My Running Story

[seth556]

Here's my story about running.

It starts last summer. End of 8th grade getting ready for high school (I sound so young), thinking about what sport I was going to play. Of course it was football, I have been playing since 4th grade. Meet your teacher came around. In the cafeteria they have the thing where you pick out sports, went around found the football thing got the paper. The crew kids were running around looking for kids that weren't fat but had some muscle, they swarmed around me saying how great crew was. The greatest decision I've made was not to go into the crew trap. Also for some reason went to the Cross Country table because my brother had ran in high school. Got the paper, coach said give it two weeks and if I don't like it I can quit.

Well I ended up going out to the cross country practice. We ran around a little bit then talked with coach (great guy). I kept coming back, saw a lot of improvement. Then I forgot all about football. Ran everything. We had the 5k tt and I ran 25:20 (fine for a first time). First meet I ran 26:20 or something around there. Next meet I tore apart my leg, worst pain in my life. Two weeks later I was back running even though it was terrible pain. Running wasn't too bad besides the big limp, ran slow all season. My best time after that was 26 (very slow). We ended up winning state though, we have some fast guys (we won by like 5 points). Good times we had after that. We are continuing our dynasty after now qualifying for state last year. Although we won it the 4 years before that.

After the season I took it easy. Started running some more. Leg started fully healing. Then Thanksgiving rolled around. We have the local 5k race in town with about 3000 people that run it. I ran it with one of the girls I know, I ran 24:34. It was big improvement. Ran a few others, got my pr down to 23:58. Which I thought was a great time for me.

Track season came around, I went out even though I don't like running in circles. I found some great guys that I now run with every day. We push each other just because we can. Got my mile down to 6 minutes (not too bad for me). My 2 mile was 13:38 which isn't too bad ether. I'm not going to talk about my 800 time because I can't sprint at all.

For most of us track season ended 2 weeks ago. We had another 2 mile tt and then we ran on our own. Today we had out 5k tt. Just the track distance guys. It was to be a, "look how much you've improved" thing. So I start running it, I don't like to sprint at the start. I don't know why everybody does. Right behind me was one of the guys that is a Junior. I get a ways and I'm starting to think I really need to slow down, so I slow down a little bit. He comes up next to me saying to keep the pace up and break 22. I'm thinking he's crazy. Anyways I keep running with him. Get to the 1.5 mile mark. Then the 2. I start thinking it's possible. Get on the last 1/2 mile. Start running faster. See one of the guys I run with. Think I have to catch him. Finally catch up to him. Hold him off about 5m behind me. Get to the track where we finish it. Keep him off till the last 100m where for some reason he decided to sprint. I ended up getting 21:52. I am very happy about this. All today, I was thinking just run around 23 flat and I'll be happy. Then go under 22.

So now my goal for next cross country season is to break 20. Shouldn't be terribly hard if I run all summer.


Thats my story. If you read it all you deserve a ribbon or something. Although I won't send you one.