"I will never falter. I'll stand my ground." The song, the mantra, the reverberates through my head as I run. I won't give up. One more hill ïjust up this hill and I'm done. I'm halfway up the hill, I'm halfway up. (do some math, calculate how long your stride is, do any approximate calculation about how many steps or how many seconds until you'll be done with the race). I see my mom at the top of the hill. Fifteen steps until I reach her. She yells to me, "Come on Beck! Charge this hill! Keep this pace! You'll break twenty-one minutes if you keep this up!"
...What does she mean keep this up? The race is almost over, I should start my finishing kick now. Wait. It CAN'T be. Twenty minutes...that's a 5K time. Coach Todd told me this was a girl's 2 mile.
It all sinks in. There's 1.1 miles left of this race. I can't believe this is happening. My legs, so heavy, are becoming the trees I'm running through; their roots want to keep me firm to the ground, to slow my pace and keep me from breaking through the forest to the finish line that awaits me. I pick my legs up higher, kick them faster to keep the roots from taking a hold in the cold ground. Unrelenting tears stream down my red windswept face.
I tell myself:Think about everything you've done, all that you've worked for this season. Every time you got up to run before school because you couldn't make it to cross country practice after school because of play rehearsal, student council,math league or juggling club. Every time you stayed late after practice to do core work when everyone else went home to take a hot shower and warm up. Every time you sat in lunch and scribbled notes about splits and times and course maps and how many seconds it would take to have a new personal record. All of that helps you now. You've done all you can, now just run. Don't think. Don't calculate. Just run.
I dig deep. I focus on the girl ahead of me. She's even more tired than I am; she doesn't want this as badly as I do. I push the pain out of my head, the negativity out of my head, and I run. If I can do this, if I can finish this race without giving in, without slowing down, without getting passed, I can do anything.
This is my second attempt at the Common App essay. Please, please give feedback. I feel like there's a lot of my personality that's not brought out in this...but maybe I can keep this and bring out my personality more in some of my supplements?
Thank you!
...What does she mean keep this up? The race is almost over, I should start my finishing kick now. Wait. It CAN'T be. Twenty minutes...that's a 5K time. Coach Todd told me this was a girl's 2 mile.
It all sinks in. There's 1.1 miles left of this race. I can't believe this is happening. My legs, so heavy, are becoming the trees I'm running through; their roots want to keep me firm to the ground, to slow my pace and keep me from breaking through the forest to the finish line that awaits me. I pick my legs up higher, kick them faster to keep the roots from taking a hold in the cold ground. Unrelenting tears stream down my red windswept face.
I tell myself:Think about everything you've done, all that you've worked for this season. Every time you got up to run before school because you couldn't make it to cross country practice after school because of play rehearsal, student council,math league or juggling club. Every time you stayed late after practice to do core work when everyone else went home to take a hot shower and warm up. Every time you sat in lunch and scribbled notes about splits and times and course maps and how many seconds it would take to have a new personal record. All of that helps you now. You've done all you can, now just run. Don't think. Don't calculate. Just run.
I dig deep. I focus on the girl ahead of me. She's even more tired than I am; she doesn't want this as badly as I do. I push the pain out of my head, the negativity out of my head, and I run. If I can do this, if I can finish this race without giving in, without slowing down, without getting passed, I can do anything.
This is my second attempt at the Common App essay. Please, please give feedback. I feel like there's a lot of my personality that's not brought out in this...but maybe I can keep this and bring out my personality more in some of my supplements?
Thank you!
