Take one more shot.
I've been running cross country since 7th grade and I had never been above average. I'd gone through 3 coaches in that sport alone and every other one had called me things like "uncoachable" in any other sport I tried. The summer before my junior year I had made up my mind, I would not be doing any athletics. I wouldn't run. It would just be another coach that would focus on the ones that already had natural abilities and i'd be wasting my time. I was at work when a man who had watched me run since seventh grade convinced me to give the new coach a shot. He told me this coach was an alumni from my school. He'd set countless records, won state multiple times, and raced well in college. I honestly didn't think that would change the fact that i sucked but i resigned and joined. My season went worse than I could have expected. Not because of the coach, he did everything he could to help me. It didn't make much of a difference at the time though. I came dead last at my district meet and I was so angry with myself. My team qualified for regionals and these sophomores and freshmen carried the team without me and that killed me. I wanted to lead and I was running out of time to do that. Regionals was my worst time yet, it was a 18:23 for only 2 miles.
That was when I set a goal. I set a goal that I would never run that bad again and I wasn't going to wait for the next season to start. By January i got back into the athletic class period and those coaches worked me with no mercy. For that I'm thankful. They didn't only focus on the "star athletes" like many in the past did. They paid attention to me and called me out when they knew i had more to give. By February of 2017 I noticed i'd dropped a few pounds and I was running slightly faster. That was all I needed. I took off and began to run everyday after school. At first it was only 3 miles. It slowly increased to 4, 5, 6 by the beginning of my senior year I was up to 8 miles on my long runs. My coach was speechless. I'd gone from the teams worst runner to number two. He worked with me and trained me. Once he saw what I could do with a little heart he wasn't going to let me quit. Sadly I missed my shot at state for XC by a few spots, but I destroyed my PR by 5 minutes. Now in Track only a few months later, my long runs have reached 10miles and I just won district for the two mile with a time of 12:50 and came runner up in the 800 and mile. After graduation i'm set to sign with a college to run XC for them. One year ago, this wasn't a possibility. Not even in my wildest dreams. Two years ago I was about to give up on this sport altogether. Now, I could go to state. All because I gave it one more shot and thats all I needed.
- Anonymous
