Undergraduate / Cross-country running, "practice makes perfect" is not true - about myself [4]

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Personal Statement (Optional)

Please tell us something about yourself, your experiences, or activities that you believe would reflect positively on your ability to succeed at Penn State. This is your opportunity to tell us something about yourself that is not already reflected in your application or academic records. We suggest a limit of 500 words or fewer.

A burning sensation fills my lungs. My muscles are at the point of shutting down. Almost every voice in my head tells me to give up and surrender to the pain. But there is one voice that reminds me why I even got myself into this mess. It calls to attention that in this moment, like many other moments in life, I must overcome pain and struggle in order to achieve success and reward in the end. Thus cross country is beneficial to my life because it emphasizes hard work and effort in order to gain strength, the necessity of commitment, and pushing through struggles to gain success.

No matter how many people say it, the phrase "practice makes perfect" is not true; no one can achieve one hundred percent perfection in any area. However, the more practice a person performs, the closer they will come to perfection. During my cross country season this year, I practiced for approximately sixteen weeks. Throughout this time I performed an assortment of long runs, workouts, cross training, and weight lifting in order to build my strength for meets. I knew that if I did not put my utmost effort into practices, I would not build the core power I would need to accomplish my goals in my races. This is similar to the non-running world because a person must, no matter the subject he is applying himself to, gain strength through practice and multiple different contributions of hard work in order to gain success. Therefore this aspect of cross country reflects positively on my ability to succeed at Penn State because it shows that I know how to train myself and apply intense effort in order to achieve success in the end.

In order to achieve success in cross country running, a runner must be committed to the sport. The must be willing to sacrifice an immense amount of time for practices and meets. Also, a runner must be dedicated enough to not give up when the running gets painful or frustrating, And finally, runners must be able to put running as a priority and not risk hindering their performance with recreational activities like tackle football games with friends. Throughout my cross country seasons, I had to accept that I would have limited time for all of my out of school activities and schoolwork, for I would get home at 5:00 p.m. at the earliest every weekday, and that does not even include meets. There are always more average and bad races in my cross country season than good ones, but I never give up. Instead, I practice harder and apply myself as much as possible in order to be successful. This feature of cross country reflects positively on my ability to succeed at Penn State because it displays that I stay committed to everything I am involved in and do not give up no matter the hardship.

Most people believe that the hardest part about running is the physical pain. However, cross country running is just as much mentally difficult. During a race, a runner feels an intense amount of pain throughout their whole body. The mental toughness is an internal battle the runner faces where they must refuse to give in and continue to run through the pain. Since cross country races are much longer than a short sprint, runners need to be able to keep this mental strength the entire race. The runner must stay focused on their race the entire time and cannot let their mind wander for then their mental will may start to succumb to the pain. This parallels to my ability to succeed at Penn State because it illustrates how I have the ability to stay mentally focused and strong throughout all of my years at Penn State, and will not just start slacking off after a semester or two.

Running cross country in high school has taught me some very essential traits that will help me to be successful at Penn State. As I cross the finish line of my senior year, I look back on that race as a fantastic one and take what I learned from it with me. However, I immediately go for a warm down run and stretch because I know I have another big race coming up very soon. That big race is my freshman year of college.