A Probably Unnamed, Definitely Unnecessary Story

FickShun21751 wrote:

>>Final Interval<<

Mudra was getting ready to head out to dinner with Amy when I called him. The call was very brief. I am not certain Mudra was in the type of rush he claimed to be in when I made the call, but it was clear he wanted to get off the phone as quickly as he could. I can’t remember a time talking with Mudra when he didn’t take every possible opportunity to inject witticisms into the conversation. My news drenched whatever spark for comedy Mudra seemed to always have burning in him.

“Ah, man. That’s not why we do this. This isn’t what we do it for,” Mudra said several times on the call. “Listen, I’ve got Amy rushing me out the door for dinner. I’ll have to think on this. Not why we do it, kid.”

Mudra was always in my corner to scheme through whatever issues I came to him with. Since our earliest days working together in high school that advice extended beyond running, any life hurdle that seemed to be propped up in my lane was under the scope of Mudra’s care if I needed it to be. This is the first time since high school I’m facing a hurdle with Mudra backing away.

Light shakes are present all over my body. I can’t separate the hangover from the connection with reality pulsing out to every limb. My foot is uncontrollably tapping, and my hands feel weak – not quite able to grip for one failed attempt at opening a bottle of seltzer.

I know there isn’t any scheming to avoid this first waves of truth. I call Carl.

“Jared! Caught me right before St. Michael’s Rudolph play. What’s up?” Carl said through my speaker phone as I paced the perimeter of my living room.

“Hey Carl. Um, I have an update—I guess it’s an update—on some things related to the race I thought you should know about,” I said.

“Sure, kid. Hit me. Not sure we’ll add any more race talk, but curiosity is part of the tool kit for a guy like me. What’s up?”

“Um, it’s not good. I, uh. I think I am disqualified. I don’t think the race counts,” I said, stupidly taking a soft approach to the news.

“Disqualified? Okay. Why d’ya get disqualified?” Carl said, adding some seriousness to his tone.

“Well, um, I was taking some medication that isn’t allowed,” I said. I immediately hated the innocence I was trying to weave into the situation.

“What’s that mean?”

“I took drugs. I took EPO to enhance my performance,” I said, stopping my pacing and sitting on the edge of the coffee table.

“Oh. Whoa. Okay, so what’s that mean now?”

“Well, I got a letter from US Anti-Doping stating I failed a post-race drug test. They can see I was taking EPO. I have a couple weeks to reply, but I don’t think I’m going to fight it.”

Carl was silent for a moment on the other end of the call.

“I did take EPO. I knew it was banned, but I didn’t think it mattered for a guy like me,” I said, still trying to find little gaps where I could tuck in some innocence.

“Okay, kid. I think I understand. Damn, buddy,” Carl said.

“I just needed you to know that. I don’t know what happens next.”

“I don’t either, kid. Can I see the email?” Carl said.

“Uh, yeah. Um, I can forward you the email, if that’s helpful,” I said.

“Okay, do that. I gotta run out for this play. I will look at the email.”

“Okay, sending right now,” I said.

“Listen, kid. We might have to toss something in the paper. I know we aren’t running breaking national news here, but I am still a journalist. Stakes may not be too high, but I take pride in good journalism,” Carl said.

“I understand. Do what you have to do,” I said.

“Thanks, kid. I gotta run, but I’ll give this some thought. Take care of yourself,” Carl said, and then hung up.

My alarm goes off at 7:25am. It’s been three days since Emma left. Three days since my call to Mudra. Three days since my talk with Carl. I have not heard from any of them since and have not tried to reach out, either. I haven’t run since the workout with Allison. My parents don’t know what’s going on – I’ve been avoiding my mom’s calls as much as possible, citing a big work project. My body hasn’t completely abandoned the light shakes, and eating has been very sparse.

I pull into the office and try my best to get in character for the day. Work has probably noticed my demeanor is off, but if they have, they haven’t said anything. Not even Shareen.

Walking into my cubicle row no one picks up their head to greet me. I see Shareen and a collections associate, Chelsea, focused on their screens. As I pass Chelsea’s cubicle opening I glance to the side and see the words across the top of her screen in the Times-Tribune. “Local Marathoner Faces Doping Ban.” My left knee buckles and I stumble step to resume my walk forward.

Shareen quickly minimizes the window she has open as I pass her cubicle opening.
“Hey, hun. How’s it going?” Shareen says, the most flat-toned I’ve ever heard her speak.
“Good, good,” I say, then quickly tuck into my cubicle.

