“Set,” Bang! The gun goes off and I quickly shoot ahead of the rest of the field. My strides long and quick as I sprint for the track. I can’t hear anyone behind me, I must be a good 10 meters in front of everyone else. I run around the track and continue to sprint across the field back to the crowd of parents, friends, and girls soccer players who were forced to attend this last cross country meet of the season. As I continue to approach the group, my mind and body turn numb, Everyone is cheering for me, and I realize that I’ll never experience this again. I’m practically floating through the course, still no other runners are near me. That was the way it would stay, all the way through the 3.1 miles as I crossed the finish line in first place, capturing my team’s second league championship and undefeated season. After I had caught my breath, I began to realize that my career was drawing to a close. I realized that I only had a few more weeks until the sport that I had become so passionate about concluded. I used to be a soccer player. Not a good one, I rode the bench throughout most of 7th and 8th grade on my school’s middle school team. At the end of 8th grade, it was time to sign up next fall’s sport’s teams. Instead of soccer, I wrote my name underneath 6 others …show more content…
From there, it was on to the divisional meet where we would run against every team in Western Massachusetts. Despite our regular season success, every prediction article written about the race had us finishing 5th or 6th, and not qualifying for State. Instead of getting down because of the pessimistic predictions, we used them as fuel to motivate us. Before the race, my teammates and I analyzed every team to figure out which teams and which runners we needed to beat in order to secure that 3rd place