My father's side of the family has a strong history in running. My father and most of his siblings ran at their school, but my dad likes to think of himself as the main runner. He started his freshman year of high school, beating the school's record for the one mile, a title he claims to have defended for 25 years (until someone else beat him). He continued to run throughout high school, and continued to run in college on the University of Michigan Cross Country team. He continued to be a very good runner, and has a Big Ten ring to prove it. After graduation, he continued to run in marathons, races, and in his free time. Even as he has started to complain about his body and its aches and pains, he has kept up running on the weekends and sometimes on weekdays.
I started running in 6th grade on my middle school's competitive cross country and track and field teams.
I tended to be better at short distance, but I had the ability to run long distance as well. For track and
field, my events were usually the 100m sprint, 200m sprint, and shotput, but I also ran 70m sprint and 2 mile once each.
While I wouldn't say that I was as fast as my father was, I would say that I stayed in the faster half of
our team. What I couldn't manage in pure physicality and strength I made up in focus and competitiveness.
In middle school, I also started running on the weekends with my dad. While he would usually take shorter
routes with me, we built up longer and longer routes over time. I had to stop running in high school because
Internation Academy doesn't have sports and I couldn't find a ride, but I still run on the weekends.
When quarantine happened, I found that it took me much less time to do school work, so I started running daily with
my dad around our neighborhood. Our normal route was about 3 miles, and had multiple hills. Exercising this much
made me much more fit than I had ever been, and I enjoyed watching myself progress over time. On the weekends, we
would usually head out to a trail or a park nearby to run longer distances, usually between 5 and 7 miles. It was
nice to have a regular, daily way of getting outside and enjoying the fresh air despite the pandemic. I think it was
a good experience for me that showed what my limits were and how much I could and should push them.
Here are a few pictures of me running
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This is an award I received for being an outstanding
member of my schools cross country team
My main field event was shotput
Here's a clip from one of my sprints
I still enjoy running in my free time
