Maya Ganzke

9/16/19

Run of life

I have always loved sports. Soccer was my favorite sport when I was younger and I

would enjoy spending countless hours practicing to be perfect. No matter how much I tried to

improve my dribbling technique and shots, however, I was stuck at a plateau. I began to hate

how the game was always in action and how the coaches would boomingly scream constantly

at the players to run.

It was until I moved to Pennsylvania from Delaware that I quit all sports since my old

clubs were too far away. I tried out for the girl's soccer team at Garnet Valley, my new school, in

seventh grade and was devastated when I cracked open the envelope and became devastated

only just having read the word, ¨Sorry¨. Coming back from this news was difficult for me since it

felt like I put in so much hard work for nothing.

Somewhere around that time, my mom and dad got a YMCA family membership. Since I

now did not participate in any sport and never had any time-consuming homework to do, I

decided to start going with my parents to the YMCA. My dad always spent about an hour in the

lifting section while my mom ran on the treadmill. Since weightlifting and other exercises looked

boring and slow, I started to run next to my mom for the entire hour. There was a time when a

rush of pleasure and happiness ran through me after a more intense run. This was the start of

my love for running.

During sophomore year, my biology teacher, who happened to be the coach of the cross

country team, encouraged me to run on the team. I thought it wouldn't hurt to try it out. Right as

I started cross country, I automatically was fond of it. Then, as time went on, I fell in love with it.

During workouts, I would push myself to limits I never knew I was capable of. I noticed that not

only did running improve my fitness and stamina, but it expanded my entire mindset.
 During my sophomore year, I made the varsity team. I was so overjoyed and it brought

me more self-assurance. Getting varsity was just an extra boost of confidence but finding my

passion for running was the only thing that mattered to me. For me to run is to feel alive and

weightless. If I feel sad, stressed, depressed, or even happy, running will boost my mood. I am

so glad everything happened the way it did because running changed my life for the better. It

taught me how to study effectively under time pressure, how to stay motivated, and how to be

independent.

Now I understand why people run for fun. It took me a while to get as good as I am now,

but so is life. It took effort to accomplish things that gave me true happiness.