“Runners take your marks,” announced the starter. My heart was beating fast as I watched my teammate get into her blocks. Lane 7: the dreaded lane. My shuttle hurdle team had made the fast heat in finals, but we knew we had our work cut out for us to beat the other teams in our heat and place in the top three. “Get set.” The starter raised his gun, then BOOM. The gun was shot and the runners were off. My heart was beating fast as I set my blocks and watched as the second runner started making her way towards me. I got into my blocks, head down, and waited to hear my teammate call my name, signaling me to go. I glanced up and saw that my team was in last and I knew one thing: I had to catch the girl in front of me. At last my teammate crossed
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When you are 12 years old and someone you love gets cancer, it really forces you to grow up fast. I have always been fortunate enough to live just a mile away from my grandparents’ farm so the summer after he was diagnosed, I spent every single day at the farm spending as much time with him as possible and helping my grandma take care of him. I think the most difficult part for me was seeing the toll cancer took on my grandpa physically. Fortunately, the cancer failed to take a toll on my grandpa mentally as he always had a smile on his face and never complained once. At 7:21 on August 14th, 2013 my mom came in to my room and told me the news of my grandpa’s death. That day has always stood out in my mind, like it happened just yesterday. I remember the emotions that flooded over me on August 14th. Shock, sadness, and hurt. I remember walking in to my grandparents’ house and running into my grandma’s arms, tears streaming down both of our faces. I remember going into the piano room, the place where I had spent hours and hours playing and practicing in front of my grandpa where each time he would give me advice afterwards and tell me what he thought of my playing. That day my grandma and I sat there and talked and cried, but we also started the healing process. In times like this one, the only way to get through it was family. While this was an extremely …show more content…
Ever since middle school, I have had an interest in this event. It might sound crazy but for me, the feeling of accomplishment after a race is worth the nerves and occasional fall beforehand. Yes, I have fallen plenty of times running hurdles, I have scars on my knees to prove it, but I have found that falling mentally and emotionally during track season was far more difficult and has greatly influenced me as a person. I am a pretty competitive person so when I rarely placed at any meets my freshman year, I was extremely frustrated and afraid of letting myself and my teammates down. Instead of giving in to the situation and accepting not being good enough or fast enough, I decided to go to the track on the weekends and continued to work on my speed and form. As the season came to an end, I had definitely improved my time but I still was not satisfied. The next year during the offseason, I spent hours and hours lifting weights, doing sprints, and doing plyometrics. Coming in to my sophomore track season, I found that my work had paid off as I PRd by 2 seconds in my first outdoor meet, which is a big difference for a 100. That season, with hard work from my teammates and myself, we were able to achieve many of our goals. I know I am nowhere near the best or fastest athlete but throughout this process I was able to see that hard work really
When you are 12 years old and someone you love gets cancer, it really forces you to grow up fast. I have always been fortunate enough to live just a mile away from my grandparents’ farm so the summer after he was diagnosed, I spent every single day at the farm spending as much time with him as possible and helping my grandma take care of him. I think the most difficult part for me was seeing the toll cancer took on my grandpa physically. Fortunately, the cancer failed to take a toll on my grandpa mentally as he always had a smile on his face and never complained once. At 7:21 on August 14th, 2013 my mom came in to my room and told me the news of my grandpa’s death. That day has always stood out in my mind, like it happened just yesterday. I remember the emotions that flooded over me on August 14th. Shock, sadness, and hurt. I remember walking in to my grandparents’ house and running into my grandma’s arms, tears streaming down both of our faces. I remember going into the piano room, the place where I had spent hours and hours playing and practicing in front of my grandpa where each time he would give me advice afterwards and tell me what he thought of my playing. That day my grandma and I sat there and talked and cried, but we also started the healing process. In times like this one, the only way to get through it was family. While this was an extremely …show more content…
Ever since middle school, I have had an interest in this event. It might sound crazy but for me, the feeling of accomplishment after a race is worth the nerves and occasional fall beforehand. Yes, I have fallen plenty of times running hurdles, I have scars on my knees to prove it, but I have found that falling mentally and emotionally during track season was far more difficult and has greatly influenced me as a person. I am a pretty competitive person so when I rarely placed at any meets my freshman year, I was extremely frustrated and afraid of letting myself and my teammates down. Instead of giving in to the situation and accepting not being good enough or fast enough, I decided to go to the track on the weekends and continued to work on my speed and form. As the season came to an end, I had definitely improved my time but I still was not satisfied. The next year during the offseason, I spent hours and hours lifting weights, doing sprints, and doing plyometrics. Coming in to my sophomore track season, I found that my work had paid off as I PRd by 2 seconds in my first outdoor meet, which is a big difference for a 100. That season, with hard work from my teammates and myself, we were able to achieve many of our goals. I know I am nowhere near the best or fastest athlete but throughout this process I was able to see that hard work really