Racing to Failure by Kaylin

Racing to Failure by Kaylin - February 2017 Scholarship Essay

The sound of the chatter as we got to the line.
The last minute “good lucks” and “you can do its”.
The silence that fell right before your heart started rushing, and then the gun goes off.
This was cross country.

Cross country was full of highs and lows. Some races known to be tough ones, you expected not to get your personal best. Others, you were expected to beat your previous times. One of these races was Worthington. I had trained all year, winter, spring and summer for this race. This was going to be the race I finally achieved my 3 year goal and broke 25 minutes. We all lined up and when the gun went off I took off too. My first mile was great, even faster than my goal time for the first mile, and as second mile came around I was right on track to achieve the goal I had so badly dreamed of. Then came the third mile. I could feel my breathe picking up, I could see my family, and feel the pressure of needing to achieve, and I panicked. I ended the race at 25:43. The weight of disappointment crushed me. I had failed my coaches, my teammates, my family who had driven an hour to see me, and most of all myself. This disappointment though empowered me. Instead of sulking over the fact that I didn’t break my time I worked even harder to get better times at the other races. Unfortunately there wasn’t another fast course to achieve my goal on, but I learned that sometimes your biggest disappointments can lead to your best achievements. In the next few races I drastically improved my times from the year before. Though not being able to break 25 was devastating it taught me how to push through disappointment and not to ever give up.