Personal Narrative: The Day I Didn T Run As Fast

Junior year cross country, a season filled with ups and downs, had passed by. It didn’t quite live up to the expectations set by the year before and instead was similar to freshman year. It was a down season; I had never had one until now. It hit me like how a foot hits the ground during the race: hard. My mind was filled with frustration, and my legs with lactic acid. The pain I had running a twenty one flat 5k, felt the same as the pain I had when running my personal record, but obviously the results were not the same. I put in all the work at practice but I still couldn’t get my times to where I wanted them. My season was not turning out how I thought it was going to. My times were close to a minute off from the year before, but my legs were just as tired if not more. I didn’t understand why I couldn't run as fast; it didn’t make any sense.

It’s not like it was a hassle to do this; I was just lazy. I never felt like doing my runs on Sunday, so I didn’t, and throughout the whole summer I had only iced once because i liked going home as soon as practice was over. I didn't think it really mattered that much. My runs on Sundays were only twenty minutes. But as the season went on, my times didn’t improve much and I rapidly developed shin splints. I had never had them before and they came as a shock to me. My legs were in so much pain that I thought for sure my season would just get worse. The shin splints became more concentrated on my leg, and I realized that I needed to play it safe if i wanted even a small chance at getting a new personal record. I spoke with the coach and began biking instead of running during practice to lessen the impact on my legs. Also, icing my shins after practice became a