I couldn’t see it, the blonde, rosy girl with an easy smile sitting, facing a corner in our decrepit shack. She told me running was what saved her-what kept her going. She was a bright light in a dark place, perhaps because she was so close to escaping, or maybe she was simply kind. She dragged me from my metal cot on an icy March morning and told me to put on sneakers. He asked Lee, one of his stars, to bring me to try out. I had no running experience and was better versed in smoking Newports and stealing beer. We cleaned during the day, went to school until midnight, and were often kept up all night for special lessons on the school’s philosophy or to guard each other from running away.Ĭoach Lou (names have been changed) spotted me when I arrived midsemester as a sophomore. No parent calls for at least the first three months. The reality was I lived among 150 other kids in old shacks that had formerly been used as hunting camps. Our folks were sent glossy packets and told we were being taught valuable life lessons on self-sufficiency. I heard the state officials were impressed that the school offered sports teams for us delinquents. Among the behavior-modification activities the school claimed to no longer use was The Ring, in which one student had to face others in a boxing match they punched each other mercilessly until the student was completely beaten down, judging from the blood spatter on the walls. I was forced to join the track team in Spring 2002, just after the state of Maine conducted an announced inspection and cleared Élan of any wrongdoing. Why is it cited, time and again, as one of the world’s favorite running songs? Why is everyone so attached to it? Is it a mysterious and subliminal spell?Īll those years ago, could the song have been subconsciously prompting us-a team of misfits who were required to run because the school needed a good reputation in something, anything-to be better, be faster? I often wonder what impact it’s had on my psyche.īut I also wonder why, after 15 years, it still plays at sporting events and on the radio. But sometimes the melody is just a haunting whisper in my mind. Usually I try to plug my ears when the song comes on-unwelcome memories can come back in a hurry.
We were tucked away in the backwoods of rural Poland, Maine, hidden in the pine trees, far from civilization. We ran the same out-and-back countless times nearly every day, up an unmarked one-mile access way named Number 5 Road. We ran in straight lines, each on the others’ heels, with less than a forearm length between us. My team wore black warmups with the hoods up. Running for the Élan School didn’t mean team parties or orange slices or bows in our hair. Even at races today, at the starting line, it still roars from speakers. Somehow, the song has embedded itself in the sport’s collective consciousness. When I do tell runners that Eminem’s 2002 hit was my cross-country team’s anthem, they nod, excitedly.
That before important meets, he’d play it on repeat. That most times, he’d demand silence, then blast it over us, the notes beating into our brains. I don’t often tell people about how our coach would load our team into a white van and play the song in a ritualistic, obsessive way. I remember that song-it always comes back around this time of year. Even though I haven’t been on a cross-country course since high school, at 31 years old I can still vividly remember the bottoms of my teammates’ shoes, the bobbing of their ponytails, the smell of Secret deodorant and sweat as we pounded out miles together in a line. It’s late August, the start of cross-country season. This time it’s on a hot evening run near my Pennsylvania home. For 15 years “Lose Yourself” has been trapped in the folds of my brain, playing and replaying in unexpected waves.
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