I'm a big track guy, and we had this one really difficult practice that changed my whole perspective on the meaning of team and how to surmount challenges. I'm usually confident about what I write but I'm not sure if this is any good.
3 Issues: 1. This is one whale of an essay Is it too long?
2. Am i making too big a deal out of what seems like an insignificant experience
3. Do i spent too much time on irrelevant stuff?
Please be Merciless
(this is the 1st draft too, so feel free to point out grammatical stuff )
"An Extended Complaint"
A motley menagerie of dark UnderArmour, black spandex long-johns, goofy hats, and bloated gloves, we milled like cattle around the track's 200 meter mark, anticipating our coach's arrival. We were the "A Group", ten or so members of the CB South Indoor Track and Field team that ran just a few seconds faster than the others. Composed of seasoned seniors, enthusiastic juniors, and a few swift sophomores our herd skipped, hopped and darted around, warming muscles and ligaments in the wintry breeze. Some leaned on trash cans swinging their legs like pendulums, a few ran in place puffing out loud breaths of air every third step, while others lay on the ground, stretching hamstrings and quads. I, a junior captain, a leader in waiting, leaned alone against the chain-link fence surrounding the track, extending my hip-flexor, musing on the scene. It was the midst of winter, acknowledged by science to be the Southern Solstice, the shortest day of the year. Winter's frigid embrace had covered the landscape, save for the plow-cleared parking lot and the coil-heated track, in a foot-deep quilt of snow. I imagined that from the air the track must have looked awkward, almost exceptionally unnatural, a bloody, crimson ellipse of tar embedded into an otherwise flawless white sheet. I turned around, to notice our coach, Mr. Gable, approaching from the locker room. Looking bulbous in his oversized North Face coat, he walked with all the serenity of a veteran executioner, edging closer with each passing second. Upon his arrival, Coach Gable instructed us as to the specifics of the practice. It was to be a difficult routine of fourteen long sprints, a workout of barbaric intensity, one that would exhaust our muscles and deplete our minds. My heart sank, and anticipation of the coming holiday, thoughts of family, gifts and warm food, were suddenly swept away by the howling December wind, replaced by replays of 300 meter races. The routine sounded impossible; surely, I thought, there was no way I, or any member of the group, could finish it.
Groans sounded and profanities were voiced as we jogged back 100 meters to the starting mark of our first 3 sprints. I watched the bundled-up man trudge across the snow to the finish line, stopwatch in hand, and readied myself for the trials to come. At the drop of his arm, I was off running, the rhythmic clacking of spikes and heavy breathing becoming a cocoon of sound around me. I rounded the turn, and digging deep, crossed the finish line near the front of the pack. Heavily winded, I walked back to the starting line to rinse and repeat. Around the completion of the fifth sprint, the workout began to take its toll. A searing burn surfaced in my upper legs, and my arms began to feel leaden beneath the black turtleneck. Yet, these aches were signs of progress, of completed work, and every time I would instinctively drop to the ground, exhausted and gasping, after completing one of the runs, a teammate would be there to pick me up. If a similar thing happened to Jimmy, or Derek, or Tyler two sprints later, I would certainly be there to return the favor. Even as the sun set and temperatures dropped even deeper below freezing, our enthusiasm and determination never wavered. Had we been individuals, solo runners training alone for personal gain, we would have surely failed, fallen victim to the cold and dark, but we dug deeper, clinging to every stale cliché we had ever heard about overcoming challenges, and united as a team, bonded in a time of hardship.
I began to find beauty in the discomfort of the day, a silver lining in the difficulty of the routine, as the brutality of the weather and intensity of the workout had brought a group of individual athletes, competing in a mostly individual driven sport, together as one. As we jokingly compared ourselves, in between gasps, to members of Washington's army at Valley Forge, or Russians braving the bitter winter at Stalingrad, it occurred to me that we were, no matter how indirectly, engaged in a savage war, an ongoing conflict between body and mind. No matter how fit, conditioned or trained one is, mentally or physically, he must always find a way to overcome the complaints of one or the other, the blinding headaches, the bloody taste of iron, the searing pain of lactic acid constricting and stiffening muscle, were all simply indications of mental weakness, signs of an improper state of mind. I finished the workout that day, all of us did. We fought back the desire to expel our lunches, and found within ourselves and each other warmth that not even the glacial winter could drain. As I rounded the home stretch on the last sprint, a relatively short one of only 90 meters, the heavy breaths had been replaced by animalistic grunts and half-screams, primal, prehistoric noises of survival, not just exertion. Knowing full well we were finished, we didn't slow, we sprinted even farther than we had to, not stopping till we had reached the warmth of the locker room.
Lying spread-eagled on a synthetic wooden bench, soaking up the warmth of the indoors, I ran over in my head the wintry-blur of the previous two hours. From that day foreword, track was forever transformed, going from a competitive time-killer to a full blown passion. A deep sense of team had been branded into me, branded into all who ran at that practice, for no bonds are stronger than those formed in times of hardship, but a deeper sentiment had been instilled as well, a sort of second wind, a reserve of energy and hope that I had previously lacked. This reserve is a vague thing, stuff of a primordial nature, its use not limited to athletics. It's a feeling I've called on numerous times since, to find the right word when writer's block sets in, to conquer those two tough questions on the end of a test, to gather my composure during a lunch-rush at work, to clear that last hurdle 10 meters from the finish line. It's my secret weapon against challenge or diversity of any shape or size; it's a quiet confidence, a vigilant fallback. I've lived an easy life up to this point, with a happy family, plenty of friends and a good community, but I feel that when it comes time to face the grimmest of challenges, the truest, most monumental tests of character, I will be ready for anything, all thanks to that one blustery day on the track.
I'm aware that this bastard is huge, I just want to thank you in advance for taking the time to read it and offer feedback.
