Throughout my life, I had always received recognition for being very agile and quick. My first day of Middle School consisted of the track and field coach attempting to persuade me to join the school’s athletics program. I had previously never been apart of an athletics team, and was willing to take advantage of the opportunity. Throughout my three years of middle school, I was the one consistent member of the school’s track and field team and had an overall successful personal record. Coaches from opposing school would praise me leaving me feeling very confident about myself.
This past spring, was my first year running track and field at a high school level. I had spent my freshman year on the lacrosse team and had therefore missed out on track and field. From the other sports I had participated in at school, both coaches and fellow teammates had acknowledged my speed, this kept my confidence alive and made me believe I would strive in high school track
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and field. When the season finally began, I was overjoyed and ready for the future meets that would consist of various schools I had never previously competed against. Throughout the beginning practices, I didn’t push myself and felt as if I was superior to everyone else from this confidence that had been built up my whole life. Track and field had become the sport I loved, someone I could achieve in against all odds. I did not think about changing my diet, or training outside of designated school practices. Then came the day of my first high school track and field meet. Our team was very strong overall, and I even had a teammate who we had personally decided to compete against each other, believing that the other opponents were weak. Soon the other schools began arriving, I realized that I was much smaller than everyone else, I was very intimidated, and immediately lost confidence. After watching all of the other events occur, they finally called for the 100 meter dash, this was my main event, and appeared to be the same for around 50 other males. We were asked to arrange in the order of slowest to fastest, and as a team consensus, I stood in the end of the line, the group for the fastest people. After watching the other races, my heat was finally called up, I was by far the smallest person in my heat, and was also the only person wearing running sneakers as oppose to spikes. As soon as the gun was shot, I already saw my peers meters ahead of me, leaving me struggling to finally achieve a third place position. As the season continued, I failed to acquire first or second place, removing all of my previous confidence completely. Finally, there was the championship event, which consisted of even more schools than all previous events.
The 100 meter dash was left as the last event, and was exclusive to the runners who had achieved the fastest times from each of the previous events. Upon hearing this information, I immediately became worried that I had not even qualified for the last race of the season, and felt instantly defeated. To my surprise, I had managed to qualify, but was placed in the slowest heat. If I managed to win this heat, I would be moved to the final race overall that would determine the medal winners. I managed achieve second place in my heat, preventing me from qualifying for the final race. I felt extremely disappointed with myself, and knew that I had failed my team and myself overall. Due to my overconfidence from the start of the season, I had not achieved any of the goals I had set for myself and had not received a medal either. For these reasons, I consider my first year of high school track and field as a
failure.
Both on an off the field, my enthusiasm and motivation to obtain a goal is a trait that I am very proud of. I have faced many tasks where a leader had needed to step up and I am always willing to do so. I am also willing to get help when I need it. If I can’t complete a task by myself I do not mind asking a classmate, teammate, friend or a teacher for guidance. By bringing that openness and leadership to University of Charleston’s Athletic Training Program I believe that I can also attribute to the University of Charleston’s Mission Statement “to educate each student for a life of productive work, enlightened living, and community involvement.” By bettering the Athletic Training community by providing care to our Athletes I believe that I will be a great addition to the Athletic Training
My first week of school, everyone encouraged me to join a club or a team. Of course I did not want to, until I heard we had a track team, and even then I did not know if I wanted to pursue it. In my mind, debating if I should dedicate myself to track was a hard decision. I was about to not only give this sport my time but also nothing but
Growing up, I played just about every sport our small town provided: soccer, basketball, baseball, football, boxing, golf, you name it. There was only one sport that I had yet to embark upon: running; however, during my seventh grade year, I decided to try it out, and it ended up being a great decision. From the beginning, the one thing that drew me in was the atmosphere. All of the older runners on the team really embraced us younger runners, despite our youth and immaturity. As a seventh grade kid not really knowing what to expect participating in a varsity sport, this gesture really meant a lot, and it is one of the main reasons that I fell in love with the sport. I stayed with this sport throughout my high school career, and now that I am older, I have the opportunity of being on the other side of the spectrum. My teammates and I love having the middle school kids on the team, and I try my best to ensure that they have a similar experience to the one I had just five short years ago.
“Be Prepared… the meaning of the motto is that a scout must prepare himself by previous thinking out and practicing how to act on any accident or emergency so that he is never taken by surprise.” (Robert Baden-Powell). Track season was getting ready to start and I was excited for it because I love to run. This was my first year in high school so this would be my first time to get to be on a high school track team. I went to the first practice, which was conditioning day, and ran as hard as I could. No matter how hard I was hurting or sweating I keep running and finished in the top group every time. Practice comes to an end and coach calls up runners individually and tells us what we are going to be running. He calls me up and I am just knowing that he is going to say the 200 or 400. To my disappointment he tells me I am going to be running the 300 hurdles. I hated the hurdles so to myself I told myself I wasn’t going to practice hard because it wasn’t what I wanted to do. I wouldn’t practice hard so I got put on JV. I won all the JV races in the 300 hurdles so that just pushed me to not want to practice even more because I could win without practice. District track meet rolls around and Trey one of the varsity runners gets hurt so coach moves me to varsity. In my mind I am thinking this is going to be easy I haven’t lost a race on JV so I won’t lose on varsity. The intercom comes on and calls out for my race. It was time to go win.
