few seconds ago. “Did you?”
“Of course I did.” Jillian snorts and rolls her eyes. “Jesus, they made such a big deal about it on television, I don’t see how anyone could forget it.”
“I… I don’t think I remember that,” Sharlyn says, but she won’t meet Jillian’s eyes. “I mean, it sounds familiar now that you mention it, but…” She trails off.
I’m going to have to make a move soon, Jillian thinks. There can’t be but maybe four or five miles left. If I wait until we’re too close to the finish line, I might not be able to shake them. They look like they feel a lot fresher than I do.
Just then, the course crests a hill, and Jillian starts to plan her strategy. This probably leads down to a stream, which means that we should be going up a slope pretty soon, she thinks. And that’s when I’ll take them. That’s when they’ll least expect it.
Let’s set this up. First, I need to slow down a little while we’re running down the hill, drop in behind them. Maybe that’ll give them a false sense of security, or at least make them wonder what’s going on. One way or the other, anything that breaks their concentration will help me. And slowing down a little will give my knee a rest, which it sure could use, especially if I’m going to try to blow them off.
As she slowly reduces her pace and settles in behind the twins, Jillian can see Sharlyn start to turn her head, to see what’s going on. Then, at the last second, Sharlyn realizes what she’s doing. To Jillian’s amusement, Sharlyn shakes her head and twists her neck back and forth a few times, trying to convince Jillian that she’s only trying to work out a kink in her neck and not turning around to keep an eye on Jillian. Great, thinks Jillian. Not only is she worried about what I’m doing, she’s worried about whether I know that she’s worried. One distraction on top of another.
All the way down the hill, Jillian waits for the right moment, for the exact time to make her move, for the precise instant that will result in her passing the twins when it will catch them most off guard. If I pick it up just a little past that telephone pole, she decides, I’ll pass them just after the slope bottoms out, where it starts to turn uphill. I’ll have the momentum for the climb, and they won’t. By the time I reach the top of the hill, I’ll be so far a
head of them that there’s no way they’ll be able to catch me.
Wait for it…
Wait for it…
Now!
And like a race car shifting down into a passing gear, Jillian digs down into the reserve of strength that she always seems to have available for these occasions. Ignoring the protests of her throbbing knee, she begins to accelerate…
But on her second step, just as her right foot hits the ground, a bolt of pain scissors through her knee, causing her to stumble and nearly to fall. Quickly recovering her balance, she winces and stifles the gasp that she has nearly vocalized.
She slowly gets up to speed, this time bracing herself for the pain that, sure enough, shoots through her right knee like a jagged blade. Damn it, she thinks, I’ve never felt pain like this before. But surely I can run through it for just a few more miles…
Closer, ever closer, to the unsuspecting twins. She’s really flying now, it’s exhilarating despite the terrible pain that is now a constant companion. I’ve got them! she thinks triumphantly. They don’t have a clue that I’m making a move on them.
And, indeed, just as she pulls even with them, Carol Ann raises the water bottle nonchalantly to her lips. She’s tilting her head back and squeezing the bottle when a blur of motion in her peripheral vision nearly causes her to choke.
What perfect timing, Jillian thinks. I couldn’t have asked for anything better if I had choreographed it myself. I’ll be so far past them by the time they can respond that it won’t even be a contest.
She hears the plastic bottle clatter to the ground behind her, but she resists the temptation to look back. I can’t let them know that I’m even concerned about them, she thinks. I just need to run flat out for a few minutes, and that’ll be all she wrote.
By then, I should be way ahead of them, and they should be completely demoralized.
If, she thinks, grimacing through the shooting pain that worsens with every step – if, that is, my goddamn knee will hold out for just a few more miles.
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