"This is for the kids that have been told they're not athletic"
This goes out to all the kids out there who have been told or have told themselves that they aren't athletic.
My freshman year of high school, I was dedicated to marching band, school, and theatre. I never even considered doing cross country, it seemed like the most horrible thing you could do to yourself. One of my friends from theatre told me that I should run cross country the next year, and at first I said hell no. But finally she convinced me, and I decided it would be a good way to stay fit since I wouldn't be in PE anymore.
Running did not come to me naturally, and my first day of practice was a bumpy ride on the struggle bus. I could barely finish a two mile run! I started out at the bottom of JV for our first meet and bounced around between C-team and JV for a month and a half or so. Then, at one fateful meet, I pulled a two and a half minute PR out of nowhere. I kept improving from there, and I started working harder in workouts and taking the sport more seriously. I got to run on our school's postseason team and finished as our #5 varsity runner. We didn't make it to state last year, but I was just happy to be on varsity.
This year I am pleased to report that this upward momentum has continued, and our team won our regional meet and qualified to state. This is the first time a girl's cross country team has won the regional meet from our school! At state, I finished 13th and medaled. I have improved another one and a half minutes from last season, and more importantly, everyone on our team has gotten faster.
If someone had told me in middle school that I would be on the varsity cross country team, I would have laughed in their face. I was an artsy kid whose worst subject was PE. I was never "athletic", and I told myself that I wasn't. Because I didn't have faith in myself, I almost didn't run cross country, and I never would have met my closest friends and new family.
It is possible to be an athletic geek. I still take advanced classes and play in the band along with xc. Don't let anyone discourage you from your athletic pursuits because you're smart or musical or whatever. You can be anything and everything you want to be.
- Anonymous
