stamina and will

Out in a X City Park’s playground 6 school kids, no older than 6, were playing around. Running, jumping, and just having fun when one of the kids had an idea.

“Hey let's all race,” an exceptionally energetic one of the kids said, this one named Micheal. Micheal is a loud, energetic, charismatic kid that is the type to befriend everyone. He’s overall very average looking with his nicely done reddish brown hair.

“Why,” said another kid named Fuji, he was the youngest of the kids at 4 but despite that he was easily the biggest standing nearly a full head over the second tallest and with a chest as wide as most kids shoulders. Clearly he was named correctly.

“For fun, why else? You are too big to be so dumb Everest. I’ll do it” said Kenny, the smallest (but easily the meanest) of the kids referring to Fuji with the nickname they came up with for him.

“Hey don’t make fun of Everest, he’s nice. I’ll race but how will we know who won?” Dean says, standing up for his friend and posing an important question. Dean is special to this story, considering he’s the protagonist, and this is about to be a special moment for him. Dean is the oldest at 6 and second tallest of the kids with jetblack hair and grayish magenta eyes.

“Oh, I know! Let's run to that street lamp and back. Everyone up for it?” Micheal says enthusiastically.

“I’ll stay behind and says who wins,” Stephanie, the only girl there, says. Stephanie is Dean’s 5 year old younger sister with similar hair but brighter blue eyes.

“I’ll do it,” Leroy says quietly, being as shy as he is.

“Fuji, you in?” Micheal asks.

Fuji was quick with his reply as he joined all the other kids lining up. These kids like to play and they generally consider the others friends despite all their differences because they have one large thing in common, competitiveness. Each one of these 5 kids from the shy Leroy to the Bombastic Michael are competitive and want to win. So as they all line up each kid prepares to win, even if they don’t know what they are really doing.

“Ready to eat my dust,” Kenny says to the others. 

Not even a second later the race started with Stephanie yelling, “start.” and not even a second after that the kids ran. Some at full speed and others keeping their pace. The race didn’t last too long, couldn’t have been more than 20 seconds but each kid had a different experience.

Kenny and Micheal both launched off the start at full speed but by the time they were at the lamppost they started to slow down and made 2nd and 3rd respectively. Fuji launched off from the start and was the first to reach the lamp but by the time he made it he stopped and leaned against it, he didn’t cross the finish line. Leroy was smart but not athletic enough, while the others were competitive on the playground Leroy was competitive in the classroom. He never slowed down but he was still the last to cross the finish.

This small moment in an otherwise insignificant day was and still is one of the most important days in the life of Dean. He started running just like everyone else, even at full speed, he was the second one to make it to the lamppost and the first to finish, not slowing down the whole time. Dean wasn’t thinking about the race though, no, he was thinking about how it felt to run like that. The air in his face and the earth being hit by his feet, this was the farthest Dean has ever ran at once and he loved every second of it. He loved the sound of his steps, the air flowing around him, the strain of his muscles, the way his joints moved, the thumping of his heart, and the feeling of all that air in his lungs. Dean didn’t realize he won until his sister stopped him. After everyone else made it and the accusations of cheating by Kenny, the kids' parents started showing up separating the friends. The whole time after the race Dean could still only think of one thing, “I want to do that more, and farther, and longer, and again.” This is a sentiment that would stick with him through his whole life in everything he does.

For 6 years Dean would spend his time running. He told his dad about his experience and that he wants to do it again and become better, and luckily his dad was willing to let him train. So that’s what he did, he ran and ran and ran until it became too time consuming for him to just run until he was tired. Dean was slowly becoming superhuman with his friends following him. Fuji, seeing Dean’s motivation, started to train to be better too. Where he lacked in stamina he made up for in strength so Fuji joined dojo’s and junior divisions for wrestling and judo and he would even pick up other sports he could find like football. Fuji became stronger and bigger being over 6 feet tall by the time he was 10. Michael found theater and plays and developed a love for acting and as such worked harder at that, staying as loud and charismatic as ever. Leroy Kept up his studies and proved himself as one of the smartest in the nation, at a young age a rich man promised to fund him better schooling which meant that Leroy had to move to A City to get access to the best of the best there was available. The 4 stayed friends throughout this but Kenny started to become meaner and jealous, he couldn’t act like Michael, he wasn’t as smart as Leroy, he wasn’t as strong as Fuji, and he wasn’t as athletic as Dean. slowly as they all grew Kenny distanced himself and allowed his competitiveness and jealousy to poison him.

Dean is in X Middle School now and has only gotten better at what he does. Star athlete of the Track and Field team and the reason why X City is considered the place for Track Meets, Dean is living a good life. Ofcourse, while nice, Dean isn’t that big of a fan of the attention, especially from some certain types of people, so he kept to himself mainly and talking with Michael and Fuji. That is until he started to see what has become of Kenny.

Following some voices behind the gym Dean saw Kenny pinning some other kid to the wall.

“What was it you were saying about me,” Kenny says to the scared kid.

“I didn’t say anything,” The kid says nervously, “I’m sorry, please let me go?”

Kenny glared at the kid and said, “Well I heard you say that Dean was gonna win the short distance sprints too. Don’t you know that those are my domain?”

At this point Dean sighs and decides he’s gonna stop this, walking out and announcing his presence with a simple, “heyo Kenny, what’s up with ya.”

“Dean, why are you here, tired of being the popular one,” Kenny said venomously, shifting his focus.

The kid, noticing the shift in focus, ran off at this moment but Dean knew he had to by some time so he responded with, “I’m always tired of being the popular one, a consequence of the hobby I suppose.”

“Hobby? The star child thinks it’s a hobby,” Kenny says, “this is my life. I was born to win, yet I’m not and it’s your fault.”

“What happened to you man?” Dean asks, worriness coating itself over every syllable.

“You did,” Kenny says before walking off leaving Dean standing there in thought. What did he ever do to kenny. DId winning matter that much to him? Could he bring himself to actually help? Even if he could, would he know how? Tons of questions plagued Dean’s mind so he did the only thing he could think to do, he went on a run. That night he didn’t get home for another 9 hours, he wasn’t even tired.