In the beginning of the year, my dad and I made a deal that I would play at least one sport this year. I absolutely was against doing a sport except for the summer swim team. In 8th grade, I ran track at Holmes. I liked it-I guess- but it was more of a social activity for me. Hmmm, I thought.. If I have to pick one sport at school, I would pick track so I might as well just at least try it. Track is one of the only sports that I'm some what good at. Like track easy, it is just easy running- or so I thought- that is, until March 15th. On March 15th, the track season started. Well I expected the first day of practice to be just like an informational meeting just like Holmes was. WOW. Was I wrong. The first thing Graham said to us was "I'm leaving in 15 minutes; so go run a mile then get down here-the first day was inside- in 12 minutes." So that was easy. My mile time is a lot less then 12 minutes so that was not a problem. After this, we just ran, and ran, and ran. By the time I got home, I felt dead. I just wanted to sleep. I didn't think that I would be able to take a whole season of this. Little did I know, that first day was probably one of the easiest days. So the first few days of track were outside. During the first few days, the weather was gorgeous! Not to hot, not to cold, it was basically the ideal running weather! That weather didn't last long though. The first cold day really shocked everyone. We had been warned to bring warm clothes, just in case it got cold. I came somewhat prepared. I had brought a pair of old yoga pants, a long sleeve shirt adn my Columbia coat. Probably not the warmest choice but I was better off then some of the other girls. If I had extra, I definately would've shared my warm clothes. Along with it being cold weather, it was a freezing rain. This rain had everyone soaked within minutes. Running in that rain felt like one of those bad dreams; the dream where you keep running but you can't see at all. Yeah, thats how it was running. The icy cold rain stung my face as we ran mile after mile. I somehow made it through that horrible practice but I must say, after that, it made me nervous for what future weather will be. I didn't realize how different Stevenson track was from Holmes. At Holmes we had practice Monday through Wednesday, and Fridays. We NEVER had Thursday practices and ocasionally we didn't have Friday practices. And practices are so much harder this year. Last year, I never did anything at practice. I mean, yeah I showed up but I only did high jump. The reason why I did high jump was so I didn't have to run as much. After a whole season last year of practicing high jump daily, I have became somewhat decent at it. Today as I walked to the outdoor locker room, Bridget came up to me and told me that my name was on the high jump list for the up coming meet at Franklin. WHAT?! ME? Oh gosh. I cannot even describe the thoughts going through my mind when I heard that. How in the world would Graham know I could high jump..? Aha! I thought, I remeber. Last Friday I was just fooling around during practice, and decided to just try and see if I could still do it. Well I could and Graham obviously saw me. So almost the whole practice today, I worked on my high jumping. The thing is, I can get over the bar just as long as I don't think, but the second I start to think about what I'm actually doing, I freak out and can't get over. It makes it really difficult. Right now as I'm writing this, my knees and elbows are skinned from landing wrong on the mat. And my god it hurts- so bad. On the very first day, I was determined to get my varsity letter. Now, I would of course love to get my letter but I'm just concerned about getting through this season. As long as the weather stays nice and I can improve my jumping, I think I will be fine.
