This is part of a series I’m writing to celebrate some of my sporting heroes who were in action in London this summer. Search for the “paralympics” tag for more.

It seems I can’t write a race in the past tense, so I switched to present tense while they were running and back to past tense at the end. Does this jar? Please let me know. If I put the present-tense section in italics, would that make it easier to follow?

Thanks in advance.

Yeah, I think switching it to present tense throughout the whole piece would help the flow. It definitely makes sense for the footrace, so the rest should probably match, as well.

Very nicely written, and I like the feel of it. For me too the switch to present tense was off putting. It definitely felt strategic and therefore less jarring than a tense change usually is, so I can see what you were going for. So, a semi-legitimate and kind of effective use of mixed tenses.

Italics might work, especially if started with some reference to a change in the runner’s mentality, something about the zone or race mode or a distortion of perception specific to high level competition, then the present tense description of the race in italics. Just a thought.

Interesting.

I sorta like how you switched to present tense, but at the same time, it… confused me a little. Perhaps that was me just being slow, but it took me a few minutes to figure out what was actually going on.

Very nice writing, you can really feel the connection between these two people and the intensity of the moment. I agree with the majority, though, the inconsistent tenses are distracting.

Thanks for the comments, guys. I’ve switched to present tense throughout.

World records being broken every year people pushing their bodies further and further. I like the mention of held the record for five minutes. And still doing even better than before was a second place. A salute to him for pride in beating his own best not everyone else’s.

The tense change felt intuitive. I barely noticed it and it pulled me into the race. But it probably would have been just as effective in present tense throughout? Regardless, I liked it. Very inspiring.

Scrawler’s Secret: It was a truly remarkable morning. In the women’s T12 100m heats, four consecutive heats broke the world record: Libby Clegg (the protagonist in my story) was in the second heat, so her record was broken twice before the final, but she still beat one of them. Mikhail is her guide runner (she’s nearly blind), who has to run just as fast as she does, in step with her to make sure she stays on course. This year’s paralympics was the first to award medals to both the athlete and the guide, so he got a well-earned silver too. This sits well with me.

Tarzan: If you read it recently, I’ve changed the tense so it’s present throughout. Thanks for the comment.

(by “one of them”, I mean one of the two people who beat her world record that morning)

I love the description in her senses and how you made it easy to understand her impairment from the start. Brilliant :)

I absolutely loved the line “counterpoint to the amorphous roar that still pulls us forwards.” Great job!!

Ditto Emilou. I think I would really love the word “amorphous” in any context, though.

I’m not usually a fan of sports narratives, but this read very well for me.

Love the energy in this story. Sounds great in present tense. Felt like I was there.

I’ll admit, my first instinct was olympian (not para), and my second instinct was somewhat more bizarre (foreign exchange student in a sports day 3 legged race). My third instinct was paralympian (we got there in the end).

This was very well written. I guess the only way to please everyone is to keep the tense the same. I came too late for the unadulterated version, so I can’t really comment on everybody’s favourite tense change. All in all, a great story, very well written.

I’ve got some researching to do now – you’ve captured a wonderful experience and piqued my interest.

Ah. I didn’t realize that Libby was (nearly?) blind until I read through the comments. I understand why she wouldn’t point out that fact or necessarily worry about it. This is one case where I think a pov shift would help underscore her victory. Just my opinion though.

The conversational tone works really well to identify with the character, although I think it assumes we know some things that we don’t really. Just one more ounce of context would help, I think; but as far as enjoyment of the writing, it works as is.

I love that you’ve drawn on a real life event. Very inspiring, and wonderful, of course, to celebrate such achievement. I don’t think enough is made of the paralympics really. I didn’t know that the guides get medals too now. I always thought it was horribly unfair that they didn’t.

Like Timber, I don’t normally like sports stories but you wrote it really well. A great read. Thanks