Sometimes I wonder what life would be like without fear. Without having the butterflies in your stomach, draining feeling. When you're so scared it feels like you can’t get anything else done, until that one thing that's making you scared passes. That's how I’ve been feeling for the past 24 hours, like my heart is going to explode with nervousness. 

I feel like I've worked so hard for this moment, the seven mile long runs and just super difficult workouts. My parents say that I put too much pressure on myself, that I take practice too seriously. When we stop during the run for some reason, I always get a little mad at my friend Isabel because, why are we stopping? How am I going to win races when we keep stopping? How else am I going to become the fastest girl on the team?

Today is Saturday and I have my first high school cross country meet. It's around 9:00 am and my team's bus just arrived at Newtown high school. 

After we get off the bus, I look around and there are people everywhere, packed onto the side of the baseball field like sardines all squished together.  That just increases my heart rate, I’m not known to be good with people. It’s overwhelming sometimes. 

Right now, the boys are setting up the team's big blue tarp, so we don’t have to lay our things on the dewy grass. 

“Okay, all freshmen keep your warmups on and drop your bags, Jonathan is going to take you guys on a 2-mile warmup jog through the course.” Coach Figger says. 

So, I throw my backpack on the tarp and walk across the big grassy football field across from the baseball field to see Jonathan, a senior who’s raced the Newtown course before.

 “Riley, do you know how long the warmup jog is?” my friend Isabel askes as the other freshmen begin to make their way across the field. 

 Isabel is my best friend on the cross-country team, but she isn’t the best listener so as we begin to run the course I say, 

“Come on, Isabel coach Figger says we’re running a two-mile warm up.” 

“Oh, you know I’m not a very good listener,” she says panting, “I had to sprint here to make it to Jonathan.” 

“Yeah, I know, sorry I didn’t mean to sound mean or anything.” I say back.

 “No problem, I know you're just looking out for me.” Isabel replies.

The warmup jog and stretching went well, Jonathan took us around the course, and we were able to see what it was like, so we knew what was coming during the race. It felt like Jonathon was running my race pace, I mean he was speeding through the course even though it was just a warmup.

 Honestly, I still don’t know where I’m going because most of it was through a trail with a lot of twists and turns. I’m trying not to worry about that though, now that we’ve made it back to our tarp and we’ve stretched and did our warmup jog, it's time to get to the starting line because it's already 9:35. 

“Come here Riley, the girls are going to all take a picture together before the race!” 

Isabel practically shouts at me, even though I’m right next to her. Being friends with Isabel is great and all, but sometimes she can be a little over the top and obnoxious. Especially for me. 

“I’m not up for pictures right now, I just want to focus and plan for the race.” I reply.  

“Ok suit yourself,” Isabel says.

I’m not a big fan of taking pictures to begin with, and definitely not before a race. I need to focus. Now is not the time for pictures, I need to stretch, put on my spikes, and take off my warmups. As I sit down on the tarp to put my spikes on, I notice that we happen to be the only team that doesn't have a tent with our name on it. We have a big 10x10 foot tarp with people’s bags, shoes, sweatshirts, and food thrown about everywhere. When I look to my left, I see Princeton Prep looking all fancy, having chairs for every one of their athletes and each of their athletes have matching warmups with their last names on the back. 

Not that I really care about having matching warmups or anything, but with every team looking so much fancier and nicer than ours it’s intimidating. It looks like us, the Newcity high school kids are the odd ones out. We stick out like a sore thumb, and quite frankly it’s pretty embarrassing and only adds to my nervousness.

The race doesn’t start until 10:00 and right now it's 9:40. The freshman race is combined meaning that freshman boys and freshman girls are racing together. For freshmen, we only have to run a 2-mile course while the junior varsity and varsity athletes have to run a 5k. Honestly, I love to run so I’m excited to race a 5k.                                                    

We end up getting to the starting line at 9:45 all ready to race. There are only two freshman girls on the team, me, and Isabel and there are around 5 freshman boys, most of which are pretty nice although I don’t really talk to them much.  

At the starting line, each team has their own section. The starting line is about 50 feet long and there are around 10 sections, one per team. Each section is about 5 feet in length.

“Riley, come here for a second.” coach figger yells from our tarp, and I sprint over, the race is starting in 5 minutes. Why does he have to call me over now? He had plenty of time to chit-chat with me back at the tarp. I need to focus now, but I do my best not to sound annoyed.

“Yeah coach?” 

“I want you to try to pace with Isabel, you guys are about the same speed, okay?” 

“Ok, sounds good,” 

After our conversation is over, I sprint back to the starting line and look up at the sky and see dark clouds overhead. My teeth start to chatter, and it seems to have dropped 20 degrees within the span of seconds, I can also hear the wind howling through the trees. It’s blowing quickly, like the speed that Jonathan was running for warmup. 

