This flash piece is partly inspired by this week’s prompt over at Carrot Ranch: In 99 words (no more, no less) write a story that shows true grit. 

The background of the story follows the story. Enjoy!

Finish Line

I round the second curve for the eighth time. The first to finish crosses the line, his arms raised in triumph. I have four more laps to go.

I slow to a walk, catching my breath and imagining what else I could be doing at 7:30 AM. I wish I had a bagel with blueberry cream cheese.

I slow jog through the next three laps. Time is almost up.

The finish line appears and I sprint, desperate to finish. When I cross, my friends cheer for me. They don’t care that they finished first.

All that matters is we finished.

The rest of the inspiration for this story came from something my kids had to do this morning. They’ve both qualified to test for their black belts in Taekwondo, and one of the requirements is completing a physical test comprised of a 3-mile run, 200 pushups, and 200 crunches. They had 45 minutes to complete the run.

My 14-year-old son is quite the runner, it turns out. He finished his first mile in nine minutes and the whole thing in 35 minutes. My 11-year-old son, however, had a bit of a harder time but managed to stay in good spirits. He finished in 43 minutes.

He didn’t seem bugged that many others (including his brother) finished before him, but he definitely finished with a sprint. And like the story, everyone who finished before him cheered him on.

Not bad for a very early Saturday morning.