It was an early morning in mid July. The grass was still soaked in dew, and my eyelids were heavy with exhaustion. Me and a couple of my track teammates piled in our car to make the drive to Marquette where we would run our first ever half marathon. Out of the three of us I was the only one who had never ran distance competitively, so I recruited my friend Blake to run with me because I knew I could not keep up with Isabelle and Aimee. The half marathon was just one of many events being put on for the Marquette trails festival, and just after our race there would be a mountain bike race. The run started just at the bottom of Marquette mountain and made a three leaf clover up and around the mountain. There were about fifteen people running this …show more content…
This started to raise some suspicion. We continued to run thinking that maybe we were just wrong about where the checkpoint was. Another half an hour had gone by and there was still no sign of a checkpoint. We determined we were lost, yet again. At this point not only were our bodies telling us to quit but so were our minds. We were frustrated and stranded in the woods all on our own. Everyone had finished the race by now so there was no hope in finding help. We continued to walk on the trail we had been running on, hoping that if we just kept walking we would find a road. We stumbled upon a river that we had never seen before, and stopped to take a break. Suddenly my phone was ringing. When I answered it was Aimee. She wanted to know if we were okay and where we were. We told her we got lost and we have been trying to find our way back. I looked at the time and realized we had been wandering around the woods for almost two hours! After talking to Aimee for some time about where we were we decided to use our gps to find a road that went across the mountain. Aimee’s parents were going to drive down the road and pick us up when they reached …show more content…
We decided that rather than walking down the road we would just wait where we were. After a half an hour went by we began to get concerned as to where Aimee’s parents were. I checked my phone only to realize that I had no service. We began to walk down the road until I had a connection. I called Aimee again. She explained that they had the road blocked off from traffic for the event and that they could not drive up there to get us. With our broken spirits we carried on down the road, hoping we were heading in the right direction. After an extremely long walk we started to hear traffic. It was the highway! With excitement we hopped over the traffic barricades. We could see the starting line where we had taken off from many hours before. While walking down the highway a man on a four wheeler pulled up along the side of us. He was working for the trails festival and was concerned that we were the runners who had been lost. We told him we were and he offered us a ride back to the festival. With frustration in our voices we told him we would just continue walking, since we had just walked for miles
Halfway up it was beginning to look doubtful, the wind was picking up and everyone was getting out rain gear to prepare for the storm. I voiced my doubts to Phil and he said we might as well keep going until the lighting got too close. So we did. The thunder grew in volume and the echoes magnified the noise to a dull roar sometimes. Then suddenly it began to ebb. The wind died down and lightening came less frequently. I exchanged relieved looks with Phil after a bit, but kept the pace up--I didn’t want to take chances. Eventually it hit us, but by then it was nothing more then a heavy rain. We kept moving, if slower, and made it over the ridge with no other problems. That night I enjoyed the meal a little more and slept a little deeper realizing how much is important that easily goes unnoticed until something threatens to take it away.
As we are on our way towards California our car starts to slow down by itself. We were in the middle of nowhere with no one around, because we are taking a different way. We did not want to wait in traffic. I woke everyone up and told them that our car was out of gas. “How could this happen?” said Catherine, “How have you not noticed?” I did not know how to answer her question. We looked at a map that we had in the car. We started to push it toward the nearest main road. We saw others broken down on the side of the road. They had a flat tire so, we decided to help. In return we were able to get some of their gas that they had. It was already getting dark so we pulled over on the side of the road. We made the tent and fell asleep. Catherine asked, “Will we make it out of this?” I replied, “ We will found out
It was a cold, brisk Saturday morning. We all packed into the big, rusted, old bus, and set off for the race. As we arrived at Kirby Park, I felt a cold chill shoot all the way up spine. I was nervous. I stood up and could feel how badly my legs were shaking. I had the chills, but I was not cold. There were countless butterflies in my stomach just floating around causing tension deep inside of my body. I felt queasy and felt the need to find a toilet seat to rest over. I somehow managed to walk off the bus. I looked up in the gray, cloudy, gloomy, sky and said,
The movie 8 Mile has always been a favorite of mine, when I watch the movie it
Completing an ultramarathon a feat for anyone. However, for a 16 year old girl it seemed impossible. So why not? As a varsity cross country runner I am no stranger to running. The contradictory love-hate relationship strains the mind and body like to no other. My Junior year I started falling out of love with cross country, the distances, the races, and the running in general had gotten monotonous. I live by the phrase “You must be comfortable with being uncomfortable.” I constantly seek new challenges pushing myself beyond normal bounds. I wanted to do something incredible, so when I saw a sign for a 50k (31.5 mile) race in a few months I knew that it will be perfect!
