The day began with a usual breakfast and of course learning, but I had been restless and uneasy during class almost ignoring everything that the teachers are lecturing on and simply wondering about the meet. Today's race was at Beaumont and legend says that it is the flattest course there is or at least the team says it. Along with the fact of breaking your personal record guaranteed. After the painstaking hours of hearing people talk it's finally time to get on the yellow bus. The team only has one bus but one bus fits all of our team nicely. I’m sitting next to my friend Kyle on the two hour bus ride to Beaumont and we have this awkward silence that you are feeling the other person should break it so we didn’t really have a chat.

Flash forward to the meet and my legs feel like jello but then I’m completely consumed in awe at the sight of the bright green turf of the football field and the shiny bleachers leading to heaven. Kyle and I drop our stuff off on these giant steps and it's a good thirty minutes until our race starts which seemed to just zip by with the game I was playing. Our entire team walked the course and turns out what i believed to be a myth was true, there wasn’t even a hill in site then miraculously the jv boys including me end up on the starting line.

Waiting in suspense as we receive our only two commands “Runners set, GO” As my team is leaning forward I am misinformed and still standing up straight when the gun goes and we're off. I was caught off guard and almost got boxed in by some runners. To get boxed in means to be surrounded by runners who are slower than you, essentially you're in a box and can’t cover ground until the runners have dispersed. After about the first mile i’m going at my own pace and I become aware of a runner behind me. So my tactic became to hug the corners and to speed up a bit when I knew he was trying to pass me, even though it did take some energy to keep doing this I felt proud until the game ended when his coach had told him to do a little sprint of about thirty meters. By then I was bored of playing my little game with him although the evil part inside of me wanted to keep going.

Hard breathing and arm pumping later i’m at the two mile mark with three Beaumont kids in front of me. On the sidelines there's a girl cheering yelling,“GO BEAUMONT” and as i passed them she screeched,“GO PASS THAT RED”. By that point I knew I had to show her that she had provoked the incomprehensible power inside of me which consists of determination and pride. Now then diverging to the past the last two meets had extremely painful side cramps, but this time I was sure they wouldn’t come back because I had the before race prescription of a banana. With a mile left I had thought I was in the clear but to my dismay the crapm haunts my side with anguishing pain. First slow and then as you get fatigued it will start to hurt more. Eventually if any person has experienced this they might have to stop. Thus breaking the one rule of no walking which is enforced by coach on practice days. Taking deep breaths the trio is covering ground pretty efficiently and throughout the race I am threatened by the trio of blues and the downscaled pain of a side cramp. Painfully making my way to the last four hundred meters most of my team is cheering me on and alarming me about the presence of the blues which by that point I had completely forgot about them. Beaumonts trio leader widen his stride to try to get in front of me but then he just gave in. The three hundred meters finish is quite memorable. A person from San Jacinto was gassed and you could tell, his form was off and he slowed down. Someone from the bleachers had warned him of my presence as I full stealth mode and he looks back with a face of surprise and resentment and with a last effort tries using the little he has left to propel himself forward. No matter how tired I am I always finish with a sprint. As my legs start moving faster and my arms go higher I ignore the pain by going into this state of rage and full concentration to try to beat this one last rival.