Heart

To go along with what I said about there being a true team, a true team cannot exist without heart. A successful track athlete cannot exist without heart. Success in my mind is not measured in first or second, but in self worth and self improvement. If you can find a goal and you can hit that goal or surpass it, then you have succeeded. But the goal has to be realistic, and one that you have to work for, one that requires heart. My senior year I was in bad shape, both literally and figuratively. Senior slump was hitting me twice as hard as everyone else, I was stressed about applying to college, and I would literally get sick from anxiety and I wouldn’t be able to practice. I was in the worst running shape that I had even been in during high school, and I was only able to make it to 4 out 5 practices a week at the max, and I could only get through about 3 of them a week without cramping or throwing up. I was an ugly sight. Yet somehow I was able to run the fastest I ever had. I dropped time in every one of my events with the worst running form I had ever had, I even set a new school record while i was as it . I was sloppy and weak, and yet I did the unthinkable and improved myself. My only explanation was that I was running off “heart”. I knew it couldn’t have been that I was stronger. I had originally thought it was because I knew how to run better and thus my form was better. Pff yea right, after watching myself run I realized I had taken about 10 steps back with my running form. But I couldn’t allow myself to do poorly because everyone was counting on me. My team high school team may not have seemed like a real team but they were friends and they were counting on me to lead them. I realized that it was this determination that allowed to me to push my body passed its current limits. After coming here and thinking back I realized that if I could get to that same point, minus the misery, but with the same heart, now that I have a team to push me, and now that I’m in the best shape of my life, that I can accomplish great things. I found that every one of the track athletes that I have competed with and against here in college, has given it their all, they have pushed it to the limit with body, mind, and heart.