Personal Narrative: What Drives Me To Run Long Distance

A significant challenge that I thought I wouldn't have accomplished was during our biggest track-and-field meet against all of the big schools around. It was the Shawnee invitational and one of our girls on the track team ended up messing up her ankle in her first relay race, which meant she couldn't run the 800m dash or the 1800m dash. I was the only one on the team who didn’t have four events because I ran the 4x2 and the 4x1 which was the main events at the invitational. So the coach asks me to fill in for her, my first thought was ‘oh Nooooooo, i can’t”. Not only did I just finish one on my relays and had to rest up for my next one, but also I was not ready to run only distant runs that day. I had only practiced for my events prior to the

"We all have dreams. In order to make dreams come into reality, it takes an awful lot of determination, dedication, self-discipline and effort." Running has been a part of my life for four years now and in my short involvement in the sport, it has completely changed the kind of person I am, and the kind of person I want to be. Throughout the past few years, people always ask me "why do you run? What motivates you? And to be honest, I have a variety of reasons for why I am 100% committed and dedicated to being a runner.

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.

In the world today, people have created different hobbies for themselves. Many people like to read different books from different genres. Some like to do life changing experiments for science. Some like to engineer robots that could help us in the near future. Some people like to run and run and run until they know that they accomplished something. This includes me. I enjoy running because it helps me ease of stress, in a way, and helps me grow my strength. And because I enjoy running, I decided to join the Cupertino Middle School cross country. Here I started to on the weekdays, not including Thursday, with a lot of other people. We would run around 2-3 miles everyday thinking that “good enough” is not enough. We went to many meets against

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.

I honestly didn’t like to run until I joined Track and Field. I like track and field. At first i wasn’t going to do track and field until by sibling made me join . I like practice since our group ( long distance) would always be messing around with each and our coach would motivate us to try our hardest. When we would have meets, I would get really nervous before the race. During the race I would like the wind going through my hair and hearing the people cheering. Seeing the finish line would make me sprint the last 100 m and it would make me smile because I was done. I have learned the importance of working together and learn to not give up

Running has always been a passion of mine, along the way it has helped me overcome and push towards my goals in life. My cross country and track teams have become more like a family, than a team. We win together, and we lose together. Becoming the distance runner I am today has allowed me to have a purpose in life and to always try to be the best that I can.

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.

I was born to run. I adore the feeling of aching legs, winded breath, and the absolute joy of knowing I have accomplished something so utterly momentous: winning a race. When I run, I feel strong and vivacious both on the inside and on the outside. Last year, I decided to join the high school cross-country team. I was extremely excited and could not wait for practice to begin, but I was also somewhat nervous. What if I was not talented enough? What if my skills were not competent enough? What if the coaches thought I was just… mediocre? I was so nervous, I began to doubt and feel dubious about my running potentiality.

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

Blue flashes of light left you temporarily blind as you ran from her. Her spears fired at you with the intent to kill. Your health is low, only 4 hp left. Then you felt it, A piercing pain in your thigh. You collapsed to the ground as the now bleeding wound rendered you unable to walk. You tried crawling but it was of no use, you could feel yourself bleeding out, and the sound of boot steps was getting closer. You gave up, knowing the end was near and there was hardly anything you could do about it. You felt the tip of Undyne's boot wedge it's self under you as she flipped you over.

To say that I've invested myself into the sport of Track and Field would be a gross understatement. I indulged myself in an almost cultic workout routine for what encompassed the majority of my sophomore years summer. I poured my blood, sweat, and tears into my training for one of my most anticipated seasons of Track and Field yet. With my regiment beginning at 10:00am and ending at 3:00pm everyday for almost 5 months, I felt more invested in it then anything else I had ever endeavoured on in my life. Needless to say, by the time the beginning of the season finally rolled around, I felt more prepared than ever to tackle the lengthy and vexatious sport.

With school beginning once again, so did the new responsibilities that came during my junior year in the NJROTC as now the commander of the marksmanship team and one specific task that I was asked to was to create a more efficient marksmanship practice. During the second week of school with a discussion with Commander Heyward, he proposed his technique from his previous team where it got me concerned how will this work. The current plan I proposed was to be at least more efficient than his as I could get the returning students back in their target practices and for the new first year cadets would learn the basics of target practice quick and the returning members would be back on schedule with giving me time to work with the new members.