While I was growing up sports were a major part of my life. During my childhood I competed in a variety of sports including, baseball, soccer, taekwondo, and football. A problem I faced with all of these sports was that I wasn’t very good at them, and I wasn’t very welcomed by many of my teammates because of this. It wasn’t until my freshmen year of high school that I started running track and finally found a sport that I truly loved.

When I first started running, I wasn’t all that great at it, however, my teammates didn’t give up on me. They consistently gave me advice on things like correcting my form, healthy eating habits, and how to pace myself throughout my races. It wasn’t long before I started seeing significant improvement in my times and I even managed to letter by the end of the season. After my freshmen season of track, I decided to run cross country and running quickly became a focal point of my everyday life. I even managed to receive All-County honors by my senior year.

Running did more for me than just giving me something to do or keeping me in shape. It taught me an incredibly valuable lesson that in life it’s important to surround myself with people who support and believe in me, because they give me the confidence to believe in myself.