Ahhh, HS sports! You were either forced by your parents when they gave you the ultimatum of band, forced when you didn’t want to do gym, or you genuinely wanted to do a sport. Athletics ran in my family. My dad did hockey, my mom ran, my brother did baseball, etc.

My sport was cross-country. I was a natural long-distancer. But Bella, that sounds painful! Yeah, trust me, I know. The knee injuries, shin splints, hips widening over time all catches up eventually.

Beginnings

After my mom talked me into it, I joined the middle school cross country and track team in seventh grade. I wasn’t chubby but I wanted to stay fit and I didn’t have hand-eye coordination AT ALL so running was a perfect option lol!

I ended up being one of that fastest ones on the team surprisingly. For middle school, running below 23 minutes was considered great and moving into HS my time went below 22 minutes. I reached varsity my freshman year never in my 3 years of HS running going below JV.

The Biggest Lessons

Now, you might be asking me: “Bella, what did it all teach you?” Well, let me answer.

  1. Sports taught me how to handle not getting what you wanted. Not getting the time you wanted, not performing well, etc. I handled it by taking initiative. I knew what I wanted so I worked harder. I realized I wasn’t going to get the goal I wanted by doing nothing about it. It taught me to keep pushing, keep grinding, keep going. Perseverance. A cheetah doesn’t wait for it’s food to come to them…it goes after it. A story is this: I ran poorly in a race and finished 9/10 in varsity with some JV beating my time. I moved down to JV. That week, I gave it everything I had in practice. I was determined to make it back to varsity where I belonged. The next race, I raced like never before and placed second getting below 21:30. I beat several varsity runners times. Damn, that was a great race. It’s all in what you want and what you do about getting it that make the results.
  2. Sports taught me how to deal with terrible coaches. Okay, they weren’t all bad. But they ran us to the ground. My sophomore year, we had 15 girls (at least) all with hip injuries and couldn’t race. The coaches paid no attention. It also didn’t matter that we were running more than tOSU XC training mileage. The trainers who we got ice from were pissed. So, I took it upon myself to lessen my mileage and go easy on the running to try and not get an injury as I was prone to shin splints. I never gave them attitude or made their lives harder…I just knew that some of the training was horrible and I knew what I needed to do so I did it. When I’m talking horrible, I’m talking our long days were 10-13 miles…(wait for it) (*deep breath) for a 3.1 mile race. Yep. Half marathon practices. Woop woop!
  3. Sports taught me how to walk the walk before talking the talk. We had runners say they were going beat this person or get that time. But, they never did. We saw them slack in practice and fool around before the race. So we never took them seriously. Varsity, we knew that we had to prove it on the field (also what my mom constantly told me) because that’s where it mattered. Your words meant shit before the race. It isn’t your words that show your performance but the time clock (regarding XC) or stats or whatever. It’s after the event that shows what you did. That’s why I never spoke of what I was going to do…because I knew I possibly couldn’t live up to that. I knew what I did in practice would show in the race. If I slacked, I was probably going to run like shit. If I gave it all, I was probably going to run great. Don’t ever say you’re going to accomplish something with the possibility you won’t achieve it. To me, it makes you look bad. Just keep working silently and prove it on the course.

Outro

Those are my biggest lessons from the HS sports world. Not many but yet enough to give me a jumpstart in life. With these lessons, one could get farther than those who learn these lessons late (duh). I’m glad I did HS sports even through all the difficulties. In all, it taught me that when it gets tough…keep pushing.

Quotes used in our HS Seasons:

“Hills=Happiness” I effing hate hills and running up Big Bertha (a steep, long hill right near the HS that we ran for practice). But my friends and I said that every time we got up to the starting line to run up that hill.

“This is a tough workout…but you’re going to love it.” Love it because in the end you’re going to love the results it gives you…depending on the effort you put into it.