It was mid race in Barbers Hill and I was in 12th place when I felt a sudden burst of energy. I used that energy to push myself to move up to 10th and held that until the last 400 meters, when I pushed myself and started moving up in positions. At 200 meters left, I had caught 9th place and there was a gap between 9th and 8th. I pushed myself harder to make up as much ground between the 8th place runner and me, and by the time I was right behind him, we had crossed the finish line.

Over the course of the past year, I have worked extremely hard to improve my cross country times and places. My plan began this past summer, when I started getting into shape. I ran practicing with a soccer ball and spent most of my days outside working on my touches and countless hours of running nonstop, back and forth. Eventually, I lost the soccer ball and started running longer amounts of times.

I had planned to try for Regionals this year, but as the season started and I saw how much better I had gotten in the summer, I changed my plan to work harder to try to make State either as a team or as a single runner. I have spent many extra hours of running to prepare myself for district and I have set goals and beat personal records this year. This year’s season seems to be a good year for all of us. I have set an example for our new freshmen to push themselves throughout the race.

At the same time, I push my entire team to better themselves. I also push junior Keiffer Reed to keep up with me and he pushes me to keep up with him. I have put many years into this moment of bettering myself and setting goals to finally accomplish my goals. As a junior, being able to see success is worth putting in all the effort I have over the years. I have been running since 7th grade and since then, I have dreamed of placing in the top 10 or to be up in the final places, and I have finally made that dream a reality.