Sports are not for everyone. I tried a variety of sports throughout my childhood but I was never really athlete material. I am as slow as a turtle and I have little to no hand-eye coordination, but I gave each sport a try. It was truly a shock when I decided to run cross-country since I had no speed whatsoever.
The sun beating down on my face with extreme heat is compared to the surface of the sun or hell, either way, it's hot.
After stumbling upstairs I go to the computer and turn on Da Yoopers’ “Da turdy Point Buck”, the song our family must listen to before we head out the door and into the woods. With the song blaring through the house, I walk into my brother’s room, turn the lights on, rip the covers from his bed, and narrowly escape a swift kick from his leg. After a breakfast of pancakes my brother and I jump into his truck and head for the hills. We own 120 acres three miles from the house, so we must drive to our destination. Any other morning there would be no vehicles on the road, but this particular morning we pass about ten other trucks all taking their passengers to their particular hunting spots.
It was an exceptionally cold spring afternoon in Tennessee. My friend McKenzie and I decided to start training for the 5k Glow Run we would attempt to run in the near summer. Neither of us were close to being in shape, so we felt that a little practice wouldn’t hurt. In Tennessee the weather is very bipolar when the seasons shift from winter to spring. The weather could be 72 degrees one day, and snowing the next day. Little did we know, the day we chose to hang out was suppose to be below freezing with a wind chill advisory. We decided to still go for a run at the park because we didn’t want to make an excuse to not work out on our first day of training. We bundled up in the warmest and heaviest clothes we could find and headed to the park. Once we got to the empty
Cars, those things that help us move efficiently. Some prefer something affordable, to accommodate the family, or to show off to the world and say, “Hey, I got a lot of money or just borrowed a big sum of cash to buy this and now acquired massive debt.” Come on, don’t tell me you’ve never dreamed of owning a nice sports car? but can’t because being an adult means you have great amount of responsibility in your hands.
My event all started out on a beautiful, warm and sunny, sunday in August. I was invited to go to my longtime friend, Tyler´s house. Tyler was a very nice and cool person to be around if you know him, but anyway we were just outside playing basketball in his nice, outgoing and fancy neighborhood of his.
I woke up to the shimmering beam of sunlight shining through my bedroom window. Despite the time and the comfort of my warm and snug bed I manage to wake up. Waking up for me is a constant struggle in my life, but this past summer that changed. This summer I learned to love something that I never would have imagined. I learned to love running, nevertheless, running is still a love hate relationship for me. Running is an escape for me and allows me to forget about all my worries and to relax. However, this day was a little different than my usual days of running. This running adventure is one I will never forget.
After getting quite the kick out of that, we finally received our food. After pulling out of McDonald’s, we decided to drive around town for a bit. We were cruising around and listening to some jams, when we decided it was about time to head home. Being the wise one of the group, for some reason, I decided that since we were right on the edge of town we could take “Runza Road,” and check out the newly paved Hoag blacktop before heading back toward Belvedere. Still cruising along and enjoying our food, the road looked just fine and not icy at all, or so we thought. As we were approaching the curve just to the East of the Beatrice Biodiesel plant, it began to look somewhat slick, but I was still not worried as we were going quite slow and I was being cautious. Just as we reached the turn, I began to turn the wheel to the right, when things began to spiral out of control. All of a sudden, the back of the truck began to slide out toward my side of the truck. It pulled us up the turn, but oh no, it didn’t stop there. As we were still sliding up the turn, I thought we would go into the ditch and stop, but once we spun a
As we started up the 225 Highway we were following traffic along the twisting, turning road. Suddenly my best friend cursed under his breath. I looked at him surprisingly and asked, "What's wrong?" He started to laugh, took his foot off the accelerator, hit the brakes, and said "Didn’t you see that state trooper?" I nodded, "Well we were going 85 up this road," he said. Luckily we were not the only cars on the road. About a mile from the turn off we slowed down to 55 miles an hour. When we pulled off the side of the road, we were both surprised to find that there were no other cars parked there. Normally this turn off was packed with cars, with people climbing in the Indian Hills. Although we were both happy that there was no one else around to interfere, there was a lingering feeling of dread. If something were to go wrong there wouldn't be anybody else around to help.
" I can do it… I can …" I kept repeating this line over and over again