The Race
could not sleep, I tossed and turned all through the night, all I knew was that the last time I
looked at the clock it was 4:30 in the morning. I awoke five minutes to seven, by a constant
annoying chirp, ( my alarm ). I couldn't believe it, I had five minutes to get ready and get out the
door. "How long had my alarm been going off?" I thought, wait no time to think. I leaped from my
bed, threw off my pajamas and threw into my Cross Country attire. Then I frantically ran around the
house grabing everything I needed and the raced out my door with a brush, a scrunchy, and two
boston creme doughnuts. With twenty minutes left to get to the school, it was now 7:10, I sped
through town and finally reached my destination with five minutes to spare. I jumped from my car
and onto the bus. My team greeted me, and I found my seat.
I slept as much as possible during the one hour drive, but forced myself to get up when we reached the campus grounds. "Heartbreak Hill", they called it, and I was going to run up it that day. We were told by coach that the varsity teams had to warm-up, that was me. The warm-up consisted of a one mile run followed by several streches. It really was the perfect day to run, at least I thought so, the air was cool and crisp mixed with a drizzling rain. Still moving a bit, so as not to 'cool-down', we were told that the varstiy boys were about to start.
Everyone jogged over to the sidelines for a good look, when the whistle blew there was an uproar of cheers for everyone's home team. The guys ran hard at the start and were doing pretty well from my point of view. Then the team went to a spot past the end of the first mile, as the guys approached general outcries came from the other spectators such as: " Go Team!", and " Good Job". We tended to be more specific, with cheers like: " Keep it up Blake!", and "I want you to beat this guy Zach!", ( with pointing of course ). After everyone on our team passed I started to cheer for the people towards the very end shouting, "You can do it! Don't Stop!" . After all of those people were gone I went for the finish line just in time to see the first runner, followed by some other guy and Blake. " Sprint it out Blake! Sprint it out!", I screamed, " Come on! Come on!" Blake recieved second and Zach beat the guy, we later found out that the guys recieved first overall, due to one point.
Varsity girls were about to start, "This is it", I thought aloud. I never did eat those doughnuts, I thought I'd get sick, but which was worse, running on an empty stomach or throwing-up. Oh well, too late now. We got into the line two-by-two; Nicole, Stacy, Nicole, Danielle, myself, Amanda, and Megan. "O.K. you guys, lets have a prayer", said Stacy. We all gathered in a circle held hands, bent heads, and closed eyes, " You want to Stacy?" said Daniel, " Sure. Heavenly Father, please help us to do our best, that no one will get hurt, and please help us to keep going, Heavenly Father just be with us, in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen." " Amen", we all repeated. "All right", says Danielle, placing her hand in the middle, we do the same "Break it Down!" "Huh!", we get lower, "Break it down!" "Huh!", lower, "Break it down!" "Huh!", even lower, and then slowly rise yelling "GOOOoOOO EAGLES!" People stare at us, which is the point of doing it, and we return to our lines. Coach approaches, "all right ladies lets get it done", he sticks out his fist and we all do the traditional pounding, down, up, and together. Then he turns to me, "Melissa, I need you to run this thing, your number five on the team and we need you to run hard today, all right?" "O.K. coach"
"O.K. runners", says some man with a megaphone, " the trails marked...." my mind drifted and I thought about what I had to do today, run hard, I had to help the other four runners out today. I focused again, "...I'll say runners mark and then the whistle will blow, if you hear it again before you reach that tree, come back and we'll start over. Runners mark.........Tweet!"
My heart jumped, and my feet with it, I sprinted foreward, and as soon as we got to the tree I started to slow down to my race pace. There were shouts for South Lake behind me and I heard one voice very clearly, Coach, "Move up Melissa! Move up!" I pick up my pace a bit and slowly start passing people while maneuvering around corners and such, then, up ahead is the shady down hill road. I move around sharp corners, hop over trip twigs, and still try to pass a few people on the narrow path. A girl passes me, and the person directly in front of me, "I'll stay with her and if she walks, I'll pass her", I thought. It was a good goal to have since she was passing people. About that time, we broke out of the woods to a down hill slope and I sprinted passed the girl that was in front of me and a few people moved in front of me. As I got to the bottom they started to slow down, tempting as it was I knew I couldn't slow down, so I passed them through the weeds. I was back with the girl to keep up with, and I heard cheers ahead. The last time I was feeling bad in a race and motioned I was o.k. he told me to pass a few people, that was no good, so I decided to not do that this time. I put on a slightly exagerated face and let show how bad I really did feel inside. "How are you holdin' up Melissa?!", I gave him a thumbs down, " Dang it." he didn't swear of course, we were at a meet, but he didn't swear at practice either, maybe he didn't swear, oh well. I'd been affective, but I could tell he was worried. I was feeling kind of bad about my thumbs down so I sprinted past the girl I was supposed to keep up with in Coach's view, so he'd know I was doing o.k.
We were approaching the hill, when we got there I shortened my stride and picked up my speed. The hill went forever, I had to get up this hill and through this race without walking. So I kept going, finally, I arrived to a flat spot, but not for long, there was still a little more hill left. I moved up as quickly as possible and moved towards a water point, they handed a cup to me, I drank a bit of it then dumped the rest on my head. The water was ice cold! The sudden freeze made me surge foreward.
At that point I started going the same way as in the begining, through the woods, down the hill, and then I got near the croud again. "You can beat her!" said a shrill annoying voice, at which point a girl sprinted by me, "I'll catch her later." I thought. I got closer to "Heartbreak Hill", and I heard Coach yelling "Don't let that hill beat you Melissa! You beat that Hill!" I moved as fast as I could and got directly behind the girl whom had sprinted past me earlier, then we got to the flat part, and turned left, I moved past her, and began to sprint down the steep slope in front of me, ( it was just before the final stretch ). My team cheered and Blake's dad told me to hurry and kick it out. I thought he was telling me to catch the girl in front of me, which I was trying to do anyway, so I kept it up. I crossed the finish line, but didn't pass the girl, which was fine with me. They handed me a card that said 22, not bad for a race with over sixty runners, Coach thought so too, in fact, he thought it was great. I slowly went up to meet with my team mates, Blake's dad came over and congratulated me, "I thought she was going to catch you." he said. "There was someone behind me?" "Oh yeah, real close, but you can sure sprint at the end." "Thanks." My team congratulated me, I had done well.
