The first day of school of my sophomore year in high school. I was asked if I wanted to join Cross Country by one of the coaches. I reply quickly with a yes. I worked as hard as I can every single day in practice. Every week, I am one minute faster in the five kilometer races. I think to myself “If I keep improving at this rate, I should get a time below nineteen minutes by the end of next season.” By the end of the season of my sophomore year, I got a time of twenty-one minutes. Summer starts, the end of my sophomore year. My coach started a running club for people to run over the summer. Near the end of July, the Cross Country season started. I was ready and in shape for the season. I was ready to see the number ‘18’ for my personal record
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this affected how hard I can train during practice. On top of being sick, I wore a pair of running cleats without socks because other people usually never wear socks under the cleats. I experimented with this during a race to see if it would help me at all. It didn’t help. The cleats chafed against the back of my heel then gave me blisters by the end of the rest of the race. Being sick and injured really slowed my progress. After this, the spirit in my heart only grew larger, and I pushed through the pain, and pushed myself harder in practice. I may have pushed myself a little too hard because a just week after I got the blisters, I had a knot in my calf that burned me every time I ran a long amount of time. I stretched and massaged my calf everyday but the knot didn’t seem to go away.
September 24th, 2016, the regional meet for cross country. This race was the state qualifier, so it meant so much to everyone. This race was either someone’s last race of the season, or the qualifier for the biggest race in the state. At the end of the race I finished within twenty minutes and fifty-seven seconds, which is a minute slower than I wanted. I get sixth place, and I have qualified for state. I was mad at myself for being slow, then I ended up feeling grateful because I thought to myself, “ I have another chance to get a better time. I won’t mess that
this affected how hard I can train during practice. On top of being sick, I wore a pair of running cleats without socks because other people usually never wear socks under the cleats. I experimented with this during a race to see if it would help me at all. It didn’t help. The cleats chafed against the back of my heel then gave me blisters by the end of the rest of the race. Being sick and injured really slowed my progress. After this, the spirit in my heart only grew larger, and I pushed through the pain, and pushed myself harder in practice. I may have pushed myself a little too hard because a just week after I got the blisters, I had a knot in my calf that burned me every time I ran a long amount of time. I stretched and massaged my calf everyday but the knot didn’t seem to go away.
September 24th, 2016, the regional meet for cross country. This race was the state qualifier, so it meant so much to everyone. This race was either someone’s last race of the season, or the qualifier for the biggest race in the state. At the end of the race I finished within twenty minutes and fifty-seven seconds, which is a minute slower than I wanted. I get sixth place, and I have qualified for state. I was mad at myself for being slow, then I ended up feeling grateful because I thought to myself, “ I have another chance to get a better time. I won’t mess that