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Life’s regrets, we all have them. Some ponder on the “what if’s” and wish we could do certain things over again while others take what they might have learned and use it to better themselves in the future. My one wish for a do over would revolved around my high school years and my track and field career. As a young freshman you often do not realize how much potential you have and take a less than serious approach to things knowing that you have another three years in which to improve. This was the case for myself. I made a decision to become a part of the track team and go out for pole-vaulting, after all I had an uncle who held the record at his high school for years and years, I mean - how hard could it be? My freshman year on the track team was one of learning and moving up to become one of the better vaulters we had, even though that wasn’t saying much at that point. I improved my personal bests several times that year and thought I would continue on that path over the next three years. I figured I would automatically continue to improve each year. Little did I realize this would mean I would improve a little at a time, but not enough to ever get to the point of breaking the school record. …show more content…
After a miserable sophomore year of going to meets and scratching out on the opening height I realized that I had to have some proper coaching if I was going to improve much more.
Out of luck I found a wonderful father daughter team who began to give me lessons on a regular basis. My heart fell when the father first saw me jump and asked, “Where have you been? Do you know how high you would be going if we had been working with you since your Freshman year?” Still a little cocky, I just laughed and figured I would show them I could take what they were teaching and break that
record. Fast forward to my Senior year of track and field. I have improved greatly (with their coaching) and even have a shot, be it a long one at making my goal of a new school record. Trying as hard as I could at each meet that record jump eluded me all the way to the very last meet. On the final meet of my Senior year, full of nerves and fear of failure, I jumped for my final attempt to just tie the record. Surprisingly, I cleared it! Only one more jump to complete to be the record holder. If only I had a re-do, I could have started getting the proper coaching at the beginning of my freshman year and for sure I would have actually achieved that goal of holding the high school record on my own. But instead, I had to settle for sharing a record with a man who set it 49 years earlier. To this day I think about what could have been and how high I would have actually been able to have gone, but I cannot dwell on what would be if I had a do-over, I can only look to the future and plan for what will be.
I have always loved sports and the competitiveness that comes along with them. In so doing, I have decided to eventually become either a high school or college coach at some point in my life. Subsequently, I decided to interview the Vilonia High School Cross Country Coach, Coach Sisson. As I walked into her office, I instantly noticed all of the trophies and team photos from all of the past years of coaching. She is also the school nurse so her office has first aid equipment intermingled into the trophies and team pictures. While I set up my notes and questions for the interview on one of the desks in her office, she was finishing up a diagnosis of one of the high school students who felt sick. After her patient left, I quickly started the interview in order to waste no time. She began with how she got involved in coaching. The Vilonia School District expressed their interest to her as being the next cross country coach several years ago. She was widely known for her passion for running and she gratefully accepted the position and has been a coach for numerous years now.
I am now officially in my Senior year of Cross Country , and am close to the end of my season. My first race of this year though was a big accomplishment for me, because I hadn`t been able to run. When I ran that race though it made me just so happy I was able to finish it, I was`nt happy with the time, but there is always time for improvement. I was glad to be racing again and being apart of the team again. I believe that my injuries were a barrier in my way, but they did not stop my sports career.
I am a runner. I was selected to be a cross country captain for my senior year and I had set myself a realistic goal of being one of the top five finishers at the state meet in the fall. I never had the thought that I could not do it; I knew I was going to be up there with the best. When the state meet came and I traveled with the team as captain, that race became one of the most memorable of my cross country career but not for the reasons I expected.
My biggest accomplishment throughout high school so far has been learning how to fail. Not necessarily falling flat on my face in a viral video, but instead just barely coming up short and not being able to reach a goal, despite my best efforts. Although I was unaware of it at the time, failing my driver’s test on my first attempt would become a life altering incident.
I signed up to run track in the spring and went to summer conditioning for cross country. That’s when my coaches, teammates, and myself noticed that my running has improved significantly from when I first started. I knew that I had to work hard my senior year to achieve my goals for running. Running is a mental sport. The workouts I had to do were brutally painful and I had stay positive throughout the run because I know the training I had to do will help me during a race.
