I woke up early in the morning to get ready for the invitational and be at school by the time the bus left at 5:30. I was super nervous but excited in the car as my dad drove me to the school. Seeing all my friends made me feel better and the excitement of the meet kept us all awake as we were standing together waiting for the bus. My best friend Taylor and I sat together on the bus eating bagels, talking, and sleeping. The excitement level on the bus increased as we got closer to the course and after driving for about an hour we arrived at what seemed like the middle of nowhere.

We set up our tents in the field and put the spikes in our spikes (racing shoes, kind of similar to soccer cleats except the spikes that go in them are removable pointy metal things to give you traction for hills and was grass or mud ) before going on the course walk. I smelled honeysuckle and freshly cut grass in the fresh country air as we walked and jogged through the rolling hills which we were about to run. Coach gave us a pep talk at the starting line before we did a cheer and took our places. We towed the line and went out fast when I felt the adrenaline rush at the sound of the starting gun.
I was running up the big hill and a pack of WJ girls was coming up behind me. The sun was hot, I was tired, and I felt like crying and quitting. They passed me on the uphill but my coach was yelling at me from the sideline. “Crest this hill,” he yelled, “use the downhill, don’t let them get away from you, we need you.” I remembered all the training we had done and being told that it was like putting money in the bank. You train hard in practice, making deposits, so when it comes time for the race you can withdraw the miles you ran to use the strength you gained from them. Seeing the backs of the girls ahead of me, I remembered all the reasons why I was running.
*
*
*

On the street where I grew up, I would often see the high school cross country team run by. Watching them from my kitchen window, I always admired how hard they worked. One day I decided I wanted to run too.
I had barely run half a mile when I stopped to walk. It frustrated me that I was not successful and I forgot about running for a while after that. I was in 5th grade when I ran my first race. I got a purple participation ribbon which I still have in a box of race paraphernalia. I was not very fast and sometimes I wonder why I continued. I played other sports, and running was the hardest for me but now I would not quit for anything.
The difficulty of running and the pain it brought combined with seeing the results drew me into running and made me want more.

The first time I ran in a meet when I had just joined cross country, I doubted myself a lot. I continued to run with doubt but slowly I gained confidence from knowing I had put in the work and from encouragement from my teammates who I became really close with. The more work I put in, the better my times got and this encouraged me to work harder. The next summer, I went to cross country camp in the countryside with some other girls from the team. We bonded over the hard workouts, the days we almost quit but didn’t, swimming in the lake after practice, the sweat, the tears, and staying up late under the stars. Even when we were not at camp, we met up to motivate each other through the hard workouts and then go to the pool or get ice-cream after practice and all sleep over at somebody’s house. Before that summer, I had never worked so hard for anything. That fall when time trials came around, I had made huge improvements and got to run varsity for the first time that year.
The atmosphere of cross country meets was very camaraderie-filled and racing was fun because the team was there for each other. Snuggling with the team before meets in blankets under our tents was my favorite part of going to invitationals. Katie would braid everybody’s hair while we were waiting for our race to start and the whole team felt really close as we supported each other. Everybody on the team had a buddy and we would bring each other buddy gifts as good luck before each race. After our race was over we would always go cheer for the boys’ teams and for the girls in the JV race. On some nights after a meet, the whole team would go out to dinner together and have a good time with our coaches. We bonded over all the time we spent together and that made us so much stronger. We learned to trust each other to always have our backs through thick and thin. I was not just running for myself, I was running for the team.
*
*
*
I let loose on that downhill and passed those girls because of all the reasons that kept me from quitting. I caught up to my friend Morgan. “You don’t want me to beat you and I don’t want you to beat me so let’s use each other,” she panted and we used each other to motivate us to run harder. By the last mile, I was covered in mud from where the course crossed a creek and the many feet running through it splattered mud everywhere. I saw Coach at the top of a steep hill and found strength I did not know I had while he yelled for me to leave it all on the course. Sweat stung my eyes and it hurt badly, but it was worth it when I crossed the finish line having run a new PR (personal record). Knowing I had run with my heart was one of the best feelings ever. After our race was over, Taylor and I walked around enjoying the scenery and cheering for the other runners. Almost everybody on the team had a good race that day and we went out for smoothies afterward to celebrate. This gave me the drive to push myself harder, not just in running, but in other things too because it made me believe in myself.