11:11 (Ongoing)

Athletic selection

CHAPTER 9.

It was time for sunset and I met Kunal on the race course ready to warm our bodies up for tomorrow's selection. Although we were there just to jog for a while, deep down we both knew that we were there to catch a glimpse of our running style and see who has better stamina.

Kunal was the sports in charge so I had high expectations from him that he would be a good runner. Kunal and I did some walking lunges at first to warm ourselves up. We started jogging. What looked like a light jogging session at first soon turned into a competition of endurance, stamina, and speed. We weren't jogging anymore; it was like we were racing; it was a battle of ego since neither of us was willing to stop.

Kunal was ahead of me for some time. His athletic body was complimenting his good run, it made me jealous of him and I started to pity my skinny body. I tried to move my legs faster which made me go faster and ahead of him. I was smirking when I went ahead of him. Suddenly my head started to feel heavy, I tried to ignore it and concentrate on my running, but despite that my head was still feeling heavy. I didn't want to jeopardize tomorrow's selection.

I kept my ego aside and started slowing down, Kunal glanced at me and he was surprised to see that I was slowing down. I stopped, which made Kunal give a break to his legs.

"What happened?" Kunal asked.

I replied to him that "we got selections tomorrow so we shouldn't get ourselves tired and rest for tomorrow." While we were going home my head started to feel light, since I didn't run for a while I assumed that might be the explanation for my headache.

Kunal complimented me that I was a good runner, but he's still a better runner than me. I laughed at him and said,

"Yeah, Sure!"

I asked Kunal if I believed he might be a football player looking at his body. As I said this, the Kunal who was laughing turned pale and profound. Kunal just kept on walking ahead, until he turned around, looked at me, and said.

"I wanted to become a footballer and to be a good one I ran every day to build up my stamina, but the coach was partial so I was never selected for the school team, I had great stamina and won some medals in the sports day, which made the school appreciate my talent and send me to a higher level. I won medals at a higher level and ever since that I feel like I belonged to running."

Watching Kunal in such an emotional state, made me feel bad to question him in the first place. He looked down so I went towards him, kept my hand on his shoulder, apologized to him, and said "He's at the right place now, but how many medals he wins he will never defeat me."

He looked into my eyes, smirking at me, and said, we'll see about that. He turned around and started running and shouted

"The first one to reach the station wins."

Fast forward to the Next morning

I woke up at 6:00 in the morning and left for the selections. The selections were close to the college so I took my clothes with me in the bag. Since it was a track field I took my spike shoes for a better grip.

I reached, I looked up at the signboard
"University ground," it said. A bunch of people was going inside, there were some familiar faces from college but I wasn't on talking terms with anyone. I was trying to find Kunal but he wasn't there outside.

I went inside and saw that Kunal was standing on the track field talking with the coach. Which quite made sense since he was the sports in charge. We assembled at the track and there were twenty-four people. I started wondering if only six people will be selected out of us because according to the rules of the relay, there can only be six runners on the roster while four are on the track field, while the other two act as substitutes.

The coach introduced himself

"Arnav Baxi," he said, a bulked body with that coach look on his face, One could easily make out that he was passionate about this.

He told us to warm up first so we did, he informed us of the procedure for selection. Since there were twenty-four people and the only place for six, the selections were going to be time-based, the first six people to finish the race in the least time would be selected.

The race consisted of 400m, which meant a full lap of the ground. There were three files made. I was in the last one, and Kunal was in the first. The pressure was intense. The coach started the first race.

"On your Mark, set, go," He said while making a noise with the clapper.

Kunal was on the fourth track until the first 100m a short skinny guy was leading, and Kunal was keeping up with him, as the 200m mark came Kunal accelerated his speed and took a huge lead, he easily finished first.

I was congratulating Kunal and talking to him until I noticed that the second race had already finished and the coach was calling out for the third file.

Kunal wished me luck as I went on to my mark. It was the first track, the first track meant that you had the lead at the start but you took that bigger turn after 100m which would make everyone equal at that point.

The race started and I started running, I wanted to run fast from the start since I didn't know the timings of others so to be on the safer side I went full speed from the start. I was in the lead, and victory was in sight, suddenly in the last 100m, I started getting out of breath and my head started feeling heavy, Everything started to blur out of my vision, it was blurry, but I knew I had to run on a straight path so I continued running, I was trying my best but I was slowing down, gradually the others caught up to me in no time since even they were sprinting, I could hear the noises of the foot around me stomping into the ground and getting away from me, I wasn't going to give up so I gathered all my spirit and started running as fast I could. The three of us were running hand in hand at the finishing line. Everyone thought it was going to tie. But what happened next wasn't expected by anyone.