As I go through my scrapbook I notice many things. This scrapbook was an assignment my AP psych teacher gave to us for our final grade my senior year. She gave us some guidelines, gave us some topics for essays that had to be written, and told us to be creative with it. Off we were, on our own to make these scrapbooks, to reflect on our lives, to foresee our futures. I covered many topics; they varied from my childhood to my future goals to pictures of any and everything to probably the most influential and important part of my life: cross country running.
As I sat in my eighth grade health class Mr. Penna-Ward (who would later become more than a teacher to me) began to show us a short movie, consisting of video clips and pictures of this so called sport called cross country running. As I watched this movie I thought to myself “running? A sport? Wow I learn something new everyday”. After the movie Mr. Penna-Ward handed out a sign up sheet for people who were interested in the sport and would like to get a call during the summer for when they enter high school. I thought “what the heck, it kind of looked like fun, everybody was just hanging out, and I’ll just sign up it can’t hurt, plus I’m already playing travel soccer and I don’t really want to play soccer in high school too”. So I signed up and my freshman year captain, Lauren, called me over the summer to attend captain practices. I attended captain practices along with regular practices. My coach, Coach Barber, would have me run with the other freshmen and the slower group. I trained and trained and ran and ran preparing for our first race. Race day finally came and I didn’t know what to expect or what to do I just planned on running. Our first race was held at Mount Greylock. These girls were known in our county as being undefeatable although I didn’t know it at the time. The time came for the race to start and I didn’t know how fast to start, who to run with, anything I was pretty clueless. The race ended and I didn’t bother looking at results like everyone else I just basically figured I am a freshman it’s not going to matter. I found out later I came in 15th out of close to a hundred girls. I got my name in the paper and got my Taconic Cross Country Top Five 2003 shirt, for placing in the top five of my team. My whole freshman year I kept on being naïve not really knowing that I wasn’t actually that bad at running. I kept hearing talk of a letter even though I had no idea what that was. I was actually planning on playing soccer for my school my sophomore year. So I kept racing and I kept coming in the top twenty of every race. I managed to keep Becky (my other captain, Lauren was completely out of sight) in sight and switched on and off with my place with Colette (a girl two grades ahead of me). Finally the Berkshire County Individuals race came around and I was part of the varsity team. It was a fast race and I was competing with some of the best in the county. The top fifteen got medals and got called up by their names in front of everyone. Although I did not get in the top fifteen I got nineteenth place and that was good enough for me. I also made the varsity team that would be competing at Western Mass. My freshman season of cross country exceeded my expectations of the sport. In the end I found out what lettering meant.
My sophomore season of cross country I ran. I did not end up playing soccer. I never really regretted this decision because cross country taught me a lot and I also got a lot of attention and recognition that I would not have received from playing soccer. My sophomore year I came back more competitive. I only fell in the top twenty once or twice. Most of my races were in the top ten. I remember this one race. It was held at Hoosuc Valley. Throughout the whole race I was pretty much neck and neck with this one girl. We kept switching on and off with a lead through the whole race. As we were coming to the end she was still in front of me. Out of nowhere I came from behind her passed her and blew her away as I heard her say “nooooo!” as I had just beat her. Once again I earned my letter this season. My school and Greylock were pretty much even towards the end of the season. We beat them once and they beat us at individuals. We were the first team to be co county champs with Mount Greylock. The only difference with this individuals was that the top twenty got medals and called up. This season I got seventeenth place and earned my medal along with qualifying for Western Mass.
It was my junior season when things started to take a turn. Over the summer I ran a lot I trained with guys so I would be faster. The season started out better than my freshman year and better than my sophomore year. I was even more competitive and I was ready to rock the girls in Berkshire County. No problem. So I thought. All I had to do was place at least in the top five of every race. I was doing a pretty good job at it too. My most memorable race was held at a campground almost an hour away from my school. It was against the dreaded Greylock. I was more prepared for this race than my very first one or any other. I ate right all day, I hydrated, I got a good night sleep, I warmed up, I had spikes, and I was mentally prepared. I was ready to go. I started this race out with maybe a girl or two ahead of me. The problem came when I entered the woods loop and twisted my ankle on a rock going down. I started limping but kept running as I watched some girls run past me. Finally after one I decided I wasn’t going to take it and blocked out the pain. I picked myself up and found myself head to head at it with about 4 greylock girls on my butt in the very end of my race. One passed, I couldn’t run any faster. The next one I saw out of the corner of my eye and like a switch I was out, beat every one of them and came in sixth place. I wish I could say that race was the only negative part of the season but it wasn’t. I slowly started getting worse and I couldn’t understand why. I had this pain in my leg but chose to throw some tiger balm on it and call it a day. After I blew my race at individuals I decided to see a doctor before Western Mass. I started to cry as he told me I had a stress fracture in my left femur and I could not compete. I still got my varsity letter that season and did not run for the next 3 months after that.