In our team's little section, I’m standing behind a row of the three fastest boys along with Isabel at my side, and there are two other guys standing behind us. You would think that because there are only 7 of us, our section wouldn’t be packed but it's surprisingly tight. I feel like when I lift my arms to get into position, I might hit someone. 

“Get ready to start everyone, the race is set to begin in two minutes!” The official standing 100 meters in front of me shouts. 

My mouth feels drier then the Sahara desert and of course I haven’t drank any water today. Right then, it begins raining and my heart rate accelerates. I can feel it in my ears, beating like I already finished the race even though I haven’t even ran yet. 

Now the pressures on. I have to do well; I can’t disappoint my coach. I’ve worked so hard for this; I’m aiming to be in the top three. I’m hoping I beat Isabel too because I work much harder than her.

“Good luck Isabel,” I whisper

“Thanks Riley you too, did coach tell you to pace with me?” 

“Yep” I whisper 

“Okay, let's do this” she says 

I take a few deep breaths which completely fail at calming me down, but I guess the adrenaline is good. I set arms in a running position like those action shots on google, where people are freeze framed mid stride. Yep. Except for the fact that both of my feet were on the ground. You know what I mean? Anyway, all the sudden I hear

“On your marks, get set, go!!” shouts the official

Right then I begin to run, and I’m trying my best not to sprint. At this point I can feel that I’m going at a sustainable speed, but I’m always scared to start off too fast at the beginning of the race.  

When I look up, I can see people all around me. I notice that there are a lot of girls in front of me, but I try not to panic because I don’t want to get tired out at the beginning of the race.

I can feel my spikes hitting the grassy football field, making a low crunch noise as I come in contact with dead leaves lying on the ground, making my gray spikes wet and dirty because it rained yesterday. 

At this point we’re turning off the football field and into the wooded trail. When I look up, I can see Isabel right in front of me, so I know I’m going at a reasonable speed. The wooded trail is super nice, and you can clearly see where you are supposed to be going. There are a few tree roots and sticks in the trail but other than that it’s pretty nice. I just have to make sure to keep an eye out for them later.

We’re still in the woods when I look up and see coach Figger, a pretty young really tall string-beany guy with military cut medium brown hair, olive skin and hazel eyes. 

“One-mile Riley!! Keep going! Your first mile was 6:29!” he shouts, 

 I don't register the fact that I’m on track to run a sub 13-minute 2 mile until I pass him and round a corner. For a freshman girl, that's really good and people who don’t run probably don’t know how fast a 6:29 mile is. But trust me, it's fast. 

Still running through the woods, with thick leaves and trees on either side of me and a skinny trail that's about a foot and a half wide I begin to hear the pitter-patter of raindrops which reminds me that it’s still raining. I can also hear the click-clacking sound of my spikes hitting the dirt.

 I look up from the trail and notice that I can’t see anyone in front or behind me, which I find strange since there were so many people at the starting line. But I continue running, and it seems like out of nowhere a root shows up and I attempt to run over it, but I land on the side of my foot and my ankle rolls inwards and I hear a loud crunch. I try to catch myself by putting my arms out, but as my left hand hits the ground, I hear another crunch and the world goes black. 

When I open my eyes, I notice that I’m laying in the middle of the trail soaking wet with rainwater. I try to shake myself like a dog because my tank top and shorts are sticking to me, when I feel a sharp pain in my left wrist and right ankle. I completely forgot that I even fell and when I look down, I notice that my wrist and ankle are swollen up like balloons. Every sudden movement I make feels like knives stabbing into my joints, I don’t know how long I was out for, but I don’t think it was that long.   

I can’t believe this. I mean there’s no chance of me winning the race now, and to top that off I’ll probably be out for the entire season based on the injuries that I’ve sustained. Tears fall down my cheeks, flowing like raging rivers. Why? Just why did this happen to me?

I look around and strain my ears for any sort of sound or movement that might indicate that someone was near me. But I don’t hear anything, and my heart is beginning to beat louder in my chest. I must have taken a wrong turn. Now I’m panicking, and since I can’t move there’s really nothing, I can do but wait here. What happens if no one finds me? I mean, someone must notice that I’m gone. Right? 

“Riley are you okay! Can you hear me!!” I hear coach Figger shouting, 

“I’m over here, can you please help me!” I half hysterically sob. I hear footsteps coming my way, and see coach Figger and Isabel running towards me, 

“Oh my gosh Riley! What happened to you??” Isabel shouts, 

“I guess I took a wrong turn and tripped on a root, I tried to catch myself with my hand, but you can see that didn’t end well.” I wince as I attempt to lift my left wrist.  

“Oh gosh Riley, that first mile was going really well for you. I know you're frustrated, but you're a talented runner. I can see you doing great things in the winter, okay?” Coach Figger whispers.

“Thanks coach,” I say sheepishly. This meet didn’t go as planned, but I guess not everything happens as you want it to. You can’t win everything, sometimes when things don’t go as planned, you have to accept the fact that you can’t always win.