Personal Narrative: Cross Country

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

I sat in the front seat of our van with a nervous feeling. I was going to run the 1600 at the second Battle Ground middle school track meet. Exactly a week before I had run the mile 2 times in one day. The first time was on the Amboy track with the big hill. I got a 7:53, breaking my record by 11 seconds for the Amboy track. The second time was at the first Battle Ground middle school track meet. I got a 7:15, breaking my record of 7:33. I was all sore from running the mile earlier in the day. So my goal this time was to break seven minutes

Every race kept increasing with distance, and I wasn’t sure if I could continue. Yet I began to attend practice everyday, running three miles and coming in last. Everyone said they didn’t mind waiting, but I just didn’t feel confident running the 26.2 miles. It didn’t hit me that I was going to run until we attended the convention at the dodgers’

My grandma owns a old cattle farm, even though there isn't much cattle there anymore. Before my cousin, Aunt Jen, and uncle moved to Hawaii, they built a house on the property. Whenever they come to visit, they always stay in their old house.

I came in 19th out of around 100 runners. I am a decent runner. The season kept rolling on meet after meet. Soon enough our first league meet came and I once again could not sit still and had major anxiety.

As I tried to settle into my pace I begin to feel the need for more air so my breath became hastened in an attempt to satisfy my need for oxygen. When I came upon the two hundred meter mark I was in fifth. However, I needed to place at least third for my team to win. Luckily, the runners that were in third and fourth at that time were so close that I could have grabbed both of their jerseys. I expedited my pace so that the distance between myself and the runners that were battling it out for third and fourth decreased. Eventually I caught up to the two runners when I crossed the four hundred meter mark where one of the race officials barked my time at me. To my dismay my time was five seconds behind where it should have by that point in the race.

The decisions we make and the actions we take have voiced our characters for us, and our spoken words have exposed our perceptions. At one point or another in everybody’s life, one will strive to become someone, to make something of him or herself. One is limitless in what one can evolve into, but how to get there is another matter. The destination is just that: a destination. There is no significance to a station if there is no link to it. Therefore, the result is no result if there is no way to reach it, and so Willa Cather had once said, “The end is nothing; the road is all.” And I am inclined to concur with this writer.

In general, my junior year track season was arguably one of my best running season in my career for running. But, the city meet 800m race that season shined the brightest out of everything. In Livonia, Michigan, we have three different public high schools. So, once a year we get all the schools together and run a big meet against one another. During this season, I started to get confident in my running ability and ran my race instead of running

“Race you down the street,” was a common phrase friends and I would say in 4th grade. Honestly, I was a helpless victim in my friends forcing running upon me. My life thanked me as this gave me motivation to do more. In my youth, I stayed as active as I could and running was a major part in my journey. Minimizing down-time was key and I’m glad I got into a habit of running freelance. However,

Participating in track and field has been an activity I have done since I was a little girl. I ran in AAU track meets during grade school, was a member of the junior high track team, and am a member of the high school track team. Since I have always been perceived as one of the quickest girls, sprinting has been my strongest event. As I started competing in school track, however, my track coach thought I would be a better long-distance runner. After several years, we came to a compromise of running the mid-distance 800 meter run.

Over the summer of 2015, I drove to City Park to run in one of their many nature trails. I entered the trail focusing on my time, distance, and pace of my run; and not the beauty of the trails. The more I was on the trails the more I felt a part of all the vegetation surrounding me. Since these trails were marked by the City Park administration, I was able to read and learn about different plants, trees, and other foliage. I could also feel the cool breeze of the wind passing through the trees within the trails. This cool, gust of wind helped me enjoy my run and keep me cool while on the beautiful paths. At one point, the trail led me up hill for quite some time. Once I reached the top of the hill, my breath was taken away by view I

People started to saunter off into a jog in a massive portion. As soon as I passed the starting line I quickly rushed into a pace that was calm, but would insure that the duration of this run would be no picnic if I succeeded in keeping it up. So far, my goal was to catch up to as many people as I could. It was going well, I would find someone that was a bit of a ways in front of me and work my way up to them, then pass them when I found someone else to catch. I liked doing that, it was one of my favorite strategies, and it got my mind off of the monotony of running. It was quite entertaining, particularly because there’s always someone in front of you to catch up to. Unless, of course, you’re the best. Which I never was so I never had to worry about

This past school year has had many barriers, and many challenges, but none of them have been had difficult to pass as cross country this year. I could run a 5k in about 30 minutes, but training was an entire different story. At first, I thought I would do great, but everyone surpassed me, I was miserable. I face my internal demons with determination and knew knowledge, but that didn’t make it any easier. Being bad at sports has always been a part of me, but when I was admired and completely bested by the same person, it hurt.

It was a beautiful sunny afternoon on Lake Roaming Rock in Roaming Shores, Ohio in the year 2010.  The lake was smooth, and I could see my reflection in the water.  It was about 85 degrees outside today, and the only thing I wanted to do was attempt to water ski.  It was the week after 4th of July, so there weren’t nearly as many people here as there were the last time.  I had seen people gliding across the water on a daily basis here on the lake, and they made it look easy.  I figured I could do it too.  I talked to my grandpa about it last year since he drives the boat, but my feet have always been too small to fit into the skis.  I have grown a lot since then.   My feet should definitely fit now.  I decided that today is the

It was the last dual meet in the 2017 spring track season and we were facing our school’s rival, Franklin. Both my team and Franklin had the same record, we were undefeated, meaning the winner of this meet would be declared the division champions. As I warmed up for my event, I was filled with joy because I was told that my team was currently winning, but I was also filled with nerves when I saw how close the score was. I knew that my performance could determine the end results. My teammates and I kept trying to predict the outcome of our event and were repeatedly going over strategy. Before we knew it, the two-mile was announced. We stepped up on the line and looked ahead of us at the eight laps we were about to race. Then, we heard