Delta-Personal Narrative

And we were off; All 13 of our runners and 55 of theirs exploding off the starting line and across the field. I was in front, I always was for about the first 100 yards, then a wave of runners passed me and I settled in to where I was supposed to be. The light rain hit my face and body as I pushed through the 3.1 mile course. Although I had no shot at winning, I hoped my teammates in front of me were giving it all they had, albeit they most likely weren’t doing much better. After settling into a rhythm, I started to battle with a runner near me.

I had been working hard and really felt like a part of the team. The first real challenge I faced was trying to live in the shadow of my older brothers. Who both had success in their running careers. It was the third race of the year and I was running in the varsity race against our conference rival. To me, this race was a chance to prove I was an important member of the team and could possibly lead the team as captain in the future.

Yet, there is still one issue that I’ve always wondered about. One could say that my experience in cross country has been far from normal. One year, I was running a thirty-minute 5k, and ranked eighty-sixth on the team. The

The course was muddy and slippery and damp. I knew that the last runners who were going qualify to state were going to run a nineteen-minute race. While other teams were practicing and warming up, my team was playing in the playground. From what I’ve been through this week, I know I wasn’t going to make it to state, but I still wanted to know how close I would be .The teams were called to the starting line and I was nervous.

That was a decision never regretted in my life, as it showed me that I wasn’t alone, that their were others like me, and able to make friends within my team, which in turn taught the truth of this world. Days had passed by, as my team and I were studying, working hard, and overall hanging out with each other. And then, the day of the competition was finally among us. However, I was not nervous, I was ready, confident that we would win. However, that changed as I entered Blair High School and finally meeting all of the other schools that we were up against.

Getting off the bus, I was ecstatic. It was my chance to help my team in achieving our biggest goal. For fall, the day was particularly hot and humid. I enjoy running in cool, chilly type weather, so the heat was a conflicting factor in my race. But I refused to let the heat bring me down.

For some reason I could not put it all together in the competition setting and ended up not clearing any bar the two first meets in a row. I felt like giving up, I had put my heart and soul into this and was not getting anywhere near the results I had expected. Even though I was at my lowest point I knew I loved the sport far too much to ever quit,

Our whole track team always did a free ten minute run around the school first at the beginning of practice, and then did some stretches and exercises together, and went off into “splits” if we had a field event to practice in. During some track meets I would always worry that in the events I would compete in, I would be dead last. I always feared the everyone- is- looking-at-me-because-I’m-dead-last experience during a race. But, in almost all my events, I always finished mostly first and sometimes second. Even though I was quite short and still am now, I was still always faster than some other competitors that I ran against all my events.

During my final year of Cross Country around Regionals at Oglethorpe, I ran my final race for my high school career. Banks County was nearly number one in the State, the furthest we had ever ranked in history, and spirit and hopes for State Championship were high. I was nervous, like nobody’s business, I had messed up during my senior night because I was upset for my parents for not showing up and escorting me. And I was scared that I was going to do horribly. But as I ran, I realized that if I let my past mistakes and failures hold me back or get in my way, so I ran, harder and better than I ever had before and apparently even beat a “skinny kid”.

With my relay team stretched,warmed up, and ready to go, we headed towards the stadium where we would race against the fastest girls in the nation. Intimidated but not deterred we headed out of Tent City and into the gates of Turner Stadium. Knowing this was my last race I would run with my close friends and relay team, being it 's the last race of the season and we all weren’t going to be in the same age group next year, I had a whole new mind set. I was constantly thinking, “we have to make top ten because we can make top ten.” “We have the times, we have the strength, we have the speed, we just need to have the guts to walk in there like we are going to shred the track into pieces.

I kept going for the guy next to me performing to the best to his ability. Success was the result of all the hard relentless work done throughout June into August. I acknowledged that my team had a good group of seniors who were high character student-athletes I spent most of childhood with. Ultimately finishing with a record of 3 wins and 7 loses taught me many lessons on becoming a better person and

Prior to my first day of practice I mistakenly prepared myself for failure. I remembered my coach telling me at the minimum we would be running four miles a day I order to get prepared for our first meet. By the time I finished pondering how long four miles would take, my team had already vanished and left me behind. I knew I had only been running approximately five minutes, however my body felt as if it had been running

As days turned into weeks I tried harder and harder not to fail, only resulting in more failure and this seemingly never ending cycle of failure on the field eventually started affecting my life off the field.

Even though we lost, that final moment that I jogged off the field, every one of my teammates smiled, and gave me a high five. As I gathered my things, I went over to my family. “You did an amazing job for your first time!” They all say in unison. Making it seem like it was rehearsed.

The race that I am running in is the Boy’s Frosh-Soph at 3:30, which means we are warming up now. Following a much longer than usual warm up run around the park, although I was comfortable with it, our group sat in a circle and went through our stretches. A few senior runners came into the circle for speeches, including an attempt at a motivational speech, and a campaign “vote for me” speech for Homecoming Queen. As soon as we finished our stretches, we walked over to the starting line, where we did additional stretches such as high-knees, butt kicks, and strides. Completing the additional stretches, we were ready to