Drake Relays Experience

It’s been a week since I ran at Drake and I already miss it. I didn’t run that well, but Drake was an awesome experience.

We left Thursday morning and I the 3000 ran Thursday at 4:10. It was a really nice day so I was hoping to run really good and PR. Unfortunately shortly after the race started my head was pounding from the heat and my legs were really tired. I ended up running 10:38 and got 17^th place. I would be happy with my time if it was a normal meet, but I was really hoping for a PR, since Drake is supposed to be a really fast Track.

The good thing about only running the first day is that you can just relax and have fun for the rest of Drake! I got to stay up later and eat probably too much bad food. During the trip I had a corndog, 2 giant ice cream cones, a lot of cookies, and a bunch of candy. So much for trying to eat healthy during Track season.

The best thing about Drake was seeing the Olympic runners and jumpers. I got to see an Olympic pole-vaulter beat a record and a person interviewing Lolo Jones about 20 meters away from me. The most exciting thing I got to see was Jenny Simpson break a record in the 1500 meter run and then she ran around the stadium. I got a high five from her and Katie got an autograph. On Friday night, they also set of fireworks around the Track. The crowd had so much energy and it was an awesome experience.

Jenny simpson at drake :)

I also learned and saw a lot of surprising things at Drake. I didn’t realize that Drake Relays are a huge drinking event. There were a lot of people with Tee-shirts saying things like “Drake Relays Drinking Team,” and we went on a run around town Friday night and a lot of people were partying and drunk. I also learned that Drake is located in not the best part of town. We saw a lot of creepy people, including guy in striped pajamas carrying a banjo and clearly on drugs and a guy lying on his side under a tree, licking his lips as we ran by. I was scared!

Drake was an awesome experience and I am so glad I got to go! I really hope I will get to go next year and hopefully I will run better!

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The Wonders of Trail Running

This poem for my AP Lang Class is about running on the trail and every thing I see on the trail.

A beautiful morning perfect for running

And I am already 1 mile down

Dew fills the grass and a golden sun barely peeks through the clouds

I hear the birds chirp and water flowing in the creek

I am reminded of why I love to run and I never want to stop

Then out of nowhere like a Pearl Harbor attack

A drug deal, a beaver, a hobo on a bench

 

4 miles down and I am still staying strong

The air slowly warming

The wind just now starting to pick up

My breathing getting heavier

The miles seem longer and my mind starts to wonder

I squint my eyes and I can just barely make out

More drug deals, more beavers, more hobos on a bench

 

It's only been 10 miles

But it feels like 20

Sun strips my energy

Creek taunts me with its water

I try to distract myself

But I can no longer count

All the drug deals, all the beavers, all the hobos on a bench

 

Imagery- I use a lot of imagery in lines 3 and 4 to create an image of how relaxing and peaceful it is while I am running. My imagery gets a little less descriptive in each paragraph to make the reader realize how I am getting more tired and paying less attention to my surroundings.

Allusion- In the line “Then out of nowhere like a Pearl Harbor attack” I use an allusion to show how surprised I was to see the drug deal, beaver, and hobo for the first time on the run.

Personification- “Creek taunts me with its water” is a personification, creeks can’t really taunt someone, but it proves how tired and desperate I am getting as I run on.

Repetition- I repeat the last line in each stanza, slightly changing it each time to show that it is still the same run, but as the run goes on my mind set is changing.

The lines in the first stanza are longer and the diction is detailed making the beginning of my run sound relaxing. The lines start to get shorter in the next stanzas showing that my patience is decreasing and I am getting tired of running.

Drake Relays

                On Tuesday I accomplished my number one goal for this season: qualifying for Drake relays! I got a 23 second seasonal PR and a 10 second PR. I have been dreaming of qualifying for Drake ever since I was a freshman and found out what the Drake Relays were. I am so excited to go and I still can’t believe that I will actually have the chance to go!

                My track season started out really slow. Most of our meets were canceled and a lot of the meets that weren’t canceled, I ended up getting sick and running very poor times. As of last week I still had to drop about 15 seconds in the 3000 and 5 seconds in the 1500 to even have a chance to qualify. I realized that there was a good chance I wasn’t going to qualify and Tuesday would probably be my last chance. I wanted to qualify so badly and did everything I could to make sure I was prepared to run on Tuesday.

                Tuesday came and I was ready. I was ready to get my PR, I was ready to qualify for Drake, and I was ready to run the 3000. When the gun went off I felt confident. I was running with two runners, one from my school that ran about my pace. I knew my weakness was the 3^rd and 4^th lap of the 3000, so I tried to really push myself there. I ran with those two runners for the whole race until the last 200 meters where I started to think about Drake. Every second counts and my chances of qualifying decrease a lot if I let these two runners pass me. I decided to go for it. I sprinted as fast as I could and ended up winning the race with a new personal best time of 10:35, which would make me have the 13^th fastest time in the state. I would qualify for Drake.

                I celebrated with my family and ate cake for dinner and now I can’t stop thinking about Drake. I am so excited and a little scared. None of my really close friends qualified so I feel really bad for them and I am hoping it will still be fun without them. I am super excited and nervous for my race. I am just really glad and relived that I qualified!

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Cool Awesome Things that Every Runner Needs

                I have been running for about four years and have come across some products that every runner should have. Having quality products can seriously help runners or can just be fun for every runner to have. Over the last few years I have come to really enjoy and occasionally depend on my Pro-Tec Athletics’ Roller Massager, Biofreeze, and Sport Beans.

                I literally don’t think I could survive cross country and track without my magic rolley (I realize that’s not a word, but it definitely should be)  stick, technically it is called Pro-Tec Athletics’ Roller Massager, but that’s too long and complicated to say. If you are a runner and you don’t have one of these things stop reading this right now and go buy one. They have them at running wild for around 25-30 dollars. They are like heaven for your legs!!! Magic rolley stick’s help loosen tight muscles and reduce muscle soreness. According to the Pro-TecAthletics website the Pro-Tec Athletics’ Roller Massager works, “By rolling the Roller Massager along the area of tightness, you can perform a self-massage or Myofascial release. Myofascial release has been shown to relieve various muscle and joint pains such as IT band syndrome and shin splints as well as improving flexibility and range of motion.” This is pretty much just a scientific way of saying that the Pro-Tec Athletics’ Roller Massager is magic. Use the magic rolley stick after hard practices or when your legs are feeling tight and it will decrease soreness by a lot!
 

                Biofreeze and Icy-Hot are also great for soreness. I got really bad shin splints freshman year (before I got my magic rolley stick) and I depended greatly on these two products. Biofreeze and Icy-hot are gels that you rub on sore muscles and it helps relieve pain. They offer quick pain relief and are great to use right before races.  You can get these two products from a lot of different places, including Wal-Mart. They aren’t too expