Dear me,
I know it’s hard to imagine right now, but one day, you will finish up a 9.5-mile run on a hot summer day. You’ll walk over to the track to stretch, and you’ll look at that empty black oval with some mixture of pride, disappointment, and nostalgia. You’ll take off your shoes, like you have done on that little patch of the track so many times before, and you’ll look at your feet – the feet that have taken you on quite the journey. You’ll remember the first time you ran four miles without stopping, when you hopped into Mom’s car after practice, sweaty and smiling, and exclaimed what you had done, thinking four miles was the ultimate distance. Right now, you have no idea that four miles will become an easy day, and a couple of years down the road, you will take on the real ultimate distance: 26.2 miles. You will finish with a smile on your face, and spend the next couple of years waiting until you can do it again. You’ll remember your first cross country race, your nerves consuming you to the point that you puked at the start line, but it’s okay, because you'll survive to run many, many more. As a matter of fact, you’ll go on to join the team in college, something you never thought you would do. But when you sit down and look at that track, at the massive hill in the background, the one you trained on so many times, you’ll be much wiser for all the miles you put in, and you will want to remind yourself of a few simple things:
Memories Mean More Than The Time On The Clock
Yes, you will be able to recall your PR in every distance you have ever run, some proudly and some not-so-proudly. Yes, you will continue to work to drop those times lower and lower and lower, sometimes succeeding and sometimes not. But the time it takes you to complete each race means so much less than what happened during that time. Appreciate that each day when you lace up your trainers, you aren’t just preparing to run, but you are also making memories. In the end, you will look more fondly on the fun you had joking with your teammates all week, sliding around in the mud or eating spaghetti dinners, than you will on the races you ran every Saturday.
Never Be Afraid To Go The Extra Mile
Okay, so this has never really been much of an issue, I know. The longer the run, the more you seem to enjoy it. But I don’t mean it in the literal sense here; I mean it in the cheesy-yet-motivating sense. Look at every workout as an opportunity. If you don’t step up to that line ready to give it your all, you might as well not step up to it. You only have so many years left of organized sports. Make them count.
Appreciate Your Teammates and Coaches
You’ll say this a few hundred times over the years, but that doesn’t make it any less true: Your running buddies will be your buddies for life. Take time to thank those friends that will wake up extra early on a weekend to train with you, or let you blab on about your boy drama for a solid eight miles. These will be the people you call first when you are home for the summer, the ones you will always want to see. Never take your teammates for granted, because there will be a day when you will no longer be part of a team. This day hasn’t happened yet, but it will. Most importantly, appreciate everything your coaches do for you. There is absolutely no way you would be where you are now if someone hadn’t invested their time, effort, wisdom, expertise, and heart into training you.
No Goals Are Out Of Reach
You can, and will, achieve (almost) all you set out to achieve, and more. So don’t be meek with goal setting. I know when you’re crying to your friend the first time you have to run the two mile, wondering if you’ll be able to finish, you will never believe this, but one day you’ll run a marathon, one day you’ll stand on the state podium with your team, one day you will make Academic All-Ohio – and one day, you’ll run for Wittenberg University. No, most of the time you are surely not the fastest girl in the room, and you will probably never be the fastest girl on the team, but you will achieve more than you ever dreamed you would. So get to dreaming, and don’t hold yourself back.
It’s been one heck of a journey we’ve had, and the scared-to-death freshman who joined the track team for a gym credit surely isn’t you anymore. You’ve outgrown her, outrun her, but you still see her ghost sometimes out on the track. Enjoy these occurrences, because the humble beginnings she created for you will make you a runner with heart, and when you run with your heart, you can run forever.
