Just One More

I’ve ran cross country and track for 4 years now, since 7th grade, and until this last year, never with much dedication. I’m one of the lucky ones, able to occasionally lead the pack with minimal training, people telling me all my like it’s in my blood, that “I come from good stock”.

They never thought about the story behind that comment, just thought they were complimenting me. They didn’t know they were fueling my anxiety, the fear I would never fulfill the whopping shoes my parents had left for me in their extensive career of endurance racing. They simply had no clue, so how could I blame them for that meaningless compliment in their eyes?

And for years, I let that fear push me to nothing. I was so actively against proving them wrong, I would actively retreat, running slower than my obvious potential and let my coaches tell me so. But it changed when my parents finally showed me their support in a new way. For years, they would try everything they could to get me out the door, short of actually pulling me. Well one day they tried that. They took me on one of my mom’s favorite training routes, called a death march by her friends for reasons that were apparent to me by the time I finished.

Somehow, it worked. They didn’t force a pace or time on me, just made sure I finished the course and took me for bagels. So don’t ask me how or hunt my parents down for advice, but when I finished that run and realized that I was capable of a feat that seemed so impossible, I realized I might live up to this potential everyone else sees in me. So I ran the same course the next week. And the next week. And the week after that I raced a half marathon. And when the times got tough, and I thought I had nothing left to keep those expectations high, I just thought “Mold by mile.” Because while groups of miles are intimidating, a simple mile alone is not. It can be done in less then 1” minutes by many, and so that’s the mentality I stuck with. It’s the mentality that brought me to varsity this last season, the mentality that let me support my team and run with them in my first and second sectional (regional for you non-New Yorkers) races, and the mentality that let me finish my second half marathon today.

I never thought I would live up to the plans everyone had for me, and I was more than willing to just let myself fail, but if I had done that, if I had never dug down deep, I wouldn’t have accomplished the goals I had in the back of my mind. I wouldn’t have been able to get through so many spectacular memories and accomplishments or rough patches, without this mile by mile mindset. So thank you mom and dad, for pushing me to the point and letting me fly.

- Anonymous