I have the standard set of beliefs as most people; don’t do anything illegal or to harm anyone, be a decent person, help those who need it. However, I’ve struggled most with the old adage of “treat others as you want to be treated”. It seemed simple enough to me as a child, and thus I began to do just as the age-old advice said. In most instances I have gotten what I’ve expected in return. My grades reflect my efforts at school, the treatment of me by my sister was indicative of how many names I had called her that day. Yet, there is still one issue that I’ve always wondered about. One could say that my experience in cross country has been far from normal. One year, I was running a thirty-minute 5k, and ranked eighty-sixth on the team. The …show more content…
Of course, being told such things by one of the most renowned coaches in the country would be enough to make anyone push their limits. After my sophomore cross country and track seasons were nulled by my physical limitations, I developed a sort of excitement that I wish I could feel again. “I can do ANYTHING” I would tell myself as I ran each workout. Sure enough, by the beginning of my junior cross country season, I was quickly catching up with the other girls on my team. In fact, my outlook was amazing; there were three elite meets that season, each with a limit of runners on my team that would be taken. Then, tragedy struck the team; three of our fastest girls were injured and out for the season. Now, I wasn’t happy about them being sidelined, but it did finally give me a chance to recover my placement from the beginning of sophomore year. I wanted to help lead the team to state, and with what my coach had previously said, it didn’t appear to be too far out of my reach. However, “too far” should have been followed by an asterisk, as my season soon spiraled out of my