The Beginning of the Cross Country Season

Every year I tell myself that I am going to run every day of the summer. I think to myself, I could be so much better if I just started running during the summer, instead of waiting for the first day of practice. But of course what do I do every summer? I sit around making excuses for myself as to why I can’t run. These excuses include but are not limited to: I’m too tired, I’m too busy, or I have other plans. This might be the case about 5% of the time, but the other 95% of the time the reason I don’t run during the summer is due to pure laziness. Practice starts at about 8 o’clock every morning, 7 days a week, all summer. Somehow, every summer I let just about all of these opportunities to run, pass me by. All the while the rest of the girls are on my team are getting faster, better, and stronger. Of course, I treated this summer, my third summer/year of being on the cross country team, the same as every other summer. I made up excuses all summer, until I had no excuses left, and cross country practice had officially started. This was about two weeks before school started. Just as I was expecting, the first week of practice was brutal, just like every year. I ran as hard as I could, but after sitting around all summer, there was no way to escape the problems I had created for myself, due to pure laziness. I have only had 3 meets this year, and so far I can’t even come close to any of my times I was hitting last year(my sophomore year) or the year before(my freshman year). I realize that’s still early in the season, and that I still have time to get my head on straight and run some good times. The only way I’m going to be able to do this though, is if I run as hard as I can every day at practice. It is so easy to get into the habit of settling for just being good. So many days at practice I think, I could run harder or I could just do the bare minimum of what I need to do to get by. Most often times I chose the second option, when I need to chose the first. Slowly though, I am changing my mind set. This morning we had practice at 8 o’clock and I did better than usual. We ran 5 miles and I challenged myself to run with some of the girls on varsity. I was able to stay with them for about the first 4.5 miles, only losing them on the last .5 miles of the run. I am still disappointed in myself for not working as hard as I could have over the summer, but I am optimistic when I realize that I can still make a turnaround if I keep up what I am doing and push as hard as I can to be the best I can be every day at practice.