Personal Narrative: The Injury Of My Team Race

A time I had to overcome adversity in my life was when I became injured during the middle of cheer tryouts. At the time I was very passionate about competitive cheer, and my goal was to make the junior five team. When I got to tryouts everyone was tumbling, stunting and doing the dance routine. My adrenaline was pumping as I went to warm up my tumbling and throw a roundoff, back handspring, layout. I was determined to accomplish this for tryouts and impress my coach, but I was still very nervous. As I was running into the roundoff back handspring, I knew something was bound to go wrong. The next thing I knew I was in the middle of the air and suddenly landed on my knees, with my ankle twisted under me. My face got bright

I was excited for a new beginning in my career, maybe to prepare me for high school in the upcoming years. The idea of beating boys in soccer got me excited, my blood pumping harder through my veins and put an extra spring in my step. It was the first practice of our middle school season, where my life would be turned upside down. I ran down the field as normal, going for another shot on goal, but out of nowhere one of boys came from behind and completely took out my knee, causing me to collapse in pain. Lying down on the field, my sanctuary, the place I saw as home was probably the most grueling time of my life. Injuries were common in my life, but this injury was unlike any other. I could not get up off the field and felt as if there was nothing left in my knee, and every time I tried to get up, I fell right back down. I never sat out a practice until that night and figured one day would be enough. One night was clearly not enough, I was never able to catch back up to my full speed, or be able to cut around the field, which resulted in moving positions from forward, to defense to cut back on the running. I thought this would a temporary position, but I played every game in

It all started in 7th grade, our football team was at the time undefeated and we were in our second to last game. We were up by quite a bit and our team was feeling sanguine, our coach didn’t put too much thought into it, and called a run up the middle with our star running back Michael Lundy. He Got the ball and ran for Three short yards then suddenly tripped over a pile of angry, impassioned, irritable teenage boys. Michael had landed wrong and you could see by his expressions he was hurt, his dad came on the field and helped carry him off. We were forced to continue the game without Michael, which wasn’t all that bad because there were only three minutes left in the game. We the Philomath 7th grade braves had won our second to last game

“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.

The Texas heat can best be described as merciless and seemingly eternal; a vicious boxer constantly rattling the track with radiation. The sound of exhausted lungs desperately trying to grasp one breath muffled the sound of my coaches screaming exactly two hundred meters away. It was a scenario I was too familiar with, yet I had no desire to quit. From my sophomore to senior year in high school I was a proud member of the Marcus Track & Field team. My inclusion in the competitions, however, were not always guaranteed to me.

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.

In high school I liked to be very active. One of my favorite activities was soccer. I played numerous years before high school. While playing for the high school team, my timed mile was not where it should have been, I was so perseverant that I practiced a great deal of times. Finally I had reached my goal, but in doing so, I received many stress fractures. I was in so much pain but I refused to let it show, until I could not take the pain. The doctor said I had broke both of my legs with stress fractures and some larger fractures. He had informed me I could no longer play soccer competitively and I was not allowed to participate in any of athletic actives that year.

I’ve have been through hardships and hard times, especially with sports. One of many injuries was when I was playing basketball during open gym. As I went up for a contested lay-up, I twisted my leg. Not knowing it was still planted, I chipped the tibia in my knee. Though it hurt, I was still was able to walk it off. My father and I went to the

By this time I would be on the track getting my workout in to run the 300 hurdles. I was solid in that event, but the events I took the most pride in was the 400 and the 4 by 4. It had been a rough ending to basketball season but this would be the major turning point for me. I could make it all up by going to state. My track coach knew my coach from middle school so she has heard quite a bit about me. I never really had training or anything I just ran at first. I started to do summer training and ran with a local track team. Coach George wanted me to run the 200. It was new to me so we trained in the mornings before school. She bought in the assistant coach and he had me and few more girls lined up on the track. He wanted us to stand side by side and sprint out and merge into lane one. It was kind of crazy because we were all kind of jumbled up together. The first time as I merged into lane one my legs tripped another girl and she fell so I felt bad. So the third time I tried to make sure I didn't trip anyone up because my legs were so long. I dodge tripping the same girl but I almost hit another. By the fourth time I was really just over it, I jerked my body one way and my hip went the other. I ended up limping to the finish line. I thought it was just a little kink and I could just pop it out. I was completely wrong. It was way worse than the ankle injury. I guess it was a sign from good telling me to

It all started at the beginning of tryouts. The week of excitement and nervousness. Everyone was already making guesses on who was gonna be on the team. Then so it started, the first day was pretty easy and so was the next. The third was conditioning day, which was the worst. Then the last two days were fairly easy too. But those days were the most nerve racking. Those were the days when the cuts were made.

