Clearing new heights

Today I was at the local track. A meet was scheduled for later today, so the tarps were off, the posts were up, and the field was abuzz with activity--very different from the quiet, empty running track that I was used to.

The high jump bar looked like it was set at 5'5" or so to start. It was just about up to my nose, and it felt dauntingly high to me.

I'm familiar with that feeling.

My best jump in high school was a peculiar one. Midway through the heats, I had to run off to compete in the 400m. When I returned, after running all-out and still getting beaten by my freshman year history teacher--he's 20 years older; I thought I'd have more energy than him--my legs were rubbery; I still had to clear one last jump to qualify for the finals. I failed on the first one, and almost got over on the second.

On the third, I felt the bar lightly making its way across my back as I went over it. But it stayed. I ended up with 4th place, I think. I was so amazed that the bar didn't fall on that last jump that I forgot to record how high that jump actually was.

For some reason, I remember the height on that one being around 5'5". I don't think that's right, though; in the inter-school championships, which was the next level up, 5'5" would have put me in the winners circle; that one time I competed, I didn't even clear the qualifying height.

So why is it that I still believe I've cleared a 5'5"? I'm quite certain that I shouldn't trust my memory; I never really paid attention to the actual height measurements when I was making the jumps, so why should I have any recollection of them?

Whenever I competed, all I knew was that there was a bar in front of me that seemed ridiculously high. I also knew that I'd cleared something just a little bit lower than it in the past.

In turn, that meant that I at least had a shot at clearing this new height.

I remember that those heights were also somewhere around the height of my nose. They seemed insurmountable at the time. Perhaps they were.

I worry that as I have grown older, I have mixed together the memories of my success with those of my failures. For all I know, those heights that were up to my nose were precisely the ones that I failed to clear, and have nothing to do with that dramatic, miraculous 4th place finish, which very well could have been a far lower height.

I'm not willing to accept that, though. I don't know why, but something in me believes that I actually did clear a height as high as my nose. I haven't grown since high school, so that height should be 5'5".

I also know that I used to comfortably hurdle 3.5 foot tall trash cans, and sometimes, in moments of insanity (or bizarre dedication), would hurdle the 4 foot "no parking" barriers. So in contrast, a proper high jump that's a mere 1.5 feet higher doesn't seem impossible.

Did I actually clear it? I don't know. Now that I suspect I did, I really want to get back out there on the field and give it another try.