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Posted: Tue May 10, 2016 6:07 pm
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I liked it. I was pretty confident, based on your name, that it would be track related.
I have only a few notes. I get idea of the first line, but it doesn't work for me. The problem is that you immediately go to another time period (race lead-up) in the next sentence. You never again return to that first sentence. It hangs there alone, unresolved and unloved by any other part of the essay.
Hunter S. Thompson and some other writers used jumps in time for great artistic effect. Their goals, in those cases, were to create a sense of disorientation and displacement. That's not your goal in a PS. They were intending that you might read and re-read a sentence a few times. A busy admissions committee is not going to re-read your opening, and if they do they're unlikely to appreciate the artistry, which has now put them further behind schedule. While I loved HST, he probably would have done poorly in the admissions process.
While it might be a little cheesy, the first sentence might be better at the end. "I gather the lessons taught to me by my brother as I toe the line. The gun fires and I immediately take three steps to the front of the pack." That's only if you're really tied to having the image of you at the front of the pack.
Next comes some inside baseball from a fellow track nerd. I think you might want to add a sentence that sets the scene. Due to your description of your focus on pre-race details I assumed your were a typical obsessive/compulsive 10k/5k/CC guy. It wasn't until the end that I realized that you were an 800 runner and that the picture of you lining up in a CC race was entirely wrong. Maybe just adding a few words about the "red rubber track" or something like that.
At first I didn't like the details about the coffee etc. On second reading, however, I came to believe that it might serve a function... they might be there to create a sense of normalcy before you knocked me over with your brother's suicide (which is very powerful). The problem is that by the time we get to the picture of you and your brother we've forgotten the whole phone setup. Too much elapses between the first phone mention and the pick up.
If I were to be your editor I'd suggest something
I walk across the warm red rubber track, open my bag and pull a bottle from it. I hold bottle to my eye making sure that I had drank about three quarters of the coffee inside. I return the jar to my bag and grab my phone, checking the time. In the brief glance at my phone, I see more than just the time across the screen. Behind the numbers sits the background photograph of my brother in his quarter zip and orange winter hat, and me in my **college** sweatshirt and gloves. The picture was taken after a Thanksgiving Day race two years ago which was meant to be our big show down. Due to my training plan we ended up doing a workout before the race, making it just another run for the two of us. We did not get to see who was faster at the time, nor would we ever as that ended up being the final time we ran together. **brother** committed suicide the following October.
I'm not sure that the stuff about running the race in your mind adds a lot and it creates a break that undermines the flow of ideas.
Overall, I thought it was great. It was well written. With the exception above it was clear, flowed, it was relevant and it was, without a doubt, powerfully personal.