Saying that every day at practice I would drive to finish the workout in order to get much better from where I started. When I began, I ran my mile in 11 minutes and 54 seconds, last year my fastest mile was 5 minutes 58 seconds. I like telling people that I weigh 190 pounds and can run a mile in six minutes. I use it as a way to try to inspire people, that they can improve whatever they want to about themselves just by putting in the time. With getting a varsity track and field award for perseverance, dedication, and commitment shows that I devote myself to working hard and continuing on a good path being an example for
The tryout was intense, seventy people showed up, but only forty made the team. It consisted of a 300m run, a 30m run, a med ball toss, a long jump, and a standing triple jump. I out performed my fellow sophomores in almost all the events. This made me realize I might actually have a future in track. I wanted to be great. I wanted to compete at state.
Athletics has made a difference in my life through its redefining of the word “success.” Before I got involved with track and cross country, success was measured by goals I set and achieved for myself that made me happy. Since then, I have realized that success is much more gratifying when it is dependent on making those around me proud. In track, success is when I have trained hard enough so that I am able to help my relay team win a race or break the school record. In cross country, success is when I have built up enough endurance to contribute to the team score and help my team move on to the state meet. This mentality has translated to my daily life, as I am constantly working hard to please those around me. At school, I always do my homework and get good grades so that my teachers do not have to focus extra energy on getting me to do my work. At work, I strive to go above and beyond my typical duties so that I can lessen the responsibilities of my co-workers. At home, I help out with chores without being asked so that my parents can have one less thing
Joining the High School Cross Country team was a huge risk for me because I am quite shy and didn’t have friends on the team. I was the fastest girl on the team, but very slow in comparison to other schools. I was disappointed, and although I gave it a good effort, I knew that I could try much harder. I didn’t quit that year or the next because I knew that people expected me to keep running and I hate giving up, but there were many times when I wanted to quit. However, I decided that if I was going to keep running, I might as well give it more than just a good effort, I would give it my best effort and see if I could shave five minutes off of my 5k time. I started to work much harder and learned to persevere when it was hard and I wanted to
Annually in middle school, we were required to run a mile in gym class. Although many of my classmates hated it, I loved running the mile. In sixth grade, after completing the mile, the grandfather of my classmate, Sam, approached me to ask, “Do you run track?” Since I had always thought myself an excellent athlete, I was flattered, yet having never run on a team before I replied, “No”. Even so, I cherished the idea of racing and I pondered his question all day. Nevertheless, our school did not have a team, so I was sadly unable to run track in Junior High. However, three years later, when the opportunity arose for me to join the Grand Ledge track and field team, I didn't hesitate to take advantage of it.
It was December. Everything in the middle school was perfect. My friends, my grades, my relationships with my parents.Someday my mom come home with the news. She said that we are moving to the USA at the end of the April.
Frequently during my track seasons, I anticipate the groans of my peers when they hear my average weekly mileage during a summer. One mile can seem such a daunting task, to them, let alone twenty five.When alk to a runner about mileage, immediately they will understand why you enjoy it yet, my peers are horrified at my commitment. Our school’s sports program originated the school year of 2014. I was part of the first track and Cross Country teams in the school. As a sophomore, my team and I quickly grew from non-existent to one of the best in CREC ( Capitol Region Education Council). My team won our first track championship that year. Being this the first year, we were profusely congratulated. However, there is nothing more frustrating than being questioned, how do you run so long? Or, why do you put yourself through this? I often wanna yell, I just do! I don’t know why or how, it’s just a part of me! Yet when reflecting upon this, I realise any non-runner won’t comprehend the type of dedication which I put towards my sport. Countless hours of training and at least a month worth of injuries. This is where I
On the first day of conditioning, a plentiful amount people attended. I was sure that I was in shape until we did our first workout and I was out of breath. During the season, I was not perform that well. Many other kids were much faster than I was. I sometimes would think I wasn’t good enough. After tryouts, I was so anxious to find out if I got on the team or not.
“You b****!” said the 8th grader standing in front of me. I stood there shocked. It was the first day of middle school, and it was the first time I had heard someone swear like that. It was one of the words forbidden by my parents and something I would never think of saying. That was the day that I started to realize I was in my own little bubble, naive about the world.
I started participating in 5k races with my dad the summer before beginning middle school and discovered my burgeoning potential. I won races in my age group and collected a few trophies and medals for my achievements. When school started, I joined the cross-country team where I learned about a higher level of competition. I lost more than I won, but I kept training and as my conditioning improved, so did my performance. It encouraged me to see hard work translate into results.
Finally, following what seemed like an eternity, Friday arrived. After dwelling on the race, I had butterflies the size of pelicans waiting for the opportunity to take me away. While running a warm-up lap, I realized I had let my tension get the best of me. My leg muscles felt like rocks. All you need to do is focus and put things in place. Just then, coach tapped me on the shoulder. He had been informed that I had the third fastest time in my heat, and I would be running in lane five. "Run the best race of your life, and you have a great chance at going to state," he said. I was relieved to know I only needed to recover one place to advance. My fears slowly and gently began to subside, and my confidence started to build. While I was engrossed in my wind sprints, I heard, "Second call, all 100-meter low hurdles.