To Be A Cross Country Runner

Jim White noticed that the teenagers are amazingly good at running, so he decided to form a team of cross-country.

After working they would go back to coach and run from four, six, eight, or even ten miles and would have to run back home. Their parents worked very hard but barely had enough to manage the house, all of the runners ran with just schools shoes. The school eventually had the funds to buy each of the runners a pair of shoes. Arax went on and stated “With runners drawn from farmworker families too poor to buy racing shoes, the McFarland High cross-country team has won five state titles in a row, a feat unmatched in any sport by any high school in California. They've beaten the rich kids from Carmel Valley and the surfer kids from Laguna Beach. They've beaten prep schools, suburban schools, Indian reservation schools and the big boys from L.A.” Everyone is probably amazed, look at that they beat all those schools in order for them to capture state not once but several of times. They don't practice in what you call the best conditions but around the fields they live in and next to those fields is a big dairy farm that of course has a bad small but they manage to run past it. Mcfarland goes by the poorest cities of California with not just by the economical status but how most of the kids are

The final seconds of a cross country meet when you are sprinting down the straight away, looking at the finish line, trying to beat just one more person, is one of the most mentally and physically exhausting moments I’ve ever encountered. In the Fall of 2014 things just clicked with our girls cross country team. Winning Bi-county, Conference, Sectional, and advancing to Regional and Semi-state, was unexpected to everyone around us. Losing five of our seven varsity runners the year before got us moved from our small school rank of 3rd to 13th. Getting moved ten spots on that list motivated us even more to prove to everyone what we could do without those graduated seniors.

Having the desire to one day see those views in person or enough self-confidence to finally post a decent beach picture without being self-conscious. Running on the cross country team will quickly whip you into shape. Maybe you won’t get that rock-hard six pack that you have always wanted at first, but if you stay consistent with it, you’ll end up being closer than you were before. Since cross country is a very active sport, especially since it is a long distance, you will burn several hundreds of calories and can influence healthy eating habits depending on your goals. Running cross country will improve your overall strength, endurance, health, and hopefully influence positive daily

Although, some don’t consider cross country a true sport at all because there’s no ball, no physical contact, and there’s hardly a team. Cross-country is compiled of a team of individuals, bonded by their shared suffering, and each of them runs their own race. Success depends solely on the individual and each runner has the same opportunity to succeed. A cross country runner must be able to own both their successes as well as their failures. The races are the most thrilling times of the sport.

In the book The Running Dream by Wendelin Van Draanen, the main character Jessica is trying to adjust to a new life without one of her legs. Another character, Rosa, helps her through this while facing a disability of her own. Rosa was born with cerebral palsy. Even though some people don’t take the time to really get to know her, she has some great qualities that should make people want to. In the book, Rosa gets those close to her to see her real self instead of just seeing her as the girl in the wheelchair that has trouble talking. She manages this through using some of her best qualities: her friendliness, joy in helping others, and optimism.

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.

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.

I am an extremely passionate runner; my primary focus is to be an encouraging, hard working team member. This commitment entails running up to fifty miles a week, as well as lifting three days and cross training three days for about six months of the year. I pour my time and energy into this sport because it challenges me to become a tougher person. Cross country has taught me to keep a positive, growth mindset and to ruthlessly chase every goal. Additionally, I am best friends with all the girls on the team. I give them everything I can offer to make cross country the happiest place in the world. I am a leader, being named Captain of the ninety person team my senior year. No matter the sacrifice, no matter how I perform, I am ultimately on this team for my teammates.

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

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

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

During my high school career I did not get many opportunities to further my understanding of technology as my school was focusing more sports orientated. But this did not stop me from pursuing my hobbies as I later became a part the unofficial IT administration, working with the head of technology and networking for my school. My job was more of less setup and maintaining WiFi access points in the dormitories and the school or maintaining the computers for the library. On my off time also helped a number of my classmates build their own computers and keep them up-to-date.

When I started training for cross-country in the summer before my freshman year, I had a specific routine I had to follow in order to obtain the results I wanted. My schedule was organized in a certain way; the practice would begin at 6:30 in the morning, we would run miles and after that like at 8:00 we would work out our legs or arms, depending on what day it was. It was challenging but not impossible, I like to be good at what I do, so I knew that it would take plenty of hard work and dedication. Even though, I was just a freshman, by the beginning of July I had already caught up with the varsity. We had to run different amount of miles each day, we had hard day; 8 miles, medium day; 6 miles, and easy day;

Hundreds of family and friends drive hours just to see a eighteen minute race with the possibility of winning being slim but, knowing this race can change someone's life. We get to the meet earlier than we should’ve thinking the traffic would have been horrible on the day of the State Cross Country Meet. Off in the distance we see big fancy busses with tons of runners from experienced facilities stretching in nothing but, the newest brand of athletic clothes. Feeling insecure about our ability to perform as everyone else that earned their spot their.