Qualifying to Districts - A Runner's Story

As I stood there with my heart beating what felt like a thousand beats a minute, palms sweaty, and a gnawing pain in my stomach, there was still only one thing on my mind. The one thing that I had been looking forward to for the past year, was all of a sudden about to finally occur within the next thirty seconds. A long whistle blew. I leaned forward as steady as possible, eyes focused on the open field ahead. “Bang!”

When I woke up that morning it was unlike any morning before. I was only suppose to wake up at 8am, but for some reason I awoke an hour earlier. Although I tried to keep sleeping, my body refused to let me rest for one more hour, and thirty minutes later I awoke again, realizing what day it was and that it was time to get ready. I crawled out of bed, still trying to wrap my brain around what day it was. There on my white chair laid my red and white uniform top with the words “Fairfield Indians” written on it, and the white matching shorts to go with it. I dressed quickly, pulling the sweats over top, then began packing my duffel bag. I unzipped all the compartments and began stuffing items in, silently checking them off my mental checklist. “Spikes? Check. Water bottle? Check. Protein bar? Check. Cell phone? Check. Mp3 player? Check…” and so on. After packing the bag, I picked it up, grabbed my handbag and car keys, and headed out the door. I heard a faint “Good luck!” come from my mother as I closed the door, and I walked to my little black Sunfire and dumped my belongings in the trunk.
The high school is only about five minutes away, and for that brief moment I turned the radio on and hummed to whatever tunes were playing, desperate to keep my mind off the challenge I faced in front of me. What was the challenge? The opportunity to qualify to regionals in cross-country. For the past four years I had been dreaming of what it would be like to qualify out of the district meet, but never before had I been fast enough to achieve that dream. Now my dream was no longer a dream, but a realistic goal, waiting ahead of me. I didn’t know how my chances were though. According to mine and my competition’s P.R.s (personal records) I was right at sixteenth place. The top sixteen qualified individually to regionals, and then it was the top four teams that qualify. I didn’t know what either chances were, but I had a feeling that I better place in the top sixteen if I wanted another week of my season, because our team’s chances weren’t as great as my chances individually.

When I arrived at the high school I went inside to join my team as they sat waiting for the bus between the double glass doors. The girls were busy giving each other “Big Sis and Little Sis” gifts and swapping Good Luck cards, while the guys sat there with focused faces, their minds in another world, silently listening to their music. I plopped my stuff down on an open spot on the carpet, while my friend Shannon came over to me and handed me my pink Adidas sneakers she had borrowed earlier that week. I was about to head outside and put the shoes in my car when I could hear my coach from behind me say, “Congratulations Hollywood.” I turned around. “Congratulations what?” I replied. He looked at me and said, “For student athlete of the week. Your picture is up on the wall.” I realized what he was talking about, and said, “Oh, thank you. I haven’t even seen it yet. I’ll go look at it when I come back in.” I walked out to my car, put my shoes away, and as I started walking back into the high school my coach high fived me and said, “Congratulations on being student athlete of the week.” I walked back in and headed over to the poster up on the wall. There seven athletes’ faces, along with mine, smiled back at me, under the heading that stated: “STUDENT ATHLETES OF THE WEEK” for the month of October. I stood there and critiqued my picture. I wasn’t sure how I liked my hair. It was the first picture taken of me since I got my haircut, and I was thinking of how I liked my hair longer, when my coach came up beside me and said, “It’s a good a picture of you.” “Thanks,” I said, “I don’t like my hair though.” “Is it a senior picture?” “No, Images takes the pictures for free.” “Well, good job,” he said, “I didn’t know you were student athlete of the week.” I stood there kind of baffled, and said, “I don’t understand how you couldn’t have known I was athlete of the week. How did my name get entered?” “I don’t know,” he replied walking off to the trainer’s room, “Nobody tells me anything.” “Poor Meiser," I thought as he walked away. “He may be my coach, but technically he’s only the assistant coach and it’s Gerstner that enters names for student athlete of the week and he must not have told him about it.” I felt sincerely bad for him that he wasn’t treated with more authority since he was the reason that I improved so much and now had the opportunity to qualify to regionals. But my sympathy ended for him since the bus arrived and we all boarded on, and I sat in a seat by myself, staring out the window and listening to my mp3 player. “This might be my last bus ride to a meet,” I thought. But I forced myself to enjoy the ride. And even though it took about twenty five minutes to get there, it felt like it only took five.
Once we arrived to the meet we put our bags down, set up the tent, and then pinned our races numbers to our uniform tops. Meiser told us to watch the girl’s race A (we were race C) to get an idea of what it would be like. I followed Meiser, Andrea, and Shannon around the course, and my fellow teammates behind me, but kept my distance, not focusing too much on race A because I was more worried about my race. We headed over to the finish line, and Meiser stopped me and said, “See what time the sixteenth girl finishes in, then start your warm up for about fifteen minutes.” I nodded my head and went and stood next to Shannon at the finish line. We watched as girls began passing, counting out loud with place they were coming in. When we reached the sixteenth girl, we looked at the clock for her time, and saw it was about 20:30. Shannon turned and grinned at me. We both knew we could beat that time. But I smiled and said, “I don’t want to think too much about it, our race could be different.” So we started our warm-up, and I set my mp3 player to repeat on the song “You Only Get What You Give” by the Radicals.

The next thirty minutes went by in a flash. I had my mom, my dad, other parents, my coach, my sister, etc. all come over and wish me luck. Although they meant well, their words weren’t much comfort to me. Before I knew it, I was at the starting line, stretching, running a few stride outs, my nerves kicking into over-drive. My friend Lauren came over to me to wish me luck, and by then I had silent tears streaming down my cheeks, and it was clear that the fear of failure was written on my face. Lauren gave me a warm smile and then prayed for me. Suddenly it was time to line up. I stood there at the starting line and said a little prayer for myself. I told God that He was the one who gave me the gift of running, I wanted to take this opportunity and give it back to Him. Then that long whistle blew. I leaned forward as steady as possible, eyes focused on the open field ahead. “Bang!”

The next nineteen minutes and fifty-three seconds of my life were the best minutes of running I had ever experienced. I was able to get up into fourth place and just hold on. As I passed through the first mile and second mile I knew I had runners behind me, but I was too afraid to look back, for fear that there just might be a mob of thirteen runners ready to sail pass me and put me in a disqualifying seventeenth place. I held on for as long as possible, and kept thinking to myself, “Nobody wants this more than you do. Nobody!” When the final 800 meters came, three girls caught up and out kicked me. I finished happily in seventh place.
Never in my life had I wanted something so bad, something I worked so hard for. Never had I had a goal that made me cry because I wanted it so bad. Qualifying to regionals was one of the most rewarding experiences I’ve ever had in life. Learning that when I put my heart and soul and determination into something that I can achieve it is a lesson I will carry with me for the rest of my life.