Local Legend

Compulsions: Chapter 2

Hi friends — this is the second fictional short story in a series I’m calling “Compulsions.” If you missed the first, you can read it here. Enjoy!

Local Legend

I was awake before my alarm went off at 5 a.m.

I had become accustomed to sleeping in my gear before a morning run: A sweat-wicking tee with the D.C. flag printed on the front, five-inch inseam shorts, and socks that reached the middle of my calf. I didn’t have to go this early, but I relished the privacy the District’s slumber afforded me before the bustle began.

I hobbled downstairs, trying to minimize the noise of my uneven footing on the hardwood floor to avoid waking any of my four roommates. I didn’t think I would still have roommates as a 31 year old man, but I also thought I would be an editor at a major publication by now, and that in my solo living I’d have a cat and things like a bar cart or expensive loafers.

I struck out on all of those, although technically, I did have a collection of pricey footwear. They just were all neon and boasted things like being “carbon-plated” or “zero drop,” which only meant something to a relatively subset of people.

I only turned on a light when I made it to the first floor, which had our living room, kitchen, and a small powder room. I limped to start the coffee pot and get my English muffin in the toaster, willing the tendons in my ankle to stretch. They’re always tight in the morning, I told myself. This is just being a runner. This is normal, and it’ll work itself out.

I opened Strava while I waited for my coffee to brew. Kara’s picture and a map around the McMillan Reservoir were first on my feed, just as I suspected, with a notification that she had tagged me in a post. “Local Legend – you’re up, @ArikW!” she titled her 6.8 mile run, completed at 9:30 p.m. the night before

I could see how it would look like the two of us were flirting over this neurotic app. Some of the guys at Run Club liked to give me a hard time about it. “You know, you could just give the whole thing up and run your stupid little segment together,” Topher (“Short for ‘Christopher,’” he explained every time he introduced himself) drawled a couple of weeks ago while we were cataloging our compression sock inventory. I blushed and shrugged him off. It wasn’t like that, but there was no way he’d understand.

For about a month now, Kara and I had been swapping the status as the Reservoir route’s Local Legend. Strava generated this title for the person who completed a given segment the most in a 90-day period. If Stava gendered this title–as it did for other segments–we could be the respective Queen and King of this loop. But alas, the little orange app pit us against each other.

Superficially, it was a friendly rivalry. Maybe that’s what it was for her, too. But for me, it was more than that. It was tied to a fear of what would happen if I stopped playing along. Who would I be without any of her attention?

I knew I needed a rest. As I crunched my breakfast and did my meager warmups–just rolling around my ankles because actual exercises hurt too much–my joints cracked. But I couldn’t. If I fell behind, she’d take over permanently, and then she’d have no real reason to acknowledge me any more. Then, everyone else would notice that I never actually fit in. And then what? I’d go back to where I was a year ago, but older and injured.

I gingerly stood up to put my shoes on. The pain in the back of my heel was down from a 8 to a 6 out of 10. Good enough. Give me just a few miles, I bargained with myself and I’ll never ask you to run again. Both me and my Achilles knew I was lying.

The 3.4 mile loop around the McMillan Reservoir route had always felt personal to me. It was the first run I ever took as an adult, lacing up my gym shoes impulsively after getting a package from my mom containing my old high school yearbooks–the last of my childhood memorabilia as my parents downsized from their house to a condo in Florida.

I had found the bubblewrapped mailer on my doorstep after I got home from my job at a failing online magazine around 7 p.m. I was somehow exhausted after sitting and staring at a screen all day, frantically hopping between internet browser tabs as I tried to prove I could write better and faster than the next glorified blogger.

After I removed the yearbook from its packaging, it cracked open to the page my mom had marked with a sticky note. “Look at your smile! :)” she wrote.

Underneath the lime green Post-it was a picture of me from a decade ago. I was standing with my Cross Country teammates, our arms around each other’s shoulders and our skinny legs exposed by racing shorts and pink with the autumnal chill.

“Arik Wetzel, Noah Blake, Jake Holt, and Daniel Romano, after placing third in the state championship,” the caption read. We were trying to look manly, but our dimples betrayed us. The swoosh of our bangs covered our acne, and our braces peaked through our lips.

Anya, a woman I had been seeing at the time, had been really into the idea of fate. She was always quoting these vague happiness gurus she found on TikTok, and recently started nudging me to think about a time in life when I felt the most at peace. I had always brushed it off until that night, when I found it staring me in the face.

I traced the picture of the four of us boys, remembering the feeling of belonging I hadn’t had in a long time. True, our kinship was the product of forced proximity. We didn’t have the emotional skillsets to maintain our bonds after we graduated. And it’s not like I wanted to go back to high school–it was a gangly, sweaty, and awkward time in my life.

But I missed the bonds that being on a team created. I looked for it again in college, and then again as a young journalist in D.C. But it turned out writing was a solitary, online activity, and everyone I met in person was always rushing around doing whatever successful adults did. “So sorry, just busy!” they said. I never knew what exactly they were busy with, but I could never bring myself to ask.