The first half of the day crawls by. I resort to my unproductive ritual of clicking through screens in the customer service portal, taking on no cases and never touching my keyboard for the entire morning. Just before lunch a meeting invite pops into my inbox. It’s from Chris. Chris is never one to put a meeting on a calendar without sending a direct message that either warns of the importance or unimportance of the call. I look at my direct messages and wait for a few minutes. Nothing comes. The meeting is titled: “Quick Sync.” The call is scheduled for 5:00pm.

At lunch I walk out to the freezing parking lot and scroll through some texts starting to come in reacting to the article. From my mom I have three missed calls and a text that reads: “Call when you can. Love you, Mom.” She always signs her texts.

A couple hours earlier the article link, originally tweeted from the Scranton Times-Tribune Twitter account, has now breached into some real running circles. I read a few reactions explaining all the ways in which I am a complete and total loser, before closing my phone. I decide to not answer any texts and walk back inside.

Time finds a slower gear for the afternoon. Every colleague that walks by my cubicle I assume is curious to see the state I am in. No one says anything to me.

At 4:30pm Shareen exits Chris’s office (the only confirmation I have that Chris is in today), walks back to her desk, and begins sliding on her coat and dropping a few items into her large leather purse. Her back is to my cubicle as she prepares her things and walks out into the hallway, headed for the lobby. At the end of the hallway, without turning back, she raises a hand and says, “buh-bye, friends!” She continues out into the lobby.

At 4:55pm I stare at my screen as the last of my row of cubicles exits towards the lobby. No one else says goodbye. I am certain I understand the purpose of Chris’s meeting.

At 4:59pm, after a light knock on Chris’s office door, I slowly tun the doorknob and push my way in.

<><><><><><><><><><><><><>

I push back my chair and review the words written across my screen. It’s after 8pm again, my third time in the last two weeks lingering in the office this late. Emma will be wondering where I am. I pack up my laptop, pull on my coat and head out towards the lobby.

I reach for the large glass doors that exit out to the parking lot right as a member of the facilities crew is coming in to clean the offices.

“Late one for you, sir,” he says, holding the door open for me.

“Nothing serious, just wrapping some things up. Thank you,” I said.

“We’re going to doing a full shutdown Friday at 6:30pm to do a deep clean on these floors. Just a heads up in case you had plans to stay late that night.”

“Oh, no worries,” I said. “I’m headed out of town tomorrow morning, so won’t be around.”
“Too early for Christmas travel,” the man says.

“No, not Christmas travel. I’m running in a race,” I say.

“Hopefully warmer than here. Gonna win?” the man says.

“Northern Cali, so probably not much warmer. And definitely not gonna win. I’d say I’m racing against a clock.”

“Ha! Aren’t we all, man. Aren’t we all,” the man says, and then steps through the door.
“Safe travels.” He flips a wave goodbye without turning back and marches into the lobby.

Out in my car I sit for a second to think through the words I’ve written down. “Be grateful for this. Do what you have to do to just be grateful for this.” Mudra’s words from the week prior float through my mind.

I reach into the back seat and slide out my laptop from my bag. Positioned awkwardly on my lap, angled forward by the steering wheel, I scroll to the top of the first page and type:

“For the love of it. 11/29/2023”

~THE END~...warned ya it wasn't necessary ;)

FickShun21751 wrote:

1

I checked the Scranton Times-Tribune’s homepage for the story one last time before shutting down my laptop and leaving Penn Foster’s offices. Today is a run commute day. I slide my laptop into my running pack and head to the bathrooms to change.

“It’s Mr. Olympian! How many miles today, Jared?”

My boss, the head of the Customer Service Department, Chris Ryder was exiting the men’s room as I rounded the corner to enter.

“Just a short one. Maybe 5 miles or so,” I said.

“5 miles! That’s more than I drove today!” said Chris, visibly pleased with his wit. I forced a laugh back.

This was the ritual I seemed to have with my coworkers. They’d ask—almost daily—how much I had run or planned to run that day. No matter the answer—five miles, 10 miles, 20 miles—the reply would always involve some comparison to distances they drive, or their lifetime miles they've run. I don’t find the ritual annoying exactly, but it is certainly words to fill space in a more obvious way than traditional topics like weather or traffic or The Game that I probably wouldn’t know had happened.

“Been checking for that article. We’re going to get one framed for right there.” Chris pointed to a series of framed pictures that lined the lefthand wall of the lobby as you entered Penn Foster. The first half of the wall was six portraits of the first six presidents of the school. The four pictures that followed successfully lost the theme. A picture of the original building before the addition was put on. A scenic skyline view of the Poconos. A very amateur group photo from the company cookout in 1992. And a picture of the Governor of Pennsylvania, Ed Rendell, holding a large pair of scissors at a ribbon cutting ceremony to celebrate the opening of the new addition on campus. Thinking of the anticipated 11th picture made my stomach feel like a hole had blown open below it and all the air from my upper body sucked out the bottom as if vacuumed.

