Go for broke?_其他_趣味英语-查字典英语网

Go for broke?

“The target on my back was gigantic, enormous,” he said. “Everyone was looking at me as the guy to beat.”

The stress wore on the unassuming athlete, and his results showed. He won plenty of races — including the 2009 NCAA outdoor 800 title. But he wasn’t dominating and setting personal records like he had the year before.

Maybe his critics were right. At 6’5”, was he really meant to be a world-class runner?

By summer 2009, he was nursing injuries — first a torn calf muscle, then in July he was diagnosed with a stress fracture in his hip. In August, he contracted mononucleosis. For weeks, he hobbled around on crutches and did nothing, except think about what had happened during his junior year.

Then in September, he began to swim. He spent an hour-and-a-half in the pool every day. And he didn’t even kick. He used leg floats and let his ailing leg drag behind as his arms did all the work.

The aerobic work paid off. A month later — in late October — he began running again and “was clicking off these 4:45 miles like nothing,” remembers Wheating.

Then he sat down with his coach, Vin Lananna, and laid it out. He didn’t care about targets any more. And he no longer cared who wanted to beat him either. They all wanted to beat him. But he wanted to beat them more.