“800 runners are freaks.”

The 800 meter run is widely regarded as the most difficult race in Track and Field. The difficulty lies in it’s complexity and the fact that it is about the physical equivalent of wrestling an elephant. While Track and Field is a challenging sport in every aspect, runners of other races would seem to have it a bit easier than those who run the 800. It’s simple for them; if you’re fast, you run the 100, 200, and maybe the 400 meter dash due to your foot speed and the fast paced nature of those races. If you’re more of an endurance runner, you run the 1600 and 3200 meter races, because you have the lungs and legs to run all day. The 800 remains a mystery, an excruciatingly painful, lung destroying, heart exploding, leg melting mystery that will leave you gasping for breath while you wonder if you’ll ever be able to stand up again. There is only one way to avoid this confusion and this pain, and still be successful in the 800 meter run: you need to be a freak. Alternately, you can choose to simply not be very good at the 800. One would find that there isn’t an ounce of quit in runners though, so to suggest that is a joke. The only remaining option is to let this race transform you, and whether it’s the massive boost in your work ethic, or your pain tolerance, or the strength in your heart, the 800 run will make you a freak.

It would be a crime of an understatement to say that there is a metaphorical ton of apprehension and fear in the heart of every runner who is planning to run this race. The important difference between these people and normal people though, is that those people are 800 runners, and 800 runners are missing the part of their brain that says - “No, this is crazy.” So instead of letting the fear get to them, sink them lower than they are, they face it the only way an athlete knows how: training. Intense, ridiculous, wake-up-in-the-morning-and-cry kind of training. 800 runners need a combination of lightning speed and Herculean endurance, and they need to know how to use it. Simply looking at their training regimens is something that will make many athletes weak in the knees. It’s in this way that being an 800 runner gives you a work ethic unlike any other, and this work ethic isn’t excluded to the gym. You’re cutting away at some math homework or attacking a research paper, it’s 3:30 A.M., and you want nothing more than to pass out all over your work. Instinctively though, you fight this difficulty. It’s something required of an 800 runner, and this sort of work ethic doesn’t stay in one place. The same way that an 800 runner puts in mileage like a car, or breaks the speed limit in school zones when he or she goes sprinting down the block, they will be able to write a 25 page paper, and they aren’t afraid of that pop quiz in Algebra. The training for the 800 meter run is demanding, diverse, and tortuous just like the race, but the effect of surviving it will be that you surely have the sort of work ethic that will be useful for all of the things you’ll need to do in life.

It is more than obvious that this race is painful. It’s something unbelievable, really. You’re flying down the track, your lungs are screaming obscenities, your legs are plotting your murder, your heart’s pumping so fast you wonder if it’s actually trying to escape your chest, there’s 300 meters left, you’re getting chased down, you see spots instead of a finish line, and it’s here where you’ll learn that, yeah, you can afford to push a little bit harder on your easy days. The same way life finds about as many methods to make you hurt as there are leaves on trees, the 800 never ceases to torture you in a stunning variety of ways. It’s all for the best though, because you’ll find that after running an 800, things like getting stung by a bee, stepping on a tack, or getting ran over by an angry lawnmower all pale in comparison to the amount of pain this race causes. While it’s nice to think that you won’t stumble into something quite that painful in life, it’s also somewhat ignorant to think that way and somebody doing that should probably stop.This is where being an 800 runner holds another positive effect in life, nothing hurts quite so bad as those two laps around a track. It’s something that will stick with you to the day you die, and hey, even dying won’t seem too bad after you’ve ran the 800.

The 800 is physically destructive, it’s egregious how profusely it hurts. The hard part, however, isn’t the burn in your legs, lungs, and heart. The hard part is that you have to be able to not only accept the fact that it’s going to hurt, but you need to embrace it, and work beyond all measures of physical feeling. To be successful in this race, you need to be able to let go, you need to refuse to surrender with all of your heart and transcend your humanity, if only for a couple minutes. Nobody can cheat this race, people who think they can go easy on the first lap and then kick it in on the second lap eat dust, people who do the opposite are even funnier, as they end up crawling to the finish while they get passed on the homestretch like an old lady on a freeway. There are a hundred ways to run the 800, but in none of their descriptions will you see the words “take it easy.” You need to trust in your heart to exceed in this event, you need to give everything you have early, and go even harder late. Only once you’re able to accept and embrace the fact that you will likely hurt worse than you ever have in this event will you truly become the freak that this race asks for. Running the 800 will give you the heart of a lion, and with that heart an 800 runner will find that not only are they trying their best at all that they do right now, but they are adamant that nothing will stop them later in life. The 800 meter run holds the amazing effect of showing you how strong you really are. This race will grant you all the heart you’ll ever need, and then some.

It is likely that you walk about a mile or two a day. You probably drive tens of miles in this same day, you may even travel hundreds or thousands of miles by plane or ship. These distances, although potentially immense, will not teach or affect you the same way these simple 800 meters will. This race will change your whole life. It may cause the improvement in work ethic you needed to get that promotion, or perhaps it gave you the boost in pain tolerance that gets you up and about, despite that sore throat or stiff back. Maybe the strength you earn in your heart will be what leads you to stand up for yourself, it could be the thing to affirm your hopes and crush your doubt. The 800 is more than a race, it’s a life changer, and while those who run it will definitely hate it at the time, there won’t be an ounce of regret in their heart when they think of the effects it has had on their life, because more than likely, they’ll be sitting among the things and the people he or she worked very hard for, and he or she will be endlessly proud of the fact that they were the kind of freak who could run the 800. The 800 meter run, from start to finish, will make your life one you’ll be glad you lived.