The laps were longer, my strides were shorter, and my face was getting redder. The worst 33 minutes of my life had been completed as I sit in the empty locker room with my head low and my lungs in pain. I was a failure to myself and to my whole team. I dug in my brain for excuses and I looked in my heart for God. My soul had been left out on that track for everyone to see that I was souless. I had given up and there was no looking back now. What was in the past was in the past, only thing I could change was what was my future. At the PSAC conference championship 10000 meters that night, I found my motivation and my solace. I was motivated in that, I never wanted to run that bad again and that I have to prove to my opponents, teammates, coach, and myself that I can run with the best in the conference and I can be a leader, even in my sinus infected state, and run through adversity, even when my body was screaming NO. My solace was in that, God does not care if you run good or bad, only if you run in his glory. He also has a plan, and apparently his plan was not for me to break records that night, but to have the worst race of my life.
PATIENCE...patience...patience....
On our 1st day of cross country practice on a humid and hot August day, we stood outside Coach Papa's office, and we gathered as a team for the first time. I saw a team that lacked muscular strength, height, an abudance of facial hair, or chisled chins. We were a young group, naive of our potential, BUT a young group with alot of heart and alot to prove.
That first week we proved we were in shape, we proved that great things were coming in the future...But the question was "Could we go to Nationals this year or next year?"
I'm not going to lie, at the beginning of the season, I was very scepticle if we were ready. Edinboro, Lock Haven, and Shippensburg have tradition on their side, and they were recruiting machines with money to spare...and only one member of our team has any athletic money at all...thanks Title IX!...
But we ran all those miles that summer to beat the sceptics and hope that, if everything fell together on November 5th, we could get trip to Spokane, WA! Then, as I was running with my teammate Morgan Elliott early in the season, he showed no fear in those teams and no scepticle thoughts, he knew we could make it this year and no statistic was going to tell him otherwise. From that moment forward, I turned from a Doubting Thomas into a believer. We didn't run all those miles this summer to "hope" but rather "to DO".
For our first meet, we traveled all the way to Anchorage, Alaska. There I experienced a few things for the first time. It was my first time in a plane (which wasn't that bad at all), it was the first time I ever saw a moose (as Alex Koksal and I dropped a 5 minute mile in the middle of our run to get away from it, still one of the scariest moments of my life lol). We climbed flattop mountain and saw the beautiful sights of Alaska and then proceed to get our butts kicked by the University of Alaska Anchorage, who at the time was ranked below, Boro, Ship and Haven. The defeat was very humbling but the goal was still eteched in our brains (it was ONLY September 1st).
PATIENCE...Patience...patience...
After a couple great weeks of training, we had our next race on our home course at Cooper's Lake. This race was the 1st of 2 practice races on that course before we would race on it to determine whether on not we would make it to Nationals. Everyone, went out conservative...except me...I was the first up the hill and I never reliquished the lead...until I got out kicked by two guys in the last 200 meters. Koksal had "the best race of his life", Morgan kicked well at the end, Beegle, Hickey, and Buddy had a solid races, and a host of freshmen had postive 8k debuts. As we took our 2nd place trophy and shook Carnegie Mellon's hand (as they beat us by 3 points), I learned that being "King of the Hill" was not a great game plan, and that the energy I used up the hill could've been used in the last 200 meters. Still it was a PR, and any PR is a good PR. Again...
PATIENCE...Patience...patience
Very nice can't wait to read more!
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