Sound cuts out as I stand on the spray-painted white line.
I swivel my neck left, then right, as I closely observe the hundreds of people on either side of me. Their uniforms make up nearly every color of the rainbow- yellow, blue, purple, red, and green. I take deep breaths as I do one last sprint out. In, out. In, out.
A sense of calm washes over me and I am suddenly not nervous at all. Captain, leader, point-scorer, role model. I need to leave it all out there.
We huddle together, making a big onyx gray blob, and I tell the team: “All your training has been working towards this since June. Leave it all out there today. This is the culmination of your hard work. And most of all, make sure you have fun. We got this!”. My voice booms like I am holding a megaphone as I yell out “Heart on three, heart on three, one two three, HEART!” We sprint back to the line, and I cannot stand still; I am as jittery as a child after a candy bar. “One minute warning ladies!” the announcer yells. All I can hear is the echo of my rhythmic heartbeat in my ears as I prepare to give everything to this course in Montgomery, New York.
BOOM!
The gun goes off. I’m smiling wide at several points over the next 3.72 miles. I know I’m having the best race of my life. My legs feel like I am running on a cloud. The scenery around me changes from a dusty path to a sunny, grassy field, to a gravel path. I hear the crunching of shoes by hundreds of feet, the rhythmic steps like music to my ears. Every mile gets faster than the last. When that finish line is in sight, I sprint like my life depends on it. Feet pounding the ground, I pass girl after girl until I cross the line and quickly come to a stop. Happiness overwhelms me as I throw myself into my parents’ arms. The floodgates open when I realize this is the last time I will feel this sense of euphoria, my last cross-country championship. Tears stream down my face as I tightly embrace my parents and best friends. I step away to soak it all in. It’s my last ever cross-country championship. “I did it”, I whisper to myself.