Maybe running could once again give me the connection I craved. That first night, I left so quickly, I didn’t bring my phone. I didn’t know where to go, so I followed the brick around the Reservoir, passing the children’s hospital and North Capitol street. My lungs hurt and my legs felt heavy, but there were hints of familiarity that comforted me.

I fell for the ritual of it hard and fast. After that first night, I realized my generic gym shoes wouldn’t cut it. The next morning I went to the local running store, where I spent the money I had allocated for the new boots I needed on a pair of Asics.

The store’s associate, a man of ambiguous age wearing wrap-around sunglasses despite being indoors, told me to come check out their own running group that night. I should come, he said. There’d be plenty of other newbies, and it was a great way to make friends.

I was embarrassed that he clocked me for someone needing friends, but I did, and I was glad I showed up anyway. I was still myself: quiet, anxious, introspective. But I was there, and that was enough.

Here, for example, no one knew the grief I felt of being undeniably average. Of the creeping self-doubt I felt as a journalist whose job was only to aggregate three to four tech stories per day. Of the guilt I harbored for being unable to feel anything for Anya, a woman who was exceedingly nice to me for reasons I couldn’t understand.

Instead, people knew me as a natural talent. They saw me as a guy who could inexplicably lead the pack, all of the muscle memory from high school flooding back. They showed me Strava, which quickly showed me that I wasn’t just fast for the group–I was fast period. Even when I ran the Reservoir alone, they supported me virtually–just as I did them by clicking the little “kudos” button. Each one brought me peace. Each one made me want more.

When Anya suddenly left me in the middle of an Irish pub, running was there. When my mom abandoned the condo with my dad to Eat, Pray, Lover herself in Europe, running was there. When I lost my job at the online startup, running was there. The folks at the store even gave me a job, which came with discounts on gear and race entries. Running had made me Somebody.

I reminded myself of this comfort as I took those first few steps down the front stairs and onto the old brick. As I lengthened my stride, the pain in my heel made my gait unnatural, like my body had switched from automatic to manual. Now, my body felt as shocked as I had been when Kara first barreled into town. I willed it to warm up.

She and her blonde pony tail and too-sharp canine teeth dazzled all of us at the running store. She was a former college athlete who had quit her job as a paralegal. She came in as a sales associate at the store while she was figuring out what was next, as if there was no way the spaces that made up my whole world would ever be enough for her.

Kara was magnetic. She was faster than most of the men, myself included. At first, it pissed me off, but I couldn’t stay mad because she was so genuinely kind. She waited for us at the track so we could all start our next interval together, even if it meant her own workout was slightly off. She made a point to talk to every new person in Run Club, actually learning their name so she could greet them properly the next week. She found something to love about everyone–she even complimented my Jar Jar Binx impression, which I had been muttering to myself as I restocked shoes and thought no one was listening.

I couldn’t help but love her. Everyone did. Not romantically–or at least I never entertained that thought. I think it would be awfully hard to be in a relationship with the sun.

I rounded the first curve of the Reservoir, trying to gaslight myself into thinking running still felt good. I know it could get there if I could just get myself to loosen up. I slogged through a couple of miles. After my first lap, I reminded myself to unclench my jaw. But just one more and I’d catch up to her.

Of course Kara and I shared a neighborhood. And of course she also loved the Reservoir route, she told me excitedly after Run Club one night. “I saw you were the Local Legend–I’m coming for you!” she teased.

The guys in the club all made a ruckus. “Whoa whoa–that’s Arik’s title!” said Topher, the man with the wraparound sunglasses, as he threw his right arm around me. “Don’t take that from him, we don’t know how much else he’s got!”

It was a joke, but it stung. “A friendly rivalry never hurt anyone,” she said breezily, and punched me lightly in the arm.

The conversation moved on, but I did not. Two months later she overtook me as the Local Legend the first time, and we’ve been passing the title back and forth ever since.

One more lap. That was all I needed for the day. My ankle had unlocked, somewhat, but I was huffing at a pace that should have felt easy as I rounded the Reservoir again. My heel still ached with every step, but I put it out of my mind. I was so close.

As long as I was physically moving forward in this dance with Kara, I was chasing whatever it was that she had, that others had–that completeness, that purpose. Maybe I could have a bite of it, too.

Just a little more I coaxed myself as I approached the final stretch home. As I looked up at the brightening sky, my right toe caught on an uneven brick.

I shot out my foot to catch myself before I fell. I was unsuccessful. My Achilles, already whining about its current workload, screamed as I toppled forward, my calf stretched farther than it had gone all morning.

I landed with a thud, my hands outstretched, and felt a small pop above my heel, followed by a brief respite, then agony. I had no idea how I would make it home.

I rolled onto my back and stopped my Strava. I saved the activity and scrolled to the segments listed in my profile. I smiled. I was the Local Legend again–at least until tonight.

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If you made it this far, thank you! If you have time, I’d welcome your (constructive) feedback ❤️

That’s all for now — stay curious, friend!