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Personal Narrative: My First Cross Country Race

630 Words3 Pages

I felt sweat drip down my face, my legs burned as I gasped for air, which did not seem to be coming in. Every step I took strained my burning muscles. I heard the muffled cheering in my ringing ears, but couldn’t find the strength to muster a response. I looked up to see the finish line and as I neared it, caught a glimpse of the clock: 33:52. My first cross country race was finally over and I thought to myself, why did I join this sport? Junior year was my first season of cross country. I wanted to do a fall sport to get involved in my school and meet more people. My friend had been trying to persuade me to join the cross country team with her all summer and I finally gave in. I figured it was a good sport to do because of the inexpensive …show more content…

My knees have pounded up countless hills and my body has experienced unimaginable pain and has managed not to surrender to it. I have been through too many injuries to count and horribly bad days. Even throughout all of that, I am still willing to pull myself off of the couch and conquer the elements every day. As the year progressed, my passion for running has gotten stronger and thankfully, my times have gotten quicker. I have surpassed my personal records race after race and my walls are covered in race bibs and medals. I wonder how I will ever leave my team, who has become more like a family to me. I will never forget the team sleepovers where we talked for countless hours, or the excitement we felt when we actually found a movie that revolved around our sport. We have seen each other at our very worst and very best and still continue to be there, screaming our heads off at the finish line for each other. After all the long runs, intervals, sprints, injuries, exhaustion, and personal records, I’m finally starting to find the answer to why i joined cross country.
I joined this sport for the way it makes me feel- the adrenaline pumping through my veins as I stand in the box waiting for the gun to go off, the way nothing can bring me down when I get a personal record, the way I feel when my teammates lose their voices cheering for me. Cross country is by far the hardest thing

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