During my sophomore year of highschool, I was running track and I had a promising season in front of me. However, I was unable to reach my goals. I was forced to quit running for the remained of the school year due to a knee injury. The muscles holding my knee caps in place were not developed enough, and it was causing me great pain. After quitting track, I went into physical therapy. I was in physical therapy for over a month and I then had to continue to strengthen my legs. The next school year I was still facing the same problem, only smaller. Now, around two years later, I have finally overcome this problem and I am completely healthy. The injury was very frustrating, however, I put in the work and I am finally back to one hundred percent. I would not say that I’m glad the injury happened, however, I did learn the value of continuous hard work because of the

I was introduced to racing at a young age. Long nights at the Indianapolis Speedrome, hearing roaring engines and seeing checkered flags waving, and watching my dad race four wheelers every weekend throughout the year. But it wasn't until I got a taste of racing and speed for myself, that I knew I wanted to experience the thrill for the rest of my life. At ten years old I began my own racing career.

Thank you for sharing a little about yourself. I am sorry to hear about your college basketball career ending injury. Life always has a strange way of directing us in the path that is right for us. I also had a similar situation in high school. I was a year round competitive swimmer who was nationally ranked high in USA Swimming for the 200-meter free style, the 200-meter breaststroke and the 400-meter individual medley. I ended up having a groin and hip joint injury that resulted in giving up my full ride scholarships. At the time it was devastating after swimming year round for 12 year, however the universe had a different plan for me. It is great that you are excited about your degree in Family and Human Development. It is always refreshing

As an experienced runner at the peak of my season, I injured myself in my junior year of high school. I was diagnosed with bilateral tibial stress fractures by my physical therapist. Dedication was shown at its finest. I would run four to five events a meet while in excruciating pain from my knees down. Event after event, I would cry in pain, ice my legs, and thenceforward returned right back to the starting line for the following race. After being forced to terminate my season early in order to rest, my injury exposed me to the reality of the pain that multiple athletes may be experiencing. Generally, the athletes I recognize or hear of are dedicated to their sport. I believe that the worst feeling for an athlete is being told that they cannot participate in a sport they have put a numerous amount of time and effort into. For myself, I cried for days after being taken out of my season early. I realized that I did not wish for any other athlete, let alone another person, to have to cry in disappointment due to an injury that hinders a dream or goal. At that moment I realized what I was called to achieve; I was called to prevent and treat those painful athletic injuries as an athletic trainer and physical therapist. I believe that being an athletic trainer that has experienced the pain caused by dedication, effort, perseverance, and even poor training could cause me to be more relatable to patients that I may have in the

I came to the first day of summer practice; I wore cheer shoes, a bow, and a full face of makeup. That day my coach looked at me and told me to run five miles, I thought I was going to actually die. By the end of the practice I had thrown up multiple times and repeatedly told myself never again. I had mentally and physically already given up, so I thought. During the next three weeks of summer practice I ran on my own, day after day of agonizing pain. I've never been one to give up, when things start to get tuff, that usually means I just have to get tougher. I came back the first day of actual practice ready for whatever was about to be thrown at me, again I was told to run five miles. This time I could actually keep up, I stayed with the girls on the team the entire time. The first race took place nearly three weeks later at our own home course, the only goal I had at the time was to not get last place. Everyone lined up at the starting line, anxiously swaying back and forth waiting for the wretched sound of the gun to go off. The gun finally went off and the race had begun. I started off in second place next to the fastest girl on our team, who was also the girl who had asked me to join