The 400 and Whatchamacallits Part 3

The 400 and Whatchamacallits Part 3    Part 1 Here | Part 2 Here 

The 400 and Whatchamacallits Part 3

I was heading to the cafeteria for lunch and ran into Yield (Student’s Name Changed) who you can read more about here.  He was not having a good day and did not want to go PE class. The weather was his main concern; he didn’t want to freeze to death.

I told the attendance office I would walk him to class and that I would take care of the situation. I walked him to gym class and proceeded to head to the lunch room to monitor 425 kids eat lunch.  Shortly after I arrived in the cafeteria the Gym teachers and their classes starting heading outside. I did not see Yield and mentioned to one of the teachers that he was having a bad day and that he was worried about freezing to death.

Side Note: One of the gym teachers favorite quotes is, ” There is no such thing as bad weather, just inadequate clothing.”  When applied to most areas of life is brilliant.

Just as we finished up our conversation Yield begrudgingly walked up beside me and stated, “I don’t want to do the long jump, I am going to freeze to death.”

With a little bit of sarcasm, I noted. “Dude, you don’t have to do the long jump today you are going to run the 400-meter sprint.”

“Sprint? Look at my figure, do you think I can sprint?” He stated.

Heading Outside

We started walking outside together.

As we got closer to the starting line, he explained that they had already run the 400-meter sprint. I told him that they had already run the 4×100 relay and that this sprint was all by himself. He explained that he knew the difference between the 400-meter sprint and the 4×100 also giving me a brief history of the Olympics in the process.

I told him that we could run it together, I too, do not have a figure that is made for sprinting. We asked the teacher if that would be alright and what the record for 7th-grade boys was. Fifty-eight seconds.

We were not going to break that record.

We stood at the starting line as the teacher told us to start. We ran at a jogging pace and didn’t talk for the first 50 or so yards. There was another student standing around the first turn cheering Yield on, which gave him some extra adrenaline and he pushed it a little harder until about the 100-meter mark.

I kept going, hoping that he would keep up and that we could at least jog the entire distance. This did not happen.

He stopped and started walking. Then a flashback hit me.

I saw a younger version of myself struggling to run the 400 meters at Orem Rec Center just outside of Mountain View High school in Orem, Utah, and Bob pulling on the brakes a little bit to wait for me. This time I was Bob and Yield was me.

We Stopped Running

I stopped running and waited for Yield to catch up. We walked for a minute, and he explained how his lungs were freezing from the inside out. I pointed at a cone, and said, “We are going to run from that cone to the end without stopping okay?”

“Which one?” Trying to delay the imposing doom.

“Listen,” I said, “I’ll give you a Watchamacalit if we run the rest of the way.”

And then with a Barbaric Yawp. (Dead Poet’s Society)

He started running with all his might. He got about a cone and a half ahead of me. I began Yawping after him.  “Don’t let me catch you, Don’t let me catch you.”

We ran to the finish line together.

3:09

Not a world or school record, but a moment of friendship and love.