Why I Joined CC

This was my first day of Cross-Country practice; 7th grade:
I’m breathing hard. I hear my feet scrape across the gravel; barely lifting off of the ground. I hear a car pass; the noise banging in my head like another obstacle. Every noise, smell, and feeling seemed to hurt ten times more when I ran. Even though I did not know it at the time, I was creating more obstacles for myself each day, with every annoyance that I thought of while running. I think: This hurts. This is torture. Why am I running? Maybe I’ll just walk.

I had decided to join Cross Country because my Aunt Karen used to run; people always tell me how I look like her, so I figured I should do what she does too. I also joined Cross Country because people would be astonished that I did it; I soon found that this astonishment was because running was hard – a truly difficult task mentally and physically.

I hear another car approach behind me; preparing myself for the mental agony to come. It’s our coach. He drives his red truck when we run.
“Hurry up, ya turkeys! No walking! Come on Brooke, no walking!”
I frown, How can he tell us to run when all he does is follow us with the truck? I start to run a bit, and after my break running seemed easier for a few seconds. Then I got a cramp in my ribs: the kind of cramp where you can’t breathe. So I resumed to walking again. We were supposed to run 4 miles that day down Light Plant Road; I doubted I would make half that.

I struggled through the rest of practice, running only when coach would notice that I was walking. I had hated the feeling of running that day, but when I got home, I told my parents that it went well so that they wouldn’t be disappointed in me.
This run, like many other practices that year, was difficult for me. But as we got into the season, I actually learned how to pace myself, and to keep going when it hurt. I must admit, I ran rather slowly that year, and I had no intention of being fast either. I was just in the race to finish; I wasn’t there to be in any particular place.

I've continued with Cross-Country through High-School, loving it more and more each year. The harder I push myself, the more I find that the mental pain begins to dissipate. I began to forget the pain, the small annoyances that used to drive me crazy, and the terrible smells that we often ran into on runs. Like many other crazed lovers of running, I've began to thrive on pain: If a run didn’t hurt, then I felt that I hadn’t pushed myself hard enough. To push past your pains, mental or physical, takes a sort of determination that many outsiders of Cross Country do not have.

I think it’s funny now, to look back and see how much I despised running in 7th grade. Now I love running. I love feeling the pain and ignoring it, telling my body that I will keep running, despite its complaints.

I do believe now, looking back, that joining Cross-Country that year in 7th grade, was the best decision I’ve made in my life so far. This sport was not only where I met the greatest friends and learned to run fast, but it's also been an important factor in shaping who I am and what I do.
(This is a long post... but maybe it will inspire someone to keep running)