My feet drag me forward, my legs clumsily following and the rest of my body coming what seems as three seconds later. Panting heavily, my arms make odd movements, in a hopeless attempt to look at least somewhat 'athletic'. I'm as athletic as a square ping pong ball. In front of me I see the rest of my grade, speeding up quicker and quicker until they are out of sight. Well. There I am. Running this stupid run because my school wants me to and gives me a mark for an impossible time to reach. Looking at my watch I see 19 minutes have gone by. Ugh. Mentally I kick myself in the butt and speed up, twice as quick as I ran before. But my breathing has no rhythm and the way I run is sure to cause me blisters. I try to wipe some of my sweat away (which already formed permanent crystals on my forehead) but this gets my arms out of the odd movements they were doing, resulting in even more odd movements of not only my arms but also my legs and my upper body. I refer to this as 'the odd running dance'. There I go. I just had to wait for my breathing to get worse and get even less rhythm to the point it just goes 'pffeee-hahhj-pfffee-haahhj'. To my disappointment, I stop, raising my arms in the air and placing my handpalms on the back of my head. They told us to do that when you couldn't breathe anymore. And they also told us not to stop. Well, that'd help a lot now. I sigh. 25 minutes. There goes my reasonable-to-no-mark. Asking a lot of my legs, I continue the odd running dance again, my arms swaying forwards and backwards in an attempt to hit my nose. No, arms, I won't let you hit my nose. I need to wait for that after I hear my mark.

27 minutes. No sign of life ahead and behind. I'm the last, but around this corner I should dance up the parking lot of our school. An old man looks at me with a questioning gaze and I look back, as foul as I can. Maybe I run awkwardly, and maybe it looks like I absolutely don't do this for fun, but that doesn't mean you can make fun of me. Not paying attention, my swaying legs almost run into the wall that had just walked forward. A long tug on the steering wheel makes them go on the right course again and I can see the rest of our class impatiently waiting on me. Some of the girls who enjoy cheering at dancing square ping pong balls cheer loudly. "Come on, just a little bit further! You can sprint a little now!" My mouth falls open. Did they just, after all that torture, even think that I would run that last - seemably miles long - part quicker?! Okay. I give up. Panting harder than before, I run across the 'finish line' (a blue graffiti-covered bin) and I hear someone say "30,02 minutes!" and "Is she the last one? Can we go now?" but my vision is blurred out and I'm dizzy. The last bit to the changing rooms is a run for water and I push my head under the tap, filling the dry desert situated in my head with water.

"I ran 15,43 minutes!" My eyes almost plop out of my head and I have to be careful they don't roll and end up in front of the person who said that. They look up and they see black sporting pants and a pink tee. Tess. An audible gasp escapes from my mouth. "And, what was your time?" I mutter something with a three and a zero and then pull on my clothes quickly. What kind of 'education' is this? Maybe they should rename 'Physical Education' to 'Physical Torture'. Just for the square ping pong balls under us.