Guest Speaker: Jessica Aceti
If theres anything to be understand about asthma and how it effects the respiratory system, your day is decided by a graph, and your decisions decide where you fall on said graph on that day.
x-axis: fuck around
y-axis: find out
simple enough to understand right?
I’ve had exercise induced asthma for as long as i remember, you know you’re and og asthma victim when u have one of those baby adapters for your albuterol– so imagine my surprise when my middle school best friends with full knowledge of this said, lets all sign up for track and field, and run the relay together! I would also like you to keep in mind i was infamous for passing out running the half miles in PE classes
but they said it with such enthusiasm I had to say yes.
weeks go by and we stay late after school, running to build stamina and practicing passing to baton so we don’t fumble when it really matters. We each agreed to do only one event and I dont speak sports, so even though I participated in it i cant remember the exact distance, but whatever it is, there were 4 of us and we each had to run a full lap around the track in the relay.
fast forward, its game day
we all suit up in our ugly lil bright yellow uniforms that probably havent seen soap in at least a decade and proceed to sit on the school field thats always a little bit suspiciously soggy.
hours go by, but its finally our event. and for whatever reason I’m the first runner.
1/4 track? i simply am speed
1/2 way point on track. slowing down, but manageable from training
3/4 big yikes for my lungs
in the last quarter of the track i dont remember anything other than handing the baton and then a head rush and blacking out.
when I woke up again my friends were around me and in their sweaty, middle school grip, was a second place ribbon. we were elated! None of us were particularly athletic so this was a big surpise. Podium!! The main moral was that we tried. it was something we put in work to achieve and we were able to see the results of our efforts! Its only through trying that we all figured out to never sign up for track and field again.
And my favorite part about telling this story is that its completely optional to say that there was only one other team we were running against.