Running around at the speed of sound (not really)

When I first did cross-country, I did not expect to do it for over a year. I joined cross-country because my friend, Evan was also doing it, and at the time, I would just follow what he does (I am 100% positive that in 6th grade, I was willing to jump off a bridge if he did). When I went to the first practice, I went in thinking that racing was like what was describe in the Chinese manga called "Đường Đua Thần Tốc" in Vietnamese (it was the rage in Vietnam in 2012), which was about remote control car racing. Clearly I did not know anything about cross-country before practice.

The first practice was also brutal, we had to run 3 miles straight, despite racing was 2 miles. I finished dead last, out of everyone. I felt so miserable and tired that after the practice I took a shower and slept until dinner. During the weeks before my first day in middle school, I improved a lot. From dead last on the team, to being top 7 in the first meet, and I was never not top 7 in my school again (until recently).

Cross-country was fun for me, because my friends including Evan was doing it, and practices were fun, while I continued to impress myself with endurance I couldn't imagine weeks before. I was never athletic, and even today, running continues to be the only form of exercise I liked.

My biggest season was my freshman season, when Coach Black from Centennial, turned me from running a 2-mile 12:20, to running a 18:30 3-mile in my first race. From then I won a 9th place medal at Twin City, which was my first medal at running ever. I would later run a best time of 16:47.

Over the last two years, cross-country was not fun for me anymore. IHSA banned me last year, under their transfer rule, and I became unmotivated in practice since I couldn't compete. This year, I quit the team mid-season because of many reasons. Cross-country at Uni was not the same as it was at Centennial, and even though Uni's team was better than Centennial's, I felt like I would have done better at Centennial. At Uni I felt like I was not improving that much, and when I saw my friends from Centennial run, and see them running faster than me, improving so much like I did my freshman year, I felt even more miserable. I did not want to quit, since I was on Varsity at the time and quitting would severely hurt the team. At the same time, I was just torturing myself doing 400s, when I would rather run a nice 8 mile run by myself. When I finally finished outside of the top 7, despite trying my best, I was frustrated and sad since I didn't run well at all. Nonetheless, Varsity was in good hands, and the team didn't need me anymore.

Even though I quit cross-country I still love running. 5 days after quitting, I ran that 8 mile long run I wanted to run. And it was the best run ever.

Comments

  1. LawrenceOctober 11, 2017 at 7:15 PM

    Wow this is a pretty deep post. I've personally never done cross country because I'd rather run after a ball of some sort, but I can feel your love for the sport coming out in your writing. It seems like you were really proud and happy as you improved as a runner, but then lost motivation after your transfer ban. I wish you would have continued to stay on the Uni team and feel that passion spark again, but if you're happy doing your own workouts and runs, then I'm glad.

    ReplyDelete
  2. UnknownOctober 23, 2017 at 9:24 AM

    great post, certainly a lot deeper than most of the other posts I've read. Sucks that you left but its good that you're still running by yourself because you enjoy it.

    ReplyDelete

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