Sports injuries are very common in high school athletes, but nearly as common is regression. I have been in competitive running for the past six years of my life, spending summer mornings, cold winter afternoons, and late spring nights practicing and competing to get faster.
Despite the long seasons and hard workouts, it grew into my favorite activity. I got up every morning excited to go to practice that day and get better. Around my sophomore year, my times dropped significantly. All the work I’d done was beginning to pay off, and it only made me fall in love with the sport even more.
With these new times, I was able to qualify for harder meets and compete with some of the best girls in the state. The possibility of running in college grew as coaches started to reach out to me once I entered my junior year. I can easily say this was the highlight of my life so far.
The following year, I struggled to get back into the same shape I had been in before. I pushed myself further than I had the year prior. I could tell that my body wasn’t taking to the workouts and long runs, but I was able to override this and have a successful cross country season, although it wasn’t what it could’ve been.
As I moved into the indoor track season, I experienced a lot of medical issues that took my attention away from running. I was in and out of the Children’s Hospital for what seemed like a mystery that no one could diagnose.
Once we finally got to the bottom of it, the season was well under way already, and I wasn’t in the shape I should have been in going into that track season. I began to worry; I had never gone into the outdoor season this out of shape. I was worried I wouldn’t get to the same level I was at the year prior.
Unfortunately, I was right in this belief. I struggled the entire season to run mediocre times that had felt easy the year before. The aspirations to run in college began to fade, and at one point, that had been all I ever wanted to do.
By the end of that season, I was so disappointed in myself. I blamed myself for how it went, believing maybe if I just tried harder, I would’ve done better.
I’d like to say that it got better going into senior year, but I can’t. I started cross country this year worse than ever before – not just because I was out of shape, but also because I was quickly losing my drive and love for the sport.
By the middle of the season, I started to get recurring injuries. Once one went away, another would appear somewhere else. It took me out of about half of my races that season, and I barely made it back in time for our district championship, a race I had never missed in all my years of high school.
At this point, I was seriously considering quitting, not because it was too hard, but because I didn’t know if I could handle the emotional stress it put on me. No one was trying to treat me differently, but there was a silent pressure from my coaches, parents, and teammates. They all just wanted to get better, but, like me, they were also starting to get frustrated.
This continued throughout the entirety of the indoor season; every time I started to improve, something would push me back. I had the flu, plantar fasciitis, and persistent hip issues that had followed me throughout all of high school.
I am now reaching the end of my last high school season of running. I would love to say my high school running career has a happy ending, but it doesn’t, and although it has been the hardest on me mentally, I have finally gotten to a point where I have stopped caring and tried to enjoy it.
It was hard to accept that maybe if I had just tried a little harder or done something differently, then I would be at a completely different place now, and that I will never know what I truly could have done at my full potential. But this has also helped me see myself as more than just an athlete, and that I am successful without it.
