During the race, I start out just jogging along with a couple of my teammates. After about a half mile, I start to think to myself, “I can go faster than this.” I accelerate and climb to second place. I glance up just as the lead cart darts around a corner. Half mile left. First place is only a few steps in front of me. Sharp left turn. Big downhill. I start my kick. The kid next to me can’t keep up as I fly down the hill, and let my momentum carry me all the way to the finish line. I am on top of the world. I can’t believe it, I just won my very first cross country race! Out of the corner of my eye, I see the varsity jogging over to me. Thoughts are racing through my head, they are going to congratulate me, pick me up on their shoulders, and parade me around. They’re only five feet away. They’re getting closer! They’re right next to me…and they just keep walking right by me. My stomach dropped as if I had just been punched in the gut, and I realized I had a long way to go until I would earn their …show more content…
Their cheering isn’t enough to get me going. Then I see it. My four teammates that already finished are right on the sidelines. They are dead tired, but screaming their lungs out. They finally believe in me. That’s when the adrenaline kicked in. I was at an all-out sprint. 100 meters left. The guy is 20 meters in front of me. 75 meters left. I gained 5 meters. 50 meters left. He’s just out of my reach. 25 meters left. That’s when he realizes I’m there. He kicks it in. We are in a dead sprint. 10 meters left. We are within inches of each other. 5 meters. I look and see my teammates. I burst forward and lean across the finish line. I did it. Perfect score. My teammates are going crazy. They’re shouting and hollering, and I might’ve even gotten a hug. Now I am really on top of the world. I’m grinning from ear to ear. I finally did it. I finally earned their respect. I still don’t know how we lost to Canby one meet, and perfect scored them at the next. We all had terrible runs at Marshall and great runs at Canby. Canby was the exact opposite. This was the first perfect score for Marshall Boys’ Varsity since the 2003-2004 team, who went on to win state two years in a row. A perfect score is a huge deal, and we accomplished it. Everything worked out exactly how it had to, in order to accomplish that. It really was the perfect