Joining Cross Country In High School

“In running, it doesn’t matter whether you come in first, in the middle or last. You can say, ‘ I finished’ There is a lot of satisfaction in that” - Fred Lebow. I began cross country in eighth grade shortly after my brother joined the year before. He enjoyed it a lot, so I thought it would be fun. I’ve been on the team for two years. I would like to run for the rest of my life. Cross country changed my life positively forever. It taught me to push myself past what I thought was my limit. It revealed to me a great community of people and it taught me to leave my comfort zone.

I remember going to sleep at 1:30 am, because I was working on my posters, and I remember spending 7 hours on a Saturday to brainstorm and write my speech. Eventually my hard work and dedication paid off when I won. On the other hand I remember that training for my 5k was much worse. On the side of being trained by the “Devil” himself (Coach Acuna) I was also training on my separate time with my dad. I wanted to quit every day and I didn’t want to run twice, but eventually I started to improve and I began to feel good. I realized that I could accomplish everything and anything I wanted to.

Although I had only participated in the school Cross Country team for two years, I felt very connected to the team and wish I had participated my sophomore and freshmen year as well. Over the two seasons, I have made many great friends and learned the importance of working hard to achieve my goals. Throughout my life, my parents have pushed me academically, but never really encouraged me to try hard in sports or physical activities. Cross country filled that void for me and helped me become a more well-rounded person.

November 12, 2016 remains a day that will always live in my memory. On that day, I laced up my racing spikes one last time as the Hanover College men’s cross-country team competed at the Great Lakes Regional Meet in Holland, Michigan. Cross-country revealed to me the positive qualities that I possess that would allow me to succeed in my future career within the field of law.

In physical education we were put to do the mile I was always second to last if not last I wasnt made fun of but I didnt really good about myself. As the years went on I was still fat couldn’t do anything until sophomore year of high school is where it all changed. I remember it quite clearly as if it was yesterday I was sitting in my math class when one of classmates had large number pinned to his bag and a uniform on that hadn’t seen before. That's when I got curious and asked what sport was all this for he then explained it was for cross country and that I should join it would be fun. It turns out that the season was about to end so it was to late to join so I had to wait for next year so I did. I went my junior in the summer since that's when they practiced and ran for the first time. After this first run I thought I was going to literally die and didn't want to this any more and to top it off all the guy runners who I thought that were slow beat one by one. This is where I decided I wasn't going to be last or lose a race to anyone. I practiced the whole year and did track top it off. Now the summer of my senior year was very motivational since I got up early ran and did this everyday till school started to be the best of my high school. Well the season would begin and I was breaking my school records and receiving medals from invitationals and

I’ve always had a desire for running and when I heard Richland Center High had a Cross Country team, I knew I wanted to be on it! When I did start, it was tough. There were times my sanity would ask, “ WHAT IN THE WORLD ARE YOU

During my high school career I did not get many opportunities to further my understanding of technology as my school was focusing more sports orientated. But this did not stop me from pursuing my hobbies as I later became a part the unofficial IT administration, working with the head of technology and networking for my school. My job was more of less setup and maintaining WiFi access points in the dormitories and the school or maintaining the computers for the library. On my off time also helped a number of my classmates build their own computers and keep them up-to-date.

In sixth grade I quit the school band in the middle of my third year to join Running Club. The goal of Running Club was to run a 5k after weeks of practice and I accepted the challenge. Throughout the duration of training, I would find the long runs consistently demanding and a test to my motivation to persevere in the club. One of the coaches, Miss. Ames, was my teacher from the previous year and she ran with me during practice. She constantly encouraged me to push myself a little more every run and to keep practicing. I was frustrated with my performance, but Miss. Ames continued to encourage me. Nevertheless, preparing for that 5k was an eye-opening and an overall amazing experience.

I remember the first year i did track, i was a freshman unaware of how this sport would change my life for the better. When I was born I was diagnosed with asthma, a respiratory condition that causes difficulty in breathing. I figured i would try track and see just how it affected my respiratory system. Practice was a constant battle for me, breathing twice as hard as everyone else. Giving it my all as i could feel my chest getting tighter

Over the course of my high school cross country career, I have made it to state twice and onto varsity my sophomore, junior, and senior year. But those successes did not happen overnight. Sore muscles, blistered feet, and gruesome practices were just a few of the obstacles that challenged me. Furthermore, our team was known

After the race my initial thought was that it was the hardest run that I have ever ran and that I was so extremely tired. Today, however I feel differently about this particular race. I feel as if this race was a stepping stone to where I am today in cross country. I realize that without this race being so much fun and challenging then maybe I never would have stuck with it my entire high school career.

In the years that running has been part of my life, I have had some and unique memories. Just as importantly, I’ve been able to witness dramatic change within the sport in so many areas. Besides the obvious improvements in training, it seems as if practically everything I knew as a high school freshman, has been either replaced by a positive upgrade or deleted altogether from the running scene. Back in high school while doing workouts on extremely hot days, we were offered salt pills which were designed to replace the salt we were losing in our sweat while working out. Thankfully, it wasn’t too many years later that scientific research determined that consuming salt during our workouts, may well have been the absolute worst thing we could

As I develop on the Bartlett Cross Country, I became aware of how important everything around a person is —teammates, coaches, and parents. Every morning, members of the cross country team would wake up early to run an extra few miles, allowing us to become the best we can be. The dedication I place into cross country has allowed me to build a strong character. The hard work I put in and the outcome I receive has helped me realize that hard work would always pay off. Similar to cross country, school also requires hard work. The quality of work you receive out of school will resemble the amount of effort you place into school. That is why I believe that in order to succeed you have to put in great amounts of effort and dedication. Along with

With a time of 11:06 I was the second fastest JV runner in the state of Indiana. We were lined up there was about one hundred and fifty eager guys, all that went

I was about in fourth grade my sister was running track and cross country. I didn’t know how she did it but I told myself that I wasn’t going to run because I didn’t believe I could run that