Today I woke up feeling the butterflies fluttering around in my stomach. This was the day, the day of the big race. Pulling on my running shoes and my Adidas track jacket, I did a few stretches and jogged in place. It was still a few hours until the race, and I couldn't figure out what to do with myself. I nervously pulled at my clothing as I paced the room, absently noticing a loose thread in my Adidas track jacket, pulling at it pointlessly. I decided to get some breakfast.
That was a disaster. Cooking was going great until, psyching myself out thinking about the race, I stumbled and poured the half cooked eggs all over the floor. Grumbling, I cleaned them up and started over, when I smelled smoke. The toast was burning. I mean, literally burning. I've never seen that before. A fire had singed the inside of the toaster oven. Finally, having cleaned up from the last of my numerous disasters, I sat down to eat breakfast, such as it was. Almost immediately, I spilled orange juice all over my Adidas track jacket. My lucky Adidas track jacket.
I had had that Adidas track jacket since I first started running three years ago. Back then, I was only in seventh grade, but I looked up to my older brother who was a runner in high school. He was practically the whole world to me. He gave me his old Adidas track jacket the first morning he took me on a run. He would take me out early, and we would go running together for a few blocks, before he dropped me home, him in his new school uniform, me in the old Adidas track jacket. I'd be exhausted when he'd drop me home to start his “real run”, but I'd carefully hang up warm up pants and Adidas track jacket thinking about the day when I'd be a real runner like him.
Now the Adidas track jacket was ruined, and I would have to face the big race all alone. Somehow, this made me feel better in a strange way, as if some great burden had been lifted. No more nervously mumbling over superstitions – my good luck was gone.
Now, without the Adidas track jacket, it would just be me, my mind, and my body, against the other competitors. Suddenly, I knew that everything would work out just fine.
