Tyson Gay is trying to outrun his pain, and it’s not working

Tyson Gay isn’t really ready to race again. Not now, not yet, just eight months after his 15-year-old daughter was killed by a stray bullet from a shootout in Louisville, Kentucky.

Gay, 34, is a man in mourning, with an ache so profound it’s physical, and not equipped to compete against the finest sprinters in the United States in their peak condition. He knows it.

But there he was Thursday night at the US track and field national championships in Sacramento, Calif., crouching into the starting blocks. Because it’s what Trinity would have wanted.

Well, Gay didn’t advance out of the first round of qualifying in the 100-meter dash. The American record holder in the event (with a time of 9.69 seconds, faster than any human not named Usain Bolt ever has run it) stumbled at the start and finished 15th overall in 10.17.

“I think about my daughter every day. Every day,” Gay said this week. “You’re looking for closure every day and it doesn’t come. It’s just been tough in that sense.

“It’s been eight months and it still seems unreal. … I don’t think you ever have peace. I’ve learned to think about the good times, try to block that image of her death out of my mind.”

Trinity Gay was shot outside a Lexington restaurant early last Oct. 16 after witnesses told police that gunfire was exchanged between two vehicles. She was hit by a stray round. Four people have been charged in connection with her death.

“You’re upset you couldn’t be there to stop it,” Tyson Gay said. “It was just a group of honor students, going out to have a good time. And something like that happens? Crazy.”

Gay said he didn’t train at all for more than a month after Trinity’s death. What motivated him to return was feeling that track was something he shared with his daughter — who was a sprinter at Lafayette High in Lexington, competitive on the state level — and to “clear my mind and get out of the house.”

Gay’s career is in twilight. He remains the last man to beat Bolt at an Olympics or world championships, back in 2007, when Gay swept the 100 meters, 200 meters and 4×100-meter relay titles at worlds. In 2013, some of Gay’s records — including a relay silver medal from the 2012 Olympics — were vacated after he tested positive for steroids.

He has another chance to qualify for the US squad going to this summer’s world championships in the 200 meters, which has heats Saturday and Sunday.

“Track is something she loved. It’s something I loved,” Gay said. “I had a college coach tell me a year ago, ‘Hey man, we need your daughter to run for us.’ I told her about it and she got tickled. She thought it was so cool. That made me so proud.”