Personal Narrative: Blood, Sweat, And Distance Running

“Sprinters don’t even do anything,” is what the distance runners say. “You guys hardly even run,” they go on. As a sprinter, I hear this a lot. Every year we get grief from them about how they think we don’t do anything and it’s very agitating. Track and field is supposed to be a team sport, although people do run in their separate events. Having the long distance runners always talk gossip and tell us we never do anything is just adding unnecessary drama. I hope some day they can learn to stop making perceptions of us.

He ran in the marathon ,for he wanted to support his mother who suffered from a cancer relapse

I found my love for athletic activity at a young age. When I was 7 years old, I was enrolled in a YMCA summer program in Michigan. That is where it all started. My summer days were filled with various sport activities. Unfortunately, when I moved to California at the age of 10, I stopped playing sports for at least a year. However, during the rest of elementary school, throughout middle school, and in high school, I played different sports to figure out which one I liked best, which is now, Track & Field.

Sitting in my frigid bleak classroom I found myself constantly looking out the window staring at the rain that had been barreling down all morning. This frightened me a great deal, for I was prepared to compete in my first official Cross Country race of the season. I waited for this day for quite a few months. Unfortunately, previous back-to-back injuries prevented me from fulfilling my dream of running. These injuries were so severe i had to go into surgery just to be able to walk normal again much less of running on uneven surfaces like cross country. The long months of rehabilitation were log and painstakingly hard, not just physically but mentally as well. There were so many days i knew there was no way i was ever going to be my normal self again. When I was finally able to run again I spent all of my summer practicing for this year’s season. Many of my

Running a marathon at only 17 years old taught me that the strongest supplements a person needs are determination and motivation. The largest development of mindset and the confirmation of my future career came from when I chose to vicariously run 26.2 miles for the person who inspires me the most; my mother. When I was younger, my mother ran the Chicago Marathon twice. After her diagnosis of Multiple Sclerosis in 2013, she still continued to attempt to run and walk despite her immense pain. She eventually was unable to run, until I worked with her to build strength for jogging. She then started walking and jogging as much as possible. Inspired by her, I decided to run the Towpath Full Marathon in October of 2015, after six months of training.

“Whoa, whoa! Where is this taking us, where, where?” I said as my heart was beating as fast as a runner who finished the Boston Marathon. I was hiking with my family a second ago, and now I am through a wavy transparent wall that made me feel like I was heading through Platform 9 ¾ in Harry Potter. I suddenly was flying through a golden sky that glistened like the sun hitting the ocean. Gracefully I did flips and cartwheels in the air while gold ribbon followed me like ducklings following their mother. Milliseconds later I landed in a grassy field. Cows were harvesting crops and cooking dinner. Straw hats aligned their faces, with brown corduroy overalls splattered in dirt. They smelled like a fertilizer company on a hot summer afternoon.

As a track runner, it is a necessity to be relaxed yet focused and determined. When I participate in track meets or even at practices, I receive a comforting warmth just by stepping onto the track. I feel as though burdens and worries temporarily lift from my shoulders. One may wonder how this can make someone content with their surroundings instead of nervous and uneasy based upon their environment and luckily for me this is an uncomplicated notion to explain. Unlike particular people, the track calms me and gives me a place to clear my head. I work relentlessly to achieve my goals, nevertheless it also gives me the clearance and space I need to effectively work my hardest whether it be a physical goal I am working to achieve

Cross country is a sport for the dreamers. This fact becomes abundantly clear once setting foot out on the course. The atmosphere created by this determination and drive is palpable. A defining difference that separates cross country from other team sports is the lack of ill will towards other teams, rivalries are present but they provide for a greater sense of competition between schools. When looking up sportsmanship in the dictionary it says “refer to cross country”. What creates such a friendly environment that many other sports seem to lack? It all goes back to the shared goal, to finish.

All throughout history people have been made to feel less than because the color of their skin. I encountered this all throughout high school running track. Track consists mainly of African Americans while a small portion consists of Caucasians for sprinting and field events. My high school coach was named Coach Lucas and he was African American. He constantly told me I wouldn’t be able to do well or that I should find a different sport because track is not a white woman’s sport. He also degraded me when I would do well at track meets by always saying I won because I got lucky and the other kids just had a bad day running.

As the sun’s nutritious rays fuel my body; sweat races down my back and accumulates into the threads of my cotton t-shirt. I peer over my neighborhood park fence and gaze over the spacious scenery. The track field was well in shape, free of small debris and ready for a test run and light jump activities in the sand-pit. Soon enough the high temperature fills my head, leaving me in a state of allusion. Images of my friends and I sporadically unfold in front of me and unto the track; as if being placed in a desert mirage. I feel a sense of peace and eagerness surge through my body, while the images continue to appear. Then, a whisper comes into the mix saying some sort of gibberish. Stepping a bit more cautiously then I regularly would I walked

When I was only eight years old my mom and dad made me join a track team called Lighting Links. I was furious because I hated running, I was scared I wouldn't make any friends, and I really really hated running. For me, running was like throwing away your favorite candy for no reason. I would just use up all of my energy and get no benefits from it, well at least that is what I thought.

A personal experience I have went through in my life would be making it to districts in track and field my sophomore year of high school. Making it to districts was a big accomplishment for me and my teammates because track is something that I take a lot of my time to focus on and do multiple hours of training so I am able to compete with the other athletes. I come from a small town in Ohio called Oak Hill. The sport track and field is something you do not hear that much about because our high school is not very big and very few athletes actually run track to make it somewhat far in competition, so for my 4x1 team to make it to regionals was a big deal for me considering it is something that does not happen that often at my local high school.

I have recently become very passionate about the sport of running. In the past every sport I’ve tried, I’ve never been the best at. I've played almost every sport imaginable, from dancing, gymnastics, soccer, basketball, competitive cheerleading, horseback riding, lacrosse, swimming, and now to running cross country and track. I've always just been the one on the team who did nothing and was in all honesty just there to observe. Don't get me wrong I've always tried as hard as I could, but never succeeded. My junior year of high school one of my friends came to me and asked if I would join the cross country team. I looked at her as if she were actually going insane. At the time I could barely run a half mile, and probably would have cried at the idea of running five

When I was 5 years old I had a surgery to treat my scoliosis. My legs were affected by the surgery and I was forced to learn how to walk again. After being released from the hospital I still had little mobility of my legs. I sometimes looked outside my living room window and watch all the children in my neighborhood running freely, I told myself one day I would be running freely too.

The question was: how? I attended orientation and it was one of the best weekends at UNG. I fell in with the love and passion the orientation leaders had and from that moment I knew that I have to become an orientation leader. I want to share the amazing experience that orientation offers upcoming freshman. In addition, I am a commuter and want to help upcoming freshman know that they have access to resources that UNG offers even if they are commuters. I want to make them feel welcome and part of this amazing community that I have fallen in love