Being a track athlete throughout high school, there were four words that I always hated hearing my coach say, at practice: "get on the line." Now, if you have ever ran track, you know the agonizing pain that was about to happen because you had to run a full lap as fast as you could. There were also the practices that were so hard and so stressful that they left you wanting to crawl to your car. I always hated those practices; I despised them. I despised the pain of the breaths you tried to steal back once you were done running, the way your legs, along with the rest of the body, ached, and the way your heart would slam against your chest because you were crazy enough to put yourself through the workout. I always anticipated and dreamed of the day that I would never have to hear those words again.
That day has come.
I always knew once I left high school, I would miss the wonderful teammates that I spent all of my free time with--my family. I still think about the jokes that the fellow seniors and I had from spending the last four years together, I remember the bus rides where we all sang loudly as we traveled to meets, and most of all, I remember seeing their proud, cheering faces as I, or one of my other teammates, raced down the track toward the finish line. These are all obvious things that were missed.
This is what the biggest surprise was:
I miss hearing the words: "Get on the Line."
Now I know what you're probably thinking... "If it was that hard and that agonizing, why would you ever miss it?" Here is the thing, in high school there were a couple of key points that I failed to realize before it was too soon to love them.
1. Those hard practices where you wanted to give up, will shape you for the rest of your life. Love on those 400s. They will make you strong, they will make you courageous, they will make you fierce, and they will make you love the people around you that endured the run with you.
2. Don't underestimate the conditioning practices either. At our school, we were forced to run hallways around the building, along with running sprints inside the gym. Please don't underestimate these practices. Friendships are being formed, competition is playing out, and memories are being made. Cherish the time you run and sing with friends, cherish the moments that you are all in together when you have to lay on the gym floor, just cherish it all.
3. Never forget how much the coaches and teammates care for and respect you. Sometimes in the heat of the competition within your own team, it is easy to get caught up and lost through it all. Please, please... take a step back, look at the work your coaches put in, and stay friends with the girls and guys you are racing. In one year, two years, five years, or maybe even ten, you will look back and remember them, and think of all the moments that you will never get back.
So there it is, I miss my team, I miss running awful hallways, I miss the gym sprints, I miss my coaches, and through all the surprise and doubt I miss hearing get on that line.
