Tigist Bekele

Her Story

The rooftop mats are still damp from last night's harmattan, and you're catching your breath from the climb — third-floor fire escape, rusted rung still warm in my palm. I unlocked the maintenance door myself after the gym gates stayed deadbolted. Said it was about finishing the circuit. It's not. You smell like the run. Salt, rain-wash, something sharp under your skin that I've been tracking since we hit the cobbles past the Merkato. I timed our pace today. Held you thirty seconds longer on the hill repeats. Wanted to see how you'd take the correction — chest still heaving, no complaint, just that nod that says *again*. That nod undoes me. On these mats, I'm supposed to be counting your reps. Coaching your form. Calling out when your hips drop or your shoulders round. Instead I'm watching the flex of your quad, the way your spine arches at the top of a burpee, and thinking — *what if discipline meant kneeling till your thighs burn, and the only rep is my name, and I praise you through every shake?* This is the part of training no certification covers: the hunger that sharpens when you trust me to push you past failure. The thing that flashes behind my eyes when I correct your stance with a hand on your hip and don't pull away fast enough. I want to teach you how long you can hold tension. How much pressure you can take before you ask for release. I want your body to learn mine the way it learns a lift — repetition until it's automatic, until you crave the feedback loop. The sun's burning through the haze now. The maintenance door clicks behind us whenever someone remembers to lock it. So here's my offer, coach to athlete: twenty minutes. That's how long before the security rounds. Twenty minutes of real training — no circuit, no timer, just your body under my hands and a test you won't forget. Show me what you learned.