Claire Pace

My name is Claire Pace. I am eighteen years old and I am from Charlotte, North Carolina. I was born in Richmond, Virginia, however, because my family moved around a lot. By the time I was eight, I had already lived in four different cities and eight new homes. My mom was born in Morocco, Africa, and she moved more times than she could count by the time she was thirteen so she was pretty used to it as well. For the most part of my life, I've grown up in Charlotte, but now my parents are moving yet again to Columbus, Georgia, for my dad's new job with Aflec.

I have a little brother, Jack, who is fifteen months younger than me and we are incredibly close. We rarely fight and talk almost every day since he is away at boarding school. I also have two dogs, Mac and Nick, who are the loudest dogs you will ever meet. Seriously, our neighbors want to kill them almost every day. I am really close with my family and we like to do a lot of fun things together. Our favorite thing to do is travel so we make sure to do big trips every year. My favorite vacations have been when we went sailing three years in a row in Belize, the British Virgin Islands, and St. Martins.

In high school, I played a lot of different sports. In fact, I participated on five Varsity sports teams throughout my high school career. I began freshman year playing field hockey, swimming, and soccer. Field hockey and soccer were all right, but swimming was a complete nightmare. I can recall waking up miserable every morning for three months straight, dreading the grueling swim practice that was to take place that afternoon. Needless to say, I gave up swimming after that. Junior year, I decided to take up track instead of soccer and it was one of the best decisions I ever made. My team actually ended up winning a State Championship and I realized that running was something I was good at doing. I loved running so much that I took up cross-country instead of field hockey in the fall. I fell in love with the sport and quickly earned the fifth best spot on the team. I am really glad I joined the cross-country team and figured out how much I love running because now I run every single day that I can because I find it to be the biggest stress reliever.

One of my favorite things to do is go shopping. I know, I know, it sounds stuck-up and spoiled but it is something I highly enjoy doing. It is a great way to spend time with my friends.