My senior season had to probably be the hardest for me. I was captain and you bet I lived up to it. I did not miss a practice once. I held all of the captains practices. All summer I ran about at least an hour a day. I trained, I raced, I timed myself, and I conquered my weakness, hills. With all this running I thought I would go back into the season and pick up where I left off only better. I was dead wrong. I picked up from where I blew my race away at individuals. I could not recover from that stress fracture. I could not bounce back. The only race I really ran was my last race at Taconic. It was painful and humiliating. I can’t think of a worse feeling than knowing what you could be and were. It’s an awful feeling having nobody know your name anymore and seeing others that you beat before doing what you could once do. I did not letter this season. I did not compete at Western Mass. I was a nobody.
As I look at this scrapbook I can reflect on many things. I see not only my many accomplishments but my failures as well. I am the person I am today because of cross country. It introduced me to many new people and experiences. I learned who I was through this sport. I am not only a student, a friend, a daughter, an employee. I am now a runner, an athlete.
4 comments:
While reading this essay I could feel the emotion that it takes to be a cross country runner. The amount of dedication and effort that you have to put into running is very difficult and its great that you can dedicate yourself to that extreme. I think this is a very well written essay and you put a great amount of detail in it and you could feel exactly how you were feeling.
this was intense. i have more respect for the XC runners ino now fureal. while practicing i always seen them running around the woods and it just seemed chill. but now i seen the intesity behind it and i respect that. and how much heart u put into training is comendable. i like when u said how the girl yelled nooo! when u passed i thought that were funny. good writing i got into it very well.
Sentence One – The first sentence of any essay needs to grab the specific reader’s attention. The last part of the sentence is too general or vague, especially if you don’t follow it with another sentence that provides much more specific or concrete details.
Sentence Two – Why does your audience need to know this information, and how do we know it is your senior year in high school versus your senior year in college?
Sentence Three – Make sure your pronoun referents are clear. How do we know ‘she’ refers to your teacher? Also, you end with the pronoun ‘it’, but again…I’m not sure what ‘it’ refers to.
Sentence Four –You have a talent for putting together three items in a list that follow parallel structure. Very good, but don’t overdo it.
Sentence Five – “I covered many topics; they varied from my childhood to my future goals to pictures of any and everything to probably the most influential and important part of my life: cross country running.” You demonstrate a partial understanding of when to use comas, semi-colons and colons…but there are commas missing between the ‘to…’ phrases.
Sentence Six – You don’t usually put quotations around thoughts. Look up how to write a series of question phrases in a row. Also, I wonder how much you need the first five sentences. This isn’t an essay about your scrap book, this is an essay about cross country running. That should be your focus, the scrap book stuff is just part of your process work to help you come up with ideas for writing. In your last paragraph you write the sentence: “I am the person I am today because of cross country.” This is your thesis and theme and should be explored, developed, and supported through your essay.
Sentence: “After the movie Mr. Penna-Ward handed out a sign up sheet for people who were interested in the sport and would like to get a call during the summer for when they enter high school.” – This is an example of a sentence that could be much more concise and clear. Give us the experience of you seeing the movie in this class – what did you see, how did it make you feel, why did you decide at that moment to sign up for the sport? Use the movie and the feelings before and after the movie to set up your introduction and your thesis.
Some other tips:
1. Write in simple past tense when you are writing about this event.
2. Use the movie to set up the introduction & then figure out how to demonstrate how cross country is a sport that formed who you are. But you also need to figure out how this could resonate with other people, with a larger audience. Is there something even more important about this sport – it made you who you are, great, but what else? Try to answer the question ‘so what’ for your audience somewhere in your conclusion.
3. Look at how published essays narrate events through time. They aren’t in one big paragraph and all of the details are not the same. There is a purpose to the story, not just a flat listing of information. Your essay should begin with the movie and then the bulk of it should cover the build up to the big race where you came in 15th…then give us the race, how you felt, your heart beating, the sweat, how you paced yourself, what you thought about…let us experience cross country, let us experience the peaks and valleys of this race…then come to the end and try to let the essay climax. Bring this entire experience to life. Right now it is too flat. The word choices are too vague, too general. I want to feel like I just went through a race after reading your essay, and then I want you to show and tell us not only how it made you who you are, but why this is important for us to read. Good luck.
When I was reading this essay I was able to understand what it took to be a cross country runner. I never did cross country I only did outdoor and indoor track. Doing cross country takes just as much effort and skill as track does. The essay also seemed to flow very well. The words help bring the paper to life.
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