When I was eleven years old I made a decision that changed my life forever. Ever since I was three years old I did gymnastics and I loved it. My dream was to become really good and win the olympics and become a world medalist. But this dream quickly was changed. After my eleventh birthday, I was starting to realize I didn 't want to do gymnastics anymore. I told my mom and she was heartbroken but let me do what I wanted, so I quit. Once I quit I decided I wanted to try something else, cheerleading. My mom was thrilled and found a allstar gym in sumner called React.. She emailed the coach but I already missed tryouts. The coach said I could come to practice and see if they needed me and if I would like it. I instantly fell in love and wanted to join. The coach liked me and loved that I could tumble. I made the team that night and my life hasn 't been the same since.
... to play baseball for a few hours each week. I couldn't wrap my mind around the fact that everyone doesn't love baseball, so I naturally assumed that I was just better than most kids. Of course I woke up to reality a few years later, when I proved that although I was a good player, I was a far cry from being a superstar. It wasn't a crushing defeat however, as my life's aspirations began to change.
Track was my only sport, so I worked really hard to be the best that I can be. Track wasn't the only thing that i tried to be the best in, rather I was trying to be a better person overall. In 8th grade, I was no longer pre-diabetic or had any other health concerning issues, I was fit and strong. At the end of 8th grade, I weighed 165 (10 lbs less than 6th grade) and my height was 5’10” ( 5 inches more than 6th grade). My maxes now are 270 on bench, 535 on squat, 585 on deadlift, which as you can tell is a major jump from 6th grade.
Regretfully, when I entered high school I did not realize how hard I had to work to get what I wanted. I went to my classes, did my work, but never really pushed myself to my full abilities. I thought that as long as I graduated with decent grades I would be able to get into college and really focus then. But as high school quickly came to an end I realized that I was not as well prepared for college, as I would have liked.
I had been practicing harder than the rest of the kids in 7th grade, but yet they were still so much better than I was. I couldn’t understand what I was doing wrong. I kept thinking that I wasn’t going to make the basketball team again. One day I had enough and just started working hard on building confidence in my shot. I would spend hours on end just trying to build confidence because I had no confidence in anything I did.
My goal and willingness to not except failure made me a stronger person. It made me a better player. I was now being recruited by several top college programs. I sometimes had to pinch myself to realize I was not in a dream. I was actually living " my dream".
Over the course of my life, I have seen a numerous amount of people who’ve tried to become the best and failed miserably. Surprisingly, one example is me. Over the summer, I joined the Sunny Hills cross country team because running wasn’t a big deal, right? Wrong. When I came to practice, I was all pumped up and ready to impress the coach, but it was only my first run. I was already getting ahead of myself, which exemplifies pride, although I had never ran in my life before. To continue, when I started to do warm-up laps, which is a mile, I was one of the first runners to finish, as a matter of fact, it was called a “warm-up” for a reason. I thought that everyone was really slow and that they sucked at
It was November 5th, 2013 – it was my cross country league meet. I was running the hardest, the fastest, and with more intensity than I have ran with the first three years of my cross country career combined. It was the hardest course in Michigan, but it seemed easy to me as I practiced on it every other day. The competition was at least thirty seconds behind me as the three-story hill was too big of a challenge for them. The screams and cheering of the crowd fueled my adrenaline and I hit my runner’s high. I had tackled the hill for the final time and the crowd was screaming louder than I have ever heard, which caused me to power up the hill, then I stopped in my tracks. I realized what they were screaming about. There was someone, or something, hunched over my coach’s body. It looked human, but there was something off about the figure. The “thing” turned around and looked at me. It was pale, fit, had red eyes, and was covered in my coach’s blood and intestines. My heart stopped. What the hell? Then, I ran. It chased me. I didn’t have time to think about where I was going or what I had just seen, I just ran as fast as I could and as far as I could get. I heard screaming from the other runners and other onlookers, and when I glanced back to see if the thing was behind me, it wasn’t. I ended up in the parking lot, hotwired an older car (by popping
After middle school, my next goal was to become the star at my high schools basketball team. Unfortunately when I arrived the talent was much greater than it was in high school. There were kids in my grade who were dunking and at the time, and I could barely touch the net. Undaunted by the task I participated in a scrimmage with the Varsity team. The first time I got the ball I was open, so I shot the ball and missed the shot. I still kept my head up and after missing my first three shot attempts I decided that it was not my night so I tried to have a positive impact on
I far surpassed any previous skill level that I had obtained and even though I was riddled with injuries along the way, nothing was ever able to keep me away from doing what I