Essay Category:
Essay Question:
This was the essay for the Common Application - one of the suggested topics was to write about a challenge you faced, which is roughly what this is about, though of course I took a creative angle to it.
'Kelly, why do we do this?' Val's question jolts into my rain-numbed reverie. 'D-d-do this?' I chatter. Water lifts the fragrance of shampoo from my braids and smudges mascara beneath my friends eyes. 'This... this sport.' Val spits the word as though it tastes bad. 'This torture. This hell. This exercise in misery.' 'Oh,' I reply, comprehension forcing itself across my icy face. 'Cross-country.' It's 4:21 on an October afternoon, and the rain is coming down like artillery fire. A whistle's lament cuts through the syncopated patter of the rain and chatter of my teeth as I take my place on the starting line. Crack! The report of the gun gives way to a thunderous rumble as fifty lightweights with whipping ponytails jostle for the lead. I hang back; years of racing have taught me to choose my battles carefully. Now is not the time. This is not the place. These girls are not the enemy. Thudding down the field, across the bridge, the clackety-clack-clack of one hundred and two feet rasps on weathered wood and wet gravel. Wood chips slither beneath my spikes as we scramble up monsters affectionately dubbed 'Freshman Hill' and 'Snake.' Val's question buzzes around my thoughts, unanswered, as the miles trickle by. Permeating the scene like the scent of wet leaves, apprehension weaves my stomach into knots. There is one hill yet to come. Cardiac. It is a name to strike fear into the most intrepid runners heart, a catchword in elite cross-country circles, the highest point in Sunken Meadow State Park. Deceiving us with twists and false summits, ridden with jutting roots and rain-gouged rivulets, nearly perpendicular at its apex - this hill is the defining feature of our course. Salty rain trickles between my lips as I approach its base. This is the time, the place, the enemy. I am ready. Pumping my arms in rigid arcs, I seem to bounce in place as other girls stagger past, hands on their knees. Trees and pebbles, rain and runners, all melt away until I am conscious only of this: that there is the hill, and there is me; and one of us will have to give up first. One of us... it won't be me... getting there I'm almost there n o w ! even breathing artificial regulation gives way to gasps of painful triumph as the victory burns in my calves my heart thumps in my ears like a war drum and my legs unwilling children must be forced to continue its not over yet knees still trembling the conquered hill pulls me toward its base with a force stronger than gravity feet skim the ground and then I am at the bottom and the colors cease to blur and again I find my rhythm wet braids beating a tattoo across my shoulders as they move like pistons or like dancers to a rhythm like the heartbeat of the pulsing earth. I have won. In the serenity of the final mile, epiphanies shoot like stars across my vision, startling me with sudden answers. A philosophy forms, unanticipated, as old questions are cast aside. Life is about the little things, the rain, and the leaves, and the easy rhythm of breathing. It's about running up hills, even though walking is faster. It's about spending hours on a poem for sheer love of language, not for a grade; it's about learning because I want to understand, not to outdo the person next to me. It's about running. I do not run to beat the clock, or my teammates, or the time my coach expects of me. I run because in the spaces between the footsteps and the heartbeats, I can feel the fiery green echoes of my soul. As I sail across the finish line, rain now warm against my skin, there is not a doubt left in my mind. I know why I do this.
