Caffni
Dec 30, 2010
Undergraduate / "What I talk about when I talk about running" common app main essay [2]
2 day left..God I am so tense.. somebody help me out.
Any critics are welcome! I know there must be so many grammar mistakes. But I got really mess in my heard after just finishing writing this.
"What I talk about when I talk about running"
"No matter how mundane some action might appear, keep at it long enough and it becomes a contemplative, even meditative act." --- Haruki Murakami
What I talk about when I talk about running? I am a perfect 100 meters sprinter, but I learn more from the 200 meters sprint which I am not really physically suitable while still be considered a giant in the field. In the past 9 years, in far more than four thousand times 200 meter I had run, I saw some analogies between life and the length of the half stadium. I can recapture everything I learn within the length every single 200 meter sprint I ran.
I started training as a 200 meter sprinter merely because it is a waste of quota for a sprint athlete who is not versatile enough to attend the sports meeting. I reach my extreme point at around 30 meters pass the curve, which is not that common since most of my teammates don't even feel tired after a 200 meter sprint while I got exhausted. It might due to the serious asthma I had in my early age, and I can do nothing to change. When I first started training 200 meters at third grade, I always could not help to slow down or even stop at around half of the home straight. My coach got really angry, and thought my attitude was flippant and warned me if I kept running like that he would expel me from the track and field team. Some of my friends suggested me to run slower at the curve. But slow result would also give me a dismissal; I was at only that the trial
So I decided to bite the bullet. Once I opened my mouth and gripped the bullet with my teeth, I held for almost ten year.
It was just all pure mechanical persistence. Wanted to stay at the team? Pass the finishing line as fast as you can. No matter how fast my heart pounded, how frequent my legs shake or how much I wanted to slow down, I just kept running. When I recall the original thoughts nowadays, I laugh at myself: How naïve I was. Maybe I just want an extension for my homework or travel to other place to attend the game. But I am forever grateful for no matter what reason I stay and made my both strong mentally and physically. Although I learnt many so-called techniques and trick afterward, I still firmly believe that in every sport, in anything, "Victory belongs to the most persevering".
In fact, seven out of ten times in the races or practices I would fall down right after the finishing line because I cannot keep up standing. Thus whether fall down after the finishing line sometimes became the criterion for my performance in my mind. Peers joke at me that I use trick in order to obtain better result or dramatizing the race, as I always stood up quickly with a smile. But what they didn't notice is that I always wore splints, knee pad and elbow pads whenever I ran 200 meters.
Some quote saying that "life is not a sprint; it's a marathon". I agree with the first half, but cannot agree with the second half. Yes, life is definitely not A sprint neither A marathon. It is an endless marathon consists of countless sprints, in specific 200 meters, at least for me. I have to sprint every 200 meters sprint within my life as hard as fast as I could. Because: I enjoy the passion like speed in sprint brings me; the realistic and absolute feeling of every step I take in my life like the strong friction between my spiked and rub; the joy of little success like every time I cross the finishing line; the sense of achievement like I enter the home straight and realize that I was in far front; the rush of adrenalin like the fluster inside me when my competitor is parallel to me in home straight, even if they win me at last. Most importantly, it teaches me to persevering.
2 day left..God I am so tense.. somebody help me out.
Any critics are welcome! I know there must be so many grammar mistakes. But I got really mess in my heard after just finishing writing this.
"What I talk about when I talk about running"
"No matter how mundane some action might appear, keep at it long enough and it becomes a contemplative, even meditative act." --- Haruki Murakami
What I talk about when I talk about running? I am a perfect 100 meters sprinter, but I learn more from the 200 meters sprint which I am not really physically suitable while still be considered a giant in the field. In the past 9 years, in far more than four thousand times 200 meter I had run, I saw some analogies between life and the length of the half stadium. I can recapture everything I learn within the length every single 200 meter sprint I ran.
I started training as a 200 meter sprinter merely because it is a waste of quota for a sprint athlete who is not versatile enough to attend the sports meeting. I reach my extreme point at around 30 meters pass the curve, which is not that common since most of my teammates don't even feel tired after a 200 meter sprint while I got exhausted. It might due to the serious asthma I had in my early age, and I can do nothing to change. When I first started training 200 meters at third grade, I always could not help to slow down or even stop at around half of the home straight. My coach got really angry, and thought my attitude was flippant and warned me if I kept running like that he would expel me from the track and field team. Some of my friends suggested me to run slower at the curve. But slow result would also give me a dismissal; I was at only that the trial
So I decided to bite the bullet. Once I opened my mouth and gripped the bullet with my teeth, I held for almost ten year.
It was just all pure mechanical persistence. Wanted to stay at the team? Pass the finishing line as fast as you can. No matter how fast my heart pounded, how frequent my legs shake or how much I wanted to slow down, I just kept running. When I recall the original thoughts nowadays, I laugh at myself: How naïve I was. Maybe I just want an extension for my homework or travel to other place to attend the game. But I am forever grateful for no matter what reason I stay and made my both strong mentally and physically. Although I learnt many so-called techniques and trick afterward, I still firmly believe that in every sport, in anything, "Victory belongs to the most persevering".
In fact, seven out of ten times in the races or practices I would fall down right after the finishing line because I cannot keep up standing. Thus whether fall down after the finishing line sometimes became the criterion for my performance in my mind. Peers joke at me that I use trick in order to obtain better result or dramatizing the race, as I always stood up quickly with a smile. But what they didn't notice is that I always wore splints, knee pad and elbow pads whenever I ran 200 meters.
Some quote saying that "life is not a sprint; it's a marathon". I agree with the first half, but cannot agree with the second half. Yes, life is definitely not A sprint neither A marathon. It is an endless marathon consists of countless sprints, in specific 200 meters, at least for me. I have to sprint every 200 meters sprint within my life as hard as fast as I could. Because: I enjoy the passion like speed in sprint brings me; the realistic and absolute feeling of every step I take in my life like the strong friction between my spiked and rub; the joy of little success like every time I cross the finishing line; the sense of achievement like I enter the home straight and realize that I was in far front; the rush of adrenalin like the fluster inside me when my competitor is parallel to me in home straight, even if they win me at last. Most importantly, it teaches me to persevering.