Intense afternoon sunlight bore down on the most anticipated sporting event of the season: the final YMCA micro girls soccer game for “Team Galaxy” in Lincoln, Nebraska. Knees slightly bent, I stood on the field with my size-4 cleats digging into the grass. As a hot breeze swept across the facility, my teammates and I readied to block the opposing team’s momentum.

In silence, we waited for the much-anticipated goal-kick.

The opposing team’s goalie jogged a few feet backward then approached the soccer ball with graceful force.

The ball soared.

Soon enough, realizing the ball was flying at full speed toward my nine-year-old body, I did what any quick-thinking elite athlete would: I clenched every muscle and prayed to God that I wouldn’t get smacked.

While I was frozen, my knee instinctively rose. In a miraculous series of events, the soccer ball bounced off my knee in a perfect trajectory and swiftly rolled back into the net.

I had scored a goal.

Bright eyes widening and mouth agape, I beamed with excitement. Though I stood under five feet tall, on that historic day, I felt like a giant.

But, this isn’t the story of how I launched a successful soccer career. In fact, the miraculous mishap would be the only goal I scored during my final season of micro soccer. I was not particularly agile, and my intense fear of objects flying toward my face hindered my defending abilities.

But I was never benched.

I wasn’t benched on days with intense wind. I wasn’t benched when temperatures climbed into the triple digits. I wasn’t even benched when I regretfully ate an Auntie Anne’s pretzel-wrapped hot dog less than two hours before a game.

I wasn’t benched because, despite my lacking athleticism as a whole, I was the only girl on the team who could run like a maniac around the field for an entire period of the game without stopping.

My parents informed me later that that was the moment when, they thought, it was time I tried a different sport.

And they knew exactly which sport I should try.

A year later, I signed up for a program at my elementary school called Girls on the Run, which strives to build up young girls’ confidences while teaching excellent skills for improving one’s physical, mental, emotional, and social health. And, as the program’s name denotes, we spent much of the time running.

In Girls on the Run, my deep passion for running first surfaced. Logging laps around my school’s soccer field, Asics pawing the grass and breath rhythmic as ever, I felt a strange sense of freedom.

Later, I learned that this was called a “runner’s high.”

Later, I would implement myself into the worlds of track and field and cross country. I would log loops around my neighborhood, races around tracks, and out-and-back runs on local limestone trails. I would compete for Lincoln Youth Track Club, Lux Middle School, Lincoln East High School, and Augustana University.

I would fall madly in love with this insane sport.