The Ultimate Hate/Love Relationship: Running

It's the middle of July, no school and no worries. After a long night out, you go to bed ready to sleep for endless hours. Beep, Beep, Beep. You wake up and look at the alarm. You remember you have cross country practice. You get in the car and drive to school. Once you arrive to school, you see your teammates with that "Why am I here?" look on their faces. Your coach tells you to do a "easy" eight-mile run. You hate it from the start. After 30 minutes into your run, the sweat begins dripping down your face. Your hair begins bouncing to a rhythm. Your waiting for the light to turn red, but it never does. Once finished, you gasp for breath waiting for the pain to go away. Why do you put yourself through this?

Another summer morning, all your friends are sleeping in their nice king-sized beds. This time its not an "easy" eight-mile run. Its a NICE interval workout on the track. Five by mile at your race pace. You warm up for three miles, and all you're thinking about is how much the workout is going to suck. The start of the first interval, you decide to take it a little slow. Your hard-nosed coach, who runs with you, doesn't let this happen. He blazes past you, and your forced to keep up with him. The laps seem countless while you fly around the track. Last interval, everyone is tired. There is always that one kid you does bad on the first four, and then goes balls to the wall on the last one. With one lap to go on the last internal, your not going to let this kid show you up. You blaze past him, and once you finish you think, "Was it seriously worth it?" After the workout, you are drenched in sweat, and forced to do a two-mile cool down. Once again, you ask yourself, "Why do I put myself through this?"

Well, i can answer that question. Not many people can say they have run 50 miles in a week, but I can. Not many people can say they have experienced a "runner's high", but I can. The biggest thing I've gotten from running is the tight bonds I have made with my teammates. Most of my teammates are my closest friends. They're the ones doing the runs with me, and there the ones that help me through it. So this upcoming summer, when you're sleeping in the morning, you can thank yourself that you're not a cross country runner.    

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