d1 . tansy diaz

They say that there's a single moment, that you feel all the way down to your toes, and it hooks you and decides that yes, running is the greatest sport on earth. It's at that point you know you've lost, that you've succumbed to a passion that will rule your life until the day you cannot put one foot in front of the other any longer.

Just like any athlete, there are moments when you think you should just call it quits and walk away- but you don't. It's that internal struggle where you push against the pain in your body and tell your legs that you're in charge. So you'll keep going. One more step and another and another until a hundred miles has disappeared beneath your feet. It's in those moments between a whisper on the lips that says give up and the strength to ignore that voice.

Crossing the finish line for the first time when she was six was the greatest moment in Tansy's life. Even now, eleven years later she finds herself smiling whenever she thinks back to it. She hadn't been very good, in fact, she'd been the last in her class to finish. It hadn't mattered, it had hooked her. By the time she had greeted her mum, she'd had stars dancing in her eyes, question after question tumbling from her lips-

"Can I do it again?"

"When can I do it again?"

"Are there other people I can run with?"

"Did I do good, mum?"

Until finally,

"I wanna be a runner."

"Okay, Tansy, if it means that much to you."

A cheerful smile, a delighted squeal and fate was set in stone.