I have always had a thing for running. In middle school, I would always be the first to finish the mile long run in P.E. Running the mile in seven minutes flat would always beat everyone else. It was the same outcome in high school as a freshman; however, that was not the case as a sophomore. As a sophomore I ran seven minute miles but a sophomore named George would run it in six minutes and fifty seconds. I wondered why he was so fast, so I asked him. He said that he was in Track & Field and that I should join because I am pretty fast. The circle group that I used to hang out with had about ten people in it; we would often meet up before school starts, and during lunch. Two of the guys in the group were in track and field: Pablo and Eddie. …show more content…
I decided to go race anyway. I had a pain in my stomach the whole day and even throughout the race. I finished the race holding my stomach with a time of ten minutes. I did not know what was wrong with me. Then, I went home with this pain. I tried to sleep it off, but could not sleep; I could not even walk without limping. I skipped school the next day because of it and just stayed in my bed all day. At night, my father took me to the hospital to see what was wrong with me. It turns out that my appendix needed to be removed. It ruptured on my way to the hospital, luckily they were able to fix the problem by putting me to sleep, and performing surgery to remove it. I spent eight days in the hospital and could not eat much. I have always been skinny, yet I lost seven pounds in that time period. When I came out, I could barely walk. I could have quit running at this point however I did not want to. I walked around my block for a whole week every day. Then, I tried jogging for a week. Next, came back to practice and told everyone about my appendix being removed. They saw me in practice trying my little heart out to keep up with the other runners. I could not keep up because I was only able to do a slow jog. The coach said, “Joel, you have lots of