Courtney Baker feels weighted down. First it was a grueling week of final exams at Carnegie Mellon and now this, the final 800 meter qualifier at North Central College in Naperville, Ill. She keeps telling herself, not to worry, to simply concentrate on any ponytails in front of her after the gunshot. Baker has always been a ponytail hunter. Right now, with 16 other sprinters at the race's standing start, she is "hoping to hang in with the other girls."
On your mark.
The junior chemical and biomedical engineering major closes her eyes and digs her feet hard into the track. She imagines being alone at Gesling Stadium in the final purple moments before dawn, pounding the pavement while the dorm room windows surrounding the track were perfectly lightless. This is the payoff.
She imagines the weekend bus rides through the snow-blanketed plains of Nowhere, Ohio, and the humid indoor gyms where she chased down wagging ponytails one by one, until there were none left. Until the finish line was the only horizon. She thinks about the red-eye rides back to Pittsburgh and how she's always running two races-the 800 meter on Saturday and the homework marathon on Sunday. This is do or die. This is for Nationals.
Get set.
Baker remembers how she got so good at chasing ponytails. She was always chasing her big sister's. It all started with the "Baker Family Scavenger Hunt." Clues to a mystery vacation were scattered around the family's Massachusetts home. Courtney's sister Kristiina, 10, found the first one, a bed sheet that doubled as a superhero cape as she sprinted around the house leaving overturned couch pillows in her wake. Courtney, 8, beat her sister to the second clue, a pair of goggles that she strapped on like her favorite space ranger, Buzz Lightyear. But big sis crossed the finish line first when she found the grand prize hidden in a kitchen cupboard-a Disney World brochure.
Boom.
Baker's reflex triggers and she springs forward. In an instant, fear transforms into excitement and she's once again a ponytail hunter. The first lap around the track, Baker is in the middle of the pack, but she's just waiting for her moment. Waiting for her twilight training to pay off. Waiting for 110 percent in practice to pay off. Waiting for her opponents' legs to get heavy. On the second and final lap, she bursts out of the pack like she just hit the turbo booster on her Buzz Lightyear utility belt. Like she's chasing her sister around the house again.
The finish line comes too soon. Baker was just getting warmed up. She looks up at the clock as most of the pack is still crossing the finish line: 2:11:26.
It's her best time ever, and it would be the tenth-fastest 800 meter time in the nation. Still beaming in the hotel, Baker grabs her mobile phone and posts a message to her Facebook page: "2:11:26. That just happened."
