Finish Through the Line by Brennan

Finish Through the Line by Brennan - July 2016 Scholarship Essay

"Finish through the line!" yelled Coach Frank as I completed the last lap of eight 1000 meter repeats. When I started running cross-country during my freshman year of high school, even the warm-up runs exhausted me. I then decided to set a goal for reducing my race time by one minute every season. At the start of my freshman year I held a thundering, blazingly fast 5k time of 20:13. That was a full five minutes slower than the fastest person on our team. I would often watch in awe as our top group of runners charged up hills passing my little group of freshman. On the cool down, jogging down the hill, they chatted and joked with each other while my friends and I shuffled down the hill with infinite stares in our eyes while gasping for breath. I often pondered the idea of dropping out of workouts or quitting cross country altogether. However, in terms of workouts at least, dropping out was only a temporary solution to a permanent problem.
Mr. Frank reinforced this lesson not only as my cross country coach but also as my Honors Geo-Trig teacher. His Geometry-Trigonometry class was one of the most feared in school due to the heaps of homework and grueling tests. I initially followed suit of many of my friends by chatting with them after only a meager attempt at the day’s batch of homework. When the first test came around, I became increasingly worried as I flipped back through the growing pages of seemingly endless notes in my binder. The week before the test I spent almost all my free time studying, preparing for the battle to come. The day of the test came and soon my results along with it. The pages revealed the many forgotten lessons and nuances in the form of war-torn pages painted red in the blood of my teacher’s pen. The hours of work outside the classroom had helped me squeak out a B-, far below my goal of an A. At practice later that day I heard Coach Frank shouting at a group of our runners who seemed magnetized by the water fountains off the edge of the track. “If you are here, you might as well be working.” I chuckled as they scurried back to the rest of their group; however, their situation was more similar to mine than I would have liked to think. I was running away from my homework just as they were running away from the act of running itself.
I made a resolution to finish my homework before I started talking with my buddies in class. At first they gave me strange looks, but soon they accepted it. As our final came around I felt far more confident, my arsenal was stocked, and I was ready for war. My friend Brad recruited me to help him study up for the final. When we delved into depths of Brad’s notes, he quickly found many gaps which turned into a barrage of questions for me. Luckily, I was able to respond with helpful answers for almost all his questions. He asked me how I knew seemingly random methods and answers, and thankfully, I responded that “I just picked them up along the way.” Needless to say when that final came back, it was as white as my face as I stared at a small black 100% at the top of the page. Each year as I trained more intensively, I discovered an oxymoron: working harder was easier than just floating along. When I began training earlier in the summer season, longer runs no longer caused me to quiver at their mere mention. Though long runs were still challenging, I began to experience the delight of discipline and exertion. Thanks to Mr. Frank, I have found that better preparation applies to almost every aspect of life, and delight in discipline helps strengthen my resolve in all my activities, whether academic or extracurricular.