Personal Narrative: Sophomore Year

I look all around me, suddenly, I feel calm. This is an environment that I have come to know very well. A place where there is so much stress and so much anticipation, a place that has always seemed so extravagant. That place over the years had eventually become my home and a place where I belong. I took it all in and forgot about the pressure, the hundreds of thousands of eyes on me. There I was, about ready to take my first jump at the state track meet and everything closed off around me, that was the day the music had died. Silence had filled my ears, even with a roaring crowd around me, everything had finally fallen into place. I look back and remember my freshman year state track meet, I remember being so nervous to the point where …show more content…
This year had been the year after what I thought was my biggest failure of all time, a little dramatic, but what can I say? I’m a teenager. I had the passion to win this year, I even tried a second event. Let’s just say that did not last very long, because I thoroughly hate running, especially the 400 meter dash. This year was an up and down kind of year, I had started off great at the beginning of the season and declined for the rest of the season, except for districts and state. I tend to take pressure well, especially in track on big meet days, feeling like you are going to vomit every five minutes is a good thing for me. If I did not feel that way, I would not care about this sport so much. That brings me to state track of sophomore year, the least confident I have ever been at state. This year I told myself not to worry about what height I clear or what will happen, just go have fun with it. I have two more years to completely take it seriously and perform at my best. So, I was obviously extremely nervous, but not as nervous as the year before, I had kept telling myself that the height does not matter, I made it to state and that is all that matters. Nonetheless, that is what I did, I went out and jumped. That year I had done better height wise and improvement wise for me as an athlete. Placing wise, not so much, but I was just happy that I …show more content…
Junior year was also an up and down year for me, I had recently had many things going on in my personal life and I was very distracted through my whole season. Therefore, my season started of bad it continually grew as I grew. This season it was hard for me to get to where I was last year and become more consistent with my jumping, I had a few bad meets at the beginning of the season. But, with the training I had been through I had finally improved tremendously as an athlete and blew the district meet out of the water. State here I come, for my third year in a row, I did not seem to be nervous at all. I was a veteran of the Burke state track meet, was my thought. I had gone up to take my first jump, not feeling nervous, and I missed. At that point I ran to my coach and said, “I guess I was a little more nervous than I thought.” As my second jump approaches, I end up sailing over, like I knew I could. Before every jump after that I would take a huge deep breath and stare at the bar, I am not too sure if I am expecting it to lower or what, but I know at that moment I am completely focused. With hits and misses, I end up with a seventh place medal, my best year so far. At that point standing in front of the bar after that first jump, I realized that I had changed so much since freshman year. I had experiences behind my belt that I wish I didn’t have, but that day it made me see that I had changed for the better and the whole