That Race Photo

THERE’S A DIFFERENCE BETWEEN HOW YOU THINK YOU LOOK AND HOW YOU ACTUALLY LOOK. ABDELLAH

- Lisa Abdellah

I WAS PROMPTED to enter my race number into a little box on a website; and when I did so, a message popped up. It said: ‘3 images found’. Yesss!

I’d done well in a 15-K race, and the possibility of bragging-rights-worthy evidence was too much to resist. I’d smiled like Kate Moss when I’d spotted the photographer.

(He’d been sitting in a rather dangerous place, might I add; smack-bang in the middle of the road, where it was likely he’d be kicked in the head by thousands of oncoming runners.)

His attention won, I proceeded to sort of levitate off the ground, gazelle-like, calves stretched out in a perfect stride. Yeah, that’s right: I looked like I belonged in my top-15 position.

As it turns out, I looked exactly the ruddy opposite, in every single picture. The photographer had snapped when I landed, and he’d captured the impact that ricocheted through my entire body in all its glory. Baggy skin hung down from my face, which was the colour purple. Congealed sweat lined my gaping mouth.