Personal Narrative: Joining The Brownsville Cycling Team

“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.

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.

When I was 13 years-old, my parents would always get in big arguments. When they argued I didn’t even know what they were arguing about. Until one night my mom decided they wanted a divorce. That night all I could remember was yelling, crying, and depression. I personally have no Idea why my parents decided to get a divorce, I just hope it was for the right reasons. When this was happening I kept blaming it on myself. I thought it was my fault and I had to fix it, but it wasn’t my fault and there was no way I could fix it. The best thing I learned from this situation was to keep my head up and keep positive, those things helped me jump over the obstacle of divorce. This situation made me be more kind to people, because most of the time in life

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

“Now everybody turn to your left, now your right. I see, and you all see an abundance of members, but by the end of season this team will not be this big. Not because of my fault, but because of your own inability to want to work hard and improve. Some of you will finish this season and some of you will say, ‘I quit.’ You determine your fate. Welcome to the Monmouth-Roseville Cross Country team. I’m your coach Samuel, but you can call me Sam.” I had finally met my coach.

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

It all started when my track coach had said “You should go out for cross country next year.” I had thought about it long and hard because I’ve never pictured myself as a runner. So thought to myself and decided that I’m not a very good volleyball player and took the chance to join cross country at the beginning of my eighth grade year. At first it was a little weird and we had to run more distance than we did in track season. We ran about 3 miles and lifted after we arrived back at the school. Of course I was sore the next day because I was not in shape and haven’t ran since the beginning of the summer. After the first practice was out of the way, I had to sit and think about what I was doing. “I have to do this every day” I thought to myself. I was thinking about dropping out because the first practice was hard enough and doing it every day made me want to give up.

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.

Growing up I wanted to get a motorcycle so badly. Every birthday, every Christmas I would ask and bug the heck out of my parents to get me a motorcycle. And one lucky day I got what I always wanted. my first dirtbike was a CRF 100 that was brand new, still had the tire stickers on it and all, I loved that bike. The day I got my motorcycle my dad went into the shop to get a new tire for his bike, when he left the store I had a brand new motorcycle. A beautiful red Honda, a Honda that was 103cc to be exact.

Exposition: Have you ever had your bike stop out of nowhere, and you not know why? Pedaling but not moving anywhere. Feeling stuck, or even tipping over! Ouch, that really hurts! One morning I was my own savior. It was when I learned how to fix a chain on a bicycle wheel.

My parents separated when I was six years old and officially divorced when I was eleven. During this time, I never knew the real story behind the split. However, now that I can understand the complications and issues, I seek for the answer to that question. That question that has been in my mind for as long as I can remember: why did they split up? As I listen to my mom express her side, my heart shatters. I realize that even though the divorce never impacted me, learning how much she suffered and how she handled it has an affect on me.

The year is 2011 and my parents are staring at me across the dinning room table. The only thing on my mind is that I am in trouble. At eleven years old I could not fathom what was about to come. The fights and withdrawn attitudes should have prepared me for what they said, but they did not. I never thought my parents would separate, and at such a young age it was hard to comprehend. I knew that my family was about to change forever. My dad treated me like a princess, while my mom pushed me in school and extracurricular activities. My parents evened each other out. When my mother and I had a problem, my dad helped us work it out. He was my rock while my mom was someone I thought I had to love. Our communication centered on things like girl scouts, soccer, or praise dance. I always felt she loved my brothers more than me. For a while that was fine, I had my dad who hung the moon and the stars for me.

“Syd! Stop, you have to be easy on the brake, stop jerking,”. That was my brother while he was trying to teach me how to ride my bike. I had a terrible fear of riding a bike without training wheels! What if I fell or something, it would really hurt. I didn’t want to be any part of bike riding for many years. I just kept putting off learning how to because of exuses. I wanted to learn so bad because all of my friends knew and I was too old to not know how. Then one day I knew it had to happed.

Learning something new every day seems extremely boring to high school students. But, looking back to when we were younger, it was very exciting for some of us. One of the roughest things I had to learn was riding a bike. I was excited to learn how to ride a bike without training wheels, so I could be like my brother and father. The thing I didn’t know is that I would be a confident and adventurous person. I learned that doing what your parents says is the safest way to doing anything.

Devastated, I ran to my room gushing my eyes out. All these emotions going through my head of how my life would be without my parents in the same room or even house. From what I remember it all started about mid-June, the weeks before that were crucial. My parents would always argue over how to deal with a situation between me and my brother, Skyler. They hardly spoke to one another, but when they did they would just start bickering. I remember, one night after dinner they both went into ''their'' room with the door locked yelling at one another. Skyler and I didn’t know what to do, so we went downstairs and tried to figure out what was going to happen. With a scared tone I asked if mom and dad were going to get a divorce?" He answered back '' No, they love each other, they wouldn’t do that to us." That following night, was a school night everything was quiet except for my crying. I couldn’t sleep; all I was thinking about how it's going to affect my family.