Race Against Time by Emily

Race Against Time by Emily - December 2016 Scholarship Essay

Heart pounding wildly and legs shaking, I dragged myself over to the side of the track and collapsed. Gasping, I tried to get my breath back after sprinting two laps around the track. I had just run the first leg of the 4x800 and now all I could do was wait. I filled up a little plastic Dixie cup with chilled water from the bright orange Gatorade cooler at the end of the track, and cheered on my teammates as I chugged down the refreshing water, spilling some on my uniform as I yelled. It was my freshman year and I was competing in the regional track and field meet in the 4x800 relay for the chance to make it to the Florida High School Athletic Association Track and Field State Championship meet.
Let's back up a little. Our relay team was going to be running in the slower of the two heats for our race. I was the first leg of our relay team, followed by Sara, Yanisa, and Annette. Being in the slower heat, we knew we had to run as fast as we could because the teams with the four fastest times advance, regardless of which heat they were in. We were going to be running against the clock, not the other teams in our heat. As I walked up to the starting line, I glanced at my three teammates on the sidelines and my coach in the stands. I knew I had to run those two laps in under two minutes and thirty seconds to give our team a shot at making it to states.
I lined up with the eight other athletes who were representing their team in the first leg. With the shot of the gun, we were off! As I ran, I remember telling myself to just go as fast as I could and to give it all for two laps. (In my opinion, the 800 meter race is the hardest because it is not long enough to pace yourself, and it's short enough that you basically sprint the whole race.) After the first lap Coming down the last straightaway with my legs burning and feeling like lead, I tried to widen my stride to reach that skinny white line denoting the beginning of the passing lane as fast as I could. With legs wobbling like Jell-O, I prepared to hand the baton off to Sara. I had run as fast as I could. Now all I could do was cheer for my teammates and watch the clock tick away.
We finished our race in ten minutes flat, a new team best. We walked over to our school's tent and waited for the second, faster heat of the 4x800 to begin. When the gunshot sounded Annette started the clock on her watch so we could watch the fourth place team's progress and see if our time was going to be faster than theirs. Throughout the race we glanced down at the watch, up at the runners, down at the clock, up at the runners. By the third leg we weren't feeling too excited. The runner in fourth place was running hard and was considerably ahead of our time when they handed off the baton to their final runner. But when the fourth leg runner began her second lap, the last lap of the race, our optimism returned. She was running slower than our fourth leg had. Sitting anxiously on a picnic table, my team watch, transfixed, as she ran down the final stretch. I, on the other hand, had my face buried in the palm of my hands. The clock reached ten minutes I peeped at the track and the fourth team hadn't crossed the finish line yet. She didn't cross it until three seconds later, making their time 10:03 minutes and putting them in fifth place. It took a second for the realization to sink in. When we finally comprehended and digested that we had made it to states, we screamed and jumped on each other, hugging each other and the rest of our track team. Then we ran over to our coaches screaming, "We did it! We're going to states!" There were more hugs all around, and our head coach actually picked Sara up and spun her around as he confirmed that we had indeed made it to states!
Making it to states my freshman year is one of the school accomplishments I'm most proud of. As the lone freshman on a relay team with three seniors, I was super proud to be able to help them make it to states their senior year. It was also an incredible feeling to be able to represent my school as the only freshman to make it to the state track and field meet from our school. What I remember most clearly about placing fourth in regionals and making it to states was thinking, "Everything I've done up to this point: all the practices where I didn't think I could run one more step or almost had emotional breakdown, all the pain I endured, both physically and mentally while training, and all the times I wanted to quit...it was all worth it." I had accomplished what I had believed to be an unattainable goal. I made it to the FHSAA Track and Field State Championship my freshman year of high school