I have been on the track my entire life, and a big reason for that is my dad, who was a track & field athlete in college. My brother, sister, and I were competing in Pee Wee Runs as soon as we could walk, and before that, we were getting pushed in a stroller. It has definitely been a unique experience, but I am grateful to have grown up with my siblings, competing in our summer series track meets every year until we were finally old enough to participate through the school. At such a young age, my siblings and I started off with a variety in events, as we would participate in anything from the 50 and 100m dash to the 400 and even to long jump and softball throw. Over the years my parents have kept all of my ribbons and home videos of all of our track meets growing up, which we can all bond over and love to look at.
I first started competing for my school as a 6th grader in cross country. I continued to run cross country for my middle school all the way through 8th grade, and each year I became more competitive, with my 8th-grade year being my strongest. I also ran track for my school starting in 7th grade. I competed in triple jump my 7th-grade year, but decided that 8th-grade year I would only focus on the 800 and mile, my two strongest events. (My PRs in those events being 6:17 and 2:52). Going into the cross country season my freshman year of high school, I put in a lot of work over the summer and saw huge improvements from middle school, but was only able to race three races before suffering from a stress fracture. The second of those three races was my season-best at the First to the Finish Invitational, where I ran a time of 21:31. I also noticed improvements in track my freshman year as I got my mile time down to 6:08 and my 800 shaved off to 2:39. My sophomore year overall, wasn't the cross country season I was looking for, but I managed to run a season-best of 21:16 at the IHSA Class 2A Decatur MacArthur Sectional, where my team placed 7th out of 17 teams. Sadly, my sophomore season of track was cancelled due to COVID, but I continued to train over that time and was prepared just in case we got the chance to compete. My junior year of cross country I placed 18th overall at the Triad Invitational with a time of 21:47 and 74th in the IHSA Class 2A Olney Sectional where I ran a time of 21:44 and my team placed 7th, qualifying for state. Sadly the state meet was cancelled, but I got in a 1600m time trial at the end of the season where I was able to run a new best of 5:59.
As I move forward into my junior year of track and senior year of cross country, my goals are to become stronger and more competitive for every event I participate in. I am excited to see what the upcoming year will hold and I am grateful to have the opportunity to compete since we were not granted the opportunity last year.
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