Personal Narrative: I Was A Member Of The Central Toronto Athletic Club

Of the more than twenty million Americans who are running today, most who start do so for the wrong reasons, with the wrong attitude, and tend to lose interest after a few weeks or months. Many quit. This is usually because they become concerned with superficial goals such as time and distance and never discover the more profound mental benefits that running offers. (Lilliefors 15)

When I first joined cross country I was not fast nor a runner. I was one of the slowest people on the team, but I wanted to get faster and I was determined to improve. Some days we would do a hills workout and I would get to the top of the longest hill and think, “I could just run back to Armstrong right now and be done”. But then, I thought about how if I did another hill, I would get better and some time during a race when there was a big hill I would look at it like it’s nothing. I could go up the hill easily and pass a couple girls. So I would do another hill. Then the next time we did hills I rememberd how many I did the last time and pushed myself to do one more. Through that cross country showed me that I could be faster and tougher than I thought I was if I put in the effort and want it

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.

In all my life, I’ve never had a commitment that required so much of me as track and field, both physically and mentally. Towards the end of my high school career, track and field for me meant having to push through a difficult physical condition known as tarsal coalition, a condition that causes inflammation in my feet. With help from my coaches, I had to learn to endure past physical limitation and strengthen my faith in my abilities. By doing so, I became more confident in myself and I was able to help lead other team members to do the same. Not only did track and field teach me to lead, but it also taught me how to be a part of a team. I learned the value of teamwork through building relay race teams. In all relay races, I was either the

I would consider myself to have been a very committed athlete in high school because I worked my behind off training for every season. Leaving my blood, sweat and tears on the track, not walking off of it until I felt I had accomplished what I set out to do. We don’t just run, we work. We work on speed, endurance, strength and technique. We work on teaching ourselves how running is mostly about mindset rather than a physical thing. We do this exercise where you run a 400 meters telling yourself you’re a brick, sounds kind of dumb, I know. But after you run another 400 meter telling yourself you are feather, telling yourself you’re like Mayweather “float like a butterfly, sting like a bee.” Without even realizing it, even after running the first 400 and being dead tired, we realize our times for the second lap were faster than the first! You have to tell your body what to do and be mentally in control so when you’re on your final 200 meters you can push yourself to limits you didn’t know you had. You will find very few track athletes who actually enjoy running themselves to death on a daily basis, but we do it because when you cross the finish and look up and see you name on the score board in a top place, you will want to relive the moment over and over again because it is absolutely priceless. Then when I received the letter telling me I had been offered a scholarship to run and jump at a D1 school, all the hard work I had been putting into this sport over the past four years felt completely worth

For the past three years I’ve been a part of a team that has shaped me into the person I am today. The John Hay cross country team has given me qualities that genuinely made me a better person such as being confident, disciplined, motivated, and a leader. Not only did running help me express these attributes, it also saved my life.

Olde Severna Park, Maryland, my bus comes to a halt, and gently veers into the collection of radiant green synthetic turf fields, and prestigiously constructed buildings which make up the Severn School campus. In the days since I was last here, so little has actually changed, but being in the upper school now, it seems to different. There are still the same deep red bricks, etched with names, forming the commemorative alumni walkway. There are still the same colossal 100 yard turf fields, lining the left side of the walkway, their radiating scent of sweat and plastic turf beads reminding me of all the good times that were had in my middle school days. On the other side of the Alumni Walkway, lay the magnificent Edward St. John athletic center,

Athletics has played an instrumental role promoting success in all branches of life impacting my performance in school, work and other life facets. Involvement in athletics taught me the value of commitment allowing me to play in Division 1 Women’s Soccer while attending the University of Washington. As a former student athlete, I have been winning and losing my entire life developing my own resilience and tremendous work ethic to work with others toward a common goal. My drive spills over into my professional interactions and career aspirations allowing me to connect

Having grown up in the Tahoe Truckee area, my participation in athletics, and a multitude of other team based activities, have consumed a vast majority of my teenage life, and have aided in my finding a variety of things I am passionate about. These activities have taught me many important life skills that I am able to contribute to both the Team community and community as a whole. These competencies include a strong sense of leadership, accountability, a clear sense of self, and effective communication, all of which I utilize in my day to day life. These skills also provide me with the ability to set effective goals and accomplish them.

