I am From Mars. I am part Alien. I Suck at Running.
Two truths and a lie?
I never considered myself weird. Then there was this book. You know the one. Men are from Mars. Women are supposed to be from Venus. But no. I grew up in Mars, PA. In 2017, Mars was a charming enough hometown for some brave blogger to point out.
Growing up, the running gag from neighboring juvenile comedians was, “Oh…where did you park your spaceship?”
I should have worked harder on a comeback. Instead, I swallowed that remark like Ovaltine. Let them think it was good.
But it was tough.
You might think our sports teams were the Martians. But (insert sound effect of dial-up modem here) no.
We were the “Fighting Planets.” Imagine those starry tinsel pom-poms now… “Go… (shaking poms fiercely) Planets! P-L-A-N-E-T-S.”
It’s hard to imagine angry planets banging around. Was Jupiter so badass? And what’s up with the rings, Saturn? Sure, the transition through Scorpio was going to be a bitch, but…
What would inspire a planet to spin out in testosterone-driven fury, really?
Guessing here, getting hit by an errant asteroid?
That may be why the coach passed the Preparation H in the locker room, so the football team could sniff the ointment and get fired up.
If we had been the Martians, we might have had silver and green uniforms instead of the so-overdone gold and blue. Sigh. I might have looked cuter when I had my moment of Martian sports glory.
I was not the cheerleader type. Also, I was not athletic either.
But much to the chagrin of my father, who was also a middle-school teacher, I did go out for the high school track team. It’s not like they rejected anyone.
Mars, home of the Fighting Planets, was an “AA” school. Yes, it is almost, but not quite, as embarrassing as the bra size. Like my flat-chested self, the team needed all willing participants to fill the available spaces.
Thus, I filled out our roster for my event, the mile.
The mile run was a hugely ambitious event for me. It wasn’t considered a sprint, but by my bar, it was. To provide some context here, my body type is not necessarily lithe. I am not light on my feet. While many distance runners possess lean and little physiques, I am not either of those adjectives.
At best, I am average and lumbering, heavy on my strides. My hammy gams think they are sprinting, yet onlookers might say, “Nice jog.”
Yet, I was determined. My goal was clear: to not come in last.
My dad, who taught physical education and was a sports coach, did show up for a few of my track meets. He brought the family’s 8 mm video camera, a crude implement that created these dream-like motion Polaroids. So yes, there was a video of me running the mile on our high school track.
Since Mars High was a double-A school, the track was a little shy. At the larger schools, my event was four laps. At the home of the Fighting Planets, it took five laps to complete a mile.
I didn’t have unreasonable expectations: not taking last place, that was it.
So, on film festival day, my dad had the Super 8 cam in his wobbly hand. He dutifully shot me throughout the torturous event. Yeah, I fell back quickly from the pack yet maintained a viable competitive position with my primary motivator, Amy Wilson. Amy was not a runner. She joined track solely to help manage her weight so that she could compete in Miss Dairy Queen.
There’s a great scene of me in lap four in this race. I’m approaching the finish line. Behind me is the pack of top runners, the tiny, skin-and-bone girls from large families who had to learn to outrun their brothers.
These girls are on lap five, pounding behind me, gaining ground. As documented by the camera, I glanced backward. It’s a big no-no to waste precious energy turning back to look, but I heard the crowd’s frenzy.
I fought to stay ahead, but they were fast closing the gap.
I managed to cross the finish line steps ahead of the pack of future Olympians. They tumbled off to the sides, bent over, and gasped.
I kept going. It took every ounce of my Fighting Planet determination to finish my fifth grueling lap and complete the event. Dad kept the camera running.
It was down to Amy and me to get last place.
That fifth lap in the mile run can be a lonely and brutal place. The fans have dispersed, seeking bigger thrills like the adrenaline-rush-giving shot put or the spine-tingling discus events.
Two clueless Lucys stepped across the track right in front of us; they were so eager to get to the exciting hurling events. Amy and I had to dodge these zombies, both too breathless to yell, “This is a race, people!”
Yes, we were athletes “in the zone,” suffering on the inside but clenching our beauty queen white pearlies into gritted mean-girl smiles on the outside.
At last, we rounded the bend to the final 100 meters. Amy’s mom came alive, banging that cowbell like a MADD Mudder. Amy overtook me.
Suddenly, she was one, then two, full strides ahead.
I gasped desperately, glimpsing my dad, quietly documenting this horror movie.
“Nooooo….” hissed my inner alien, ripping through my chest.
Sigourney was in charge now, shifting my thunder thighs into high gear. She would not go down in defeat at the side of Miss Dairy Queen. “Let’s kick her Uranus!” A salivating Sigourney screamed over the cowbell clang and the bongo beat of my throbbing heart.
In a sprint for the end, I edged Amy out by a few feet. I stumbled off the track and collapsed in half, but not before giving one wicked glare that my dad caught on the film. The alien was real. We had the evidence— a glam shot on the Super 8.
That was in 1980. I was younger and satisfied with earning that not-last position in the mile.
Now that I’ve matured, however, this race has been memorialized as a pivotal scene from my glory days. The results of that race are different from what they once were.
It’s not long before they call and award me my medal. It happens, right? Even at the Olympics. Details come out with evidence, and they must strip medals and re-award.
Sure, I was robbed of my podium moment. But for posterity, the digital files are proof.
Yes. I am the family scrapbooker, archiver of photos, and the informal “family historian.” My parents entrusted me with the video files they had a service preserve and reformat, documenting our precious childhood memories.
It was simple for me to claim my moment of fame. I can edit videos so that the fifth lap was an easy delete.
Yes, I am from Mars. My alien half is a badass-teroid. And I am a champion mile runner.
Three truths. I would never lie.
