I wasn’t always just a runner. I played the great pastime sports of almost every boy’s childhood. I played baseball, football and I even wrestled at one point. However, once I started to get older and all the other kids started getting bigger, I just couldn’t really compete anymore. I lost all hope of pursuing athletics, but that was just the way I was built. I was the scrawny kid.
I was that seventy or eighty pounds of skin and bones. Five feet and a few inches. The one who prayed not to be picked last for the two-hand-touch football teams at recess. I was the kid that wasn’t strong enough to push the dummy sled at football practice. I was the kid who probably still needed a baseball tee in the seventh grade.
I was also the kid who was always at practice. I was taught to keep my head up, and I always try to. I was always ready to go on a moment’s notice for my team. I was ecstatic when my coach decided we were winning by enough points to put me in for two plays at the end of a game. Back then I didn’t care so much about winning, I just wanted to play something but I felt like I could be doing more, I just didn't know where I would best fit. I didn't feel true passion in any sport.
So where did I find it?
It really started in gym classes, running the mile for fitness testing. My gym teachers always encouraged and pushed me to run the mile without limits. I’d run it as fast as I could every week or so. From fourth grade on, I was always one of the top finishers for the gym-class-hero mile. It helped me stay fit for tee-ball and mini-league baseball and eventually, football.
In middle school, when teams started to have tryouts and varsity squads for sports like baseball and football, you guessed it, I didn’t make the baseball team. I still played football because it was walk on. Looking back, I wouldn’t even count it for much, I played for a whopping six plays on the junior varsity B-team in a whole season.
In the span of a year, I lost baseball and I decided to quit football after that season. I wrestled in the winter and did pretty well for myself, but I was almost too light for even the smallest weight class and got tossed like a rag-doll against stronger opponents. I talked to my friends, who were on several different teams. I told them, I couldn’t make the baseball team, I’d never play in football and I felt like I was too small to wrestle.
I asked, “What should I do?”
They told me something along the lines of, “Well, you’re one of the fastest runners in gym class, right?”
I knew I was a pretty fast kid, but I never really thought much of it.
“Why don’t you go out for the track team?” he suggested. “You’re already good at it.”
I didn’t even know there was a track team until then. I wasn’t too motivated to try a new sport, but after a little confidence boost from my friends, I decided to run for the track team in the spring.
I quickly realized I was one of the fastest runners on the team. I was also one of the better long distance runners too, which I owe to the greatest gym teachers I ever had. They trained me to run my whole life, I just never realized or thought it’d be useful. I turned out to be one of the fastest sprinters. I also ran the third fastest mile of all runners from the four middle schools in my district back then. I emerged as a leader on that team. Many years later, I became a captain of my high school track and cross country teams as well.
I fell in love with running. Running gave me the freedom of possibility, that even I could be great at something.
Now, I’m not shattering records or making any big splash in the running world by any means. I could tell stories of a thousand different races. Stories of good races, and bad. Stories of honors and accolades I earned throughout my successful high school career or where I am now.
In my saga of running, one thing remained constant since that fateful season I decided to start running. My passion, giving me the drive to pursue greatness in all that I do. I found it in something I never realized I could become great at. Something, for me, as simple as running.
