Personal Narrative: My Experience In Cross Country

“Few men are born brave; many become so through training and force of discipline” was

said by Publius Flavius Vegetius Renatus a Late Roman author in one of his two surviving works Epitoma

rei militaris which describes the roman military at the time of his life. This pertains to my life

primarily in my experience in Cross Country because the daily training and discipline to run in

the off season and give my best effort on workouts. It has helped tremendously in improving

myself.

I had run middle school Cross Country in 7th grade before I moved to Georgia. In 8th grade

I hardly ran at all because the new middle school did not have a team. After moving I did not have many

friends here. Back then I did not try my best

at anything,

I gave up easily, and I also was bad at setting achievable goals. This happened in all areas of

my life not just in athletics. During Summer training Freshman year I went to practice every day and

tried to improve as a runner.

Once the

season started I still had not learned to give my best effort. I rarely ended a race feeling no more

than a little breathless. I did not meet the goal I had set for myself. I continued running and

joined the track team, and tried a little bit harder than during Cross Country. Towards the end of

that track season, while running the mile I finally realized that I had a lot more to give than I had

been. Starting the beginning of summer training my softmore year I decided to work a lot harder

at running and I put a lot more effort into it. Every race that season I worked much harder than

in previous years. This current year I skipped up on track to run a half marathon which not only

means I do not have a coach to help me know how much to run and to make sure it actually

happened, thus far I have stuck to the training plan I got online and exerted myself as much as I

could. I now can also do Robotics club because in previous years I would have ditched homework after being at school for eleven hours. I have finally learned how to keep going and to give forth a legitimate amount of effort.

Before I Started Cross Country I was lazy and did not try at anything, but after I

started

training with discipline, I started to work harder, keep at things instead of giving up, and improve

my goal setting. In class I am much more proactive in completing homework or projects that take several days to complete I gained several new friends who I started to run with who also wanted to

work hard to improve themselves. These friends were and continue to be very helpful in keeping me on track.