“I don’t know. Haven’t heard when it’ll be out yet,” I said.

“I’m sure the Times-Tribune hardly registers on the radar of sports star,” Chris said, impressed again with his wit. I forced another laugh as I flipped a goodbye wave and pushed into the men’s room.

<><><><><><><><><><><><><>

Yesterday at lunch I had met with a Times-Tribune reporter on my lunch break. They are doing a story on my having qualified for the 2024 US Olympic Marathon Trials. Ten days ago I ran 2:17:51 at the California International Marathon, just under the qualifying standard of 2:18:00. Qualifying had been a dream of mine since watching the 2008 US Olympic Marathon Trials one hungover morning in my college dorm back in 2007. Over the last 17 years this dream has been a source of hope and heartbreak, keeping me engaged with the sport at a level I once held as almost impossible, but breaking my heart each of the attempts before this one. A DNF in the 2011 CIM would be my first post-collegiate marathon and my first taste of defeat in this pursuit. At the 2016 Houston Marathon I walked the last two miles in 42 minutes after watching splits slip further and further from the goal from mile 18 through mile 24. At CIM in 2019 I would miss qualifying by only nine seconds.

It's no secret to those closest to me that I’ve held this dream on the highest possible pedestal for approaching two decades now. As a younger and more arrogant runner I talked about the goal openly quite a bit, almost trying to speak myself into the type of runner that “deserves” this. My reactions to failure in those early years of the marathon were more public displays of disgust to really emphasize “what I am running here is so much below me.” As I got a little older and a little more mature the lesson to respect the distance and respect the effort really began to take hold. Over the last few attempts, though my aim has been better and results only growing more and more consistent, the local fanfare I artificially drummed up in the earlier years hasn't been there. The motivation to stick out a goal—for myself—became the only stimulus necessary.

Carl Bellingham, the Times-Tribune reporter they sent, is known mostly in the area for covering high school sports. He must be in his late seventies now. We’d crossed paths several times while I was running in high school as a West Scranton High Invader and a handful of times after high school for stories I always found embarrassing, like my 85th place finish at the Boston Marathon the year of the tragic Boston Bombing. I always felt they wrote that with a weird angle like I was a hero for running a race. I guess hometown papers are for that kind of thing.

Carl sat down across from me in the back corner booth of Five Guys and pulled out a small pad and a pencil from his bulging beige vest that he was famous for wearing around town. This thing must have at least 30 pockets on it and there’s a non-zero chance this is the same vest he was wearing back when I thought winning the Eastern PA League Championships meant I’d be swatting away shoe contracts in a few years. He placed his large aviator glasses on the table next to the pad and looked up.

“So, you did it,” he said, calmly and grinning. “I always knew there was something special about you. Let’s get into it.”

We sat and I answered Carl’s questions for over 90 minutes, recounting everything from how I fell in love with the sport to the many missed attempts to how being 38 affects my training approach today. We went into detail—mile by mile—of the race. The fall I took only three miles in that ended up being more of a positive adrenalin boost than a hinderance. He asked some absurd questions like if this means I’d pursue running full time (I couldn’t) or if any sponsors had reached out (I wasn’t waiting by the phone). There’s an interesting line to walk in these situations to not sound like you’re belittling the importance of the effort to yourself individually and not taking a hacksaw to any readers’ accomplishments that fall on the slower side of the effort but also making sure to put a hard stop to any misleading language that this somehow compares to what’s happening on the professional end of the sport. I’ve always hated those who lean too much into accepting praise and especially those who flat out exploit it. One of my other ongoing transformations in the sport seems to be a growing cynicism towards all the Main Characters in the amateur running world. I’ve yet to determine if these feelings are fair or not.

“I’m going to try and get this piece out as quickly as possible. I got your photos you emailed last night. I’m going to use the finish line shot for the cover page and that massive pack you’re running with for a photo mid article.”

“Cover page?” I said.

“Well, Sports Page cover, but yes. This is a cool story! A feel good story. Lines up nicely headed into the holidays and celebrating the community. Ya know, all that home town pride stuff. It’ll be a popular one,” Carl said as he was cramming his small pad and pencil back into his wearable filing cabinet.

“Yeah, that sounds nice. Thanks, Carl,” I said, standing up to shake his massive, calloused hands.

Yes, this will be a popular one. I’m sure come Christmas we’ll still be all talking about it. I’m actually nearly certain of that – that this story will find some legs to walk around town for more than a few days.

But there’s this thing about this race that no one knows - not Chris or Carl or my parents or my club mates or my coach. Well, no one other than myself and the United States Anti-Doping Agency agent who sent me an email the night before meeting with Carl.

No one knows I doped.