In high school, distance running has improved not only my physical strength but also my mental toughness, and it has benefited various aspects of my life. By running seven miles per day consistently, I learned to persevere regardless of the difficulties and setbacks, and perseverance also enabled me to accomplish boring and complicated tasks such as spending hours finding and fixing one single unnoticeable bug in my program. Moreover, I became accustomed to challenging myself after I pushed my limits by ordering my legs to move in great pain during every race; accordingly, I would proactively seek academic challenges by taking courses at which I am relatively weak. As for the longest run, my life, I will keep running forward with the same spirit, never stopping self-improvement. Therefore, I will keep distance running in college.

Just as I formulated plans for racing strategies, I devised strategies to balance priorities in my schedule, to pursue the collection of all essentials to running. I formulated strategies to approach literature analyses, handle school rallies, and engage the community in activities, all of which are routes and trails imperative to running. As pressure rises, my heart pounds, but I am determined; I carry on through the hurdles, I inhale and exhale the justifications that shove the worries away. Whether it be the time that my family and I lost our house or the time my father departed from my family, I was resolute and forced the hardships aside. Each day, new trails are discovered and decisions that we are compelled to make, are

For this project or in this case activity, I chose running on the field. Almost everyday in PE we run on the field. I chose is for committing time to community, because when people run, you will stay much more fit than if you sit down and do nothing. When there is a world of people who are fit, it makes a nicer impression on people, than seeing a lazy nieborhood. I chose this over other things because other than this I have not done more for the community. So I do my job by staying fit. One problem I had to overcome, was the initial start of the year when we first started running. Back then I was out of shape, but I'm not anymore. I overcame this by pushing myself to the point where I was dead by the time we stopped running. If I could

I have been a club athlete with the club cross country and track team at IU for three years at IU. Barring times of injury and academic conflicts, I have trained with the run club up to 10 hours per week and have competed in various cross country and track meets against other club teams throughout the region. The support and coaching of the run club also assisted in my training for the Chicago Marathon, in which I competed in the Fall of 2014. Outside of training, I have volunteered at IU track meets and other campus events through the

When I was 17, I decided to start a training schedule for a rollerblade marathon. The schedule would increase my distance from the amount I was presently blading up to the distance I needed to finish the marathon. My marathon training was extremely exciting. I watched my own body change during the training, not so much in weight, but in shape. I lost fat that I didn't know I had, including two inches around the waist, and I gained muscle tone. My resting pulse rate decreased to 48 bpm, and my body fat fell to 11 percent. I completed the rollerblade marathon, convinced that I could do anything, since I had achieved the impossible--rollerblade a 60 kilometre distance. One important lesson I learned from my training is to drink water every thirty minutes so that you do not get dehydrated. But the most important thing I learned in training was to develop and stick to a plan of action. Although

Athletics is one of my main interests. I’m always striving to improve my athletic ability (I’m doing a training plan over the summer), and enjoy watching many sports. Athletics is interesting, because it involves two very different things. Obviously, there is the ability side (Strength, Endurance, etc.). But there is also the emotional side to things. You train to push yourself, to just keep going, to not put things off and to never give up. These aspects of athletics can be applied to many parts of life and teach life lessons. This is one of the main reasons I love sports and athletics in general, because it teaches you so much. Some of my athletic accomplishments and teams I’ve made are here: grade 4-5 - Worthington P.S. track team (3rd in 800m and 5th in 400m), grade 6-7 - Davis Cross Country Team (42nd 1st year, 21st 2nd year), various runs/races 1km-5km, 12-present - Brampton Baseball House League (1st in Heart Lake Division) and age 7-present - Brampton Hockey Rep A/AA (4th place Brantford Tournament, many other tournaments > quarter