{ and we'll play summer on repeat;

♥ precious.

la bella vita;

Cara

loves: black and white photography. poetry. vintage stores. thunderstorms. good ambience. fairytales. disneyworld. black kohl and fuschia lipstick. red and purple skittles. turquoise beads. icing but not cakes. might-have-beens. the dandy warhols. within temptation. automatic loveletter. mediaeval baebes. troy. interview with a vampire. the oc. making 11:11 wishes. purple glitter. mermaids. my-little-ponies. magic.

expertise: melodramaticks. eyeliner. laughing. goodbyes. hanging in there.

♥ music on, world off.

shh.

♥ scream(?).

live.

♥ past .

instant time travel

December 2007
January 2008
February 2008
March 2008
April 2008
May 2008
June 2008
July 2008
August 2008
September 2008
October 2008
November 2008
December 2008
January 2009
February 2009
March 2009
April 2009
May 2009
June 2009
July 2009
August 2009
September 2009
October 2009
November 2009
December 2009
January 2010
February 2010

♥ adieu .

set them free

AMANDA
ANDRE
ASH
DEB
ELEMM
07IP04!
08IP04!
JOSH
KAT
LISA
QIU
RENJEAN

♥ credits .

thankyouverymuch

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Image: 03
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Brushes: 07 08 09 10
Fonts: 11

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Monday, March 23, 2009

hello, old friend. 6:21 AM

"I am not ashamed. Or embarrassed. Or humiliated.
I have realized how much I would be willing to do for this crazy, dazzling, agonizing, brilliant sport.
I gave what I could give.
I ran when it hurt too much to.
I crossed the line.

and that, in itself, is what runners live for."

- (an excerpt from my archives, written after X-ctry nationals last year)
---

I looked back on that yesterday, and thought: tomorrow tomorrow tomorrow I have a debt to repay.

Surprisingly, I fell asleep pretty fast and with relative ease last night. No nerves, no butterflies, no nothing. Just a musing, matter-of-fact "...tomorrow's going to be painful" and then a resigned "oh well" and then I curled up and was lost to the world in a matter of minutes.

7.30AM saw us down at the stadium today- me falling asleep on the sleeve of a purple rugby shirt and with dreamscape tunes floating through the earphones
"forget your pain
forget your fear"
...warm ups and we smile for the New Paper, change into our new team jerseys, i scribble names on my wrists in purple ink so I remember who I'm running for.

9.45AM: starting line.
breathe in deep --> pain, up ahead!
the horn goes off.
muscles coil, spring for the kill. lengthen and slide over the contours of mud and bark and stone and it feels like an African stampede. all gazelles, all lions. it's eat or be eaten, overtake or be overtaken, fight back or bite the dust and everybody knows it.
...my mind has conveniently forgotten most of what happened in between the 3.8km route; retains only bits and pieces like the sound of gravel crunching underfoot, the long winding discouraging turns, the sound of a jetskiier skimming over water, the neon yellow of the girl I'm chasing.

...last 200m.
cheers and shouts from both sides.
cross the line.
cross the line.
cross the line.

...last 100m and my mind is one big static frequency.
"pretend you're Joe. Joe can sprint. ...So SPRINT!"
and I do; I plunge across the finish line and it's over, it's done, there are no tears of regret or disappointment or whimpered "but why didn't I's"-- just a pervading sense of peace.
and pain, of course. my shin feels fit to bust and my body's on fire but in the post-race haze I barely notice this.

NJC X-Ctry A Division Girls Team : Top 5
...well done, girls.
We've come so far. I'm proud of every single one of us.

...As for me- I came in lucky number 13th.
TOP 20-- thank you, God.
I've improved from last year's 71st position (that was disgusting + collapse at the end), and this year I was worried I wouldn't make it into the top 20 and was aiming for top 30, really-
but God, you've never failed me. never.

It's not so much the position I came in, though; but the fact that I crossed the line and stayed standing. *laughs* it may not seem like a lot to ask for-- but it matters to me.

post race pictures:

----

"The clock doesn't stop until you force it to.
That is the elegant beauty of track.
It is the simplest, and hardest, of sports.
Hear a gun go off, and run fast. That's the simple part.
The hard part is, run faster than anybody else out there.
This is the truth.
The clock will run until somebody makes it stop.
It might as well be you, don't you think?"