The Day That Changed My Life

I had always been a very athletic kid. From cycling to running, I loved it all. At a young age I started to compete in competitive sports and events. My first sports were soccer and baseball. I played these sports up until seventh grade. I stopped not because I wanted to quit, but because I was forced to. In seventh grade, I was playing classic soccer and running hard everyday. My body had been worked harder than ever before. As the spring soccer season progressed, so did pains. On one particular morning, I woke up with excruciating pain in my leg with two games to play. I tried to shake it off and play. My efforts did not last long, as I pulled myself out of the game. This would be the last soccer game I played for 11 months.

As disappointed as I was, I was ready to serve my time and do the treatment. The first five months were full of nothing. I sat out hundreds of games, meets and PE classes. This time was very challenging for me since I always wanted to be moving. During my time off, I was asked “What happened?” way too many times. I was almost more frustrated with answering this question than not being able to do sports. I managed to maintain a positive attitude despite watching other kids win races that I would have been in. It was the day of the Beadnell Classic. Three of the middle schools got together and ran three of their fastest milers against the other schools’. I had won this last year, but I was on crutches this year. I set a goal to win as an eighth grader. I flipped a penny that I found at Terwilliger’s Fred Meyer. I said “If it lands heads, I will run 4:51 or faster. If tails prevailed, I would run slower than 4:51.” It landed heads. With more absence from physical activity and much rest, it eventually improved. Month eight off from sports hit, and I was ready to do physical therapy. This was a difficult three months of strengthening exercises. After this concluded, I started to run again.