The Day I Ran the Pacer

I did this thing the other day. I ran The Pacer in gym class. Yes, I am a forty-year-old music teacher. Yes, I chose to do it, but, #TBH, I didn't know what it was when I agreed to it. We never ran The Pacer when I was in school.

The sixth grade teachers invited me, most likely in a moment of weakness, to be on their Pacer team. We were going to compete against the sixth graders. I was so excited to be "picked in P.E." that I didn't even ask what The Pacer was. (I was one of those kids who suffered trauma in gym class due to always being chosen last.)

What I had agreed to was a timed relay that increases in speed every few rotations. The student (or forty-year-old music teacher) runs the length of the gym and back, attempting to reach the line before a beep sounds. As the runner levels up, there is less and less time between beeps.

Here is the thing. I do enjoy running. I am pretty good at distance running, but I am not super fast. What I didn't know is that by the end of The Pacer, you are pretty much sprinting. I am not a skilled sprinter.

The morning of my Pacer debut, the word got around and the kids started to scare me.

"It's pretty hard, Mrs. Duggan," said one of my sixth graders. "It gets really fast at the end."

He seemed genuinely concerned for my well-being.

"You're running The Pacer?" another kid asked me.

"Sure!" I told her.

She shuddered in response.

"So if I get tired and can't make it, I get out, not my whole team, right?" I asked one of my classes.

"Yeah, but then they have to run with two people instead of three, and that's harder," the kids said, the underlying message being, your team is counting on you . . .

Later, the P.E. teacher told me that the test was banned in China because it was seen as punishment; however, according to Snopes, this seems to be a rumor. It makes for a good war story though.

The afternoon of the infamous Pacer, I lined up with my teammates.

"This will be good for you, getting some exercise," one of my sixth grade choir students said, "instead of just standing in front of the class all day."

"She exercises," the sixth grade teacher said in my defense.

"What are you talking about?" I asked the kid. "You know we do choir aerobics all the time!"

My two teammates stood at least a head taller than me. Some of the teachers watching from the sidelines got a kick out of the height discrepancy.

"You're little legs are going so fast!"

"I need to lengthen my stride, but my legs are getting tired!" I said breathlessly.

As the kids got out, I could hear them cheering for me, the underdog.

In reality, it wasn't that bad. By the end of the fifteen minutes, I had worked up a pretty good runner's high. Usually, that doesn't hit me until at least three miles in.

I made it to level ten. (Remember, I am forty.) I'm still not sure what "level ten" means. My fitness tracker said I got up to eight miles per hour. I beat most of the sixth grade girls, except for a few of the super athletic, taller ones.

Of course, my classroom smelled like Icy Hot all afternoon.

The next day, I couldn't move certain body parts very well. I had to lift my legs with my hands when I wanted to cross them. My abs hurt, giving me false hope that I was developing a six-pack. I tried to demonstrate crawling on all fours during one of my classes and quickly realized that was a big mistake.

One of my teammates stopped by my room that morning. He was hurting too, and I'm pretty sure he is about a decade younger than I am.

"How are you feeling today?" he asked.

"Like an old person," I responded.

And I was pretty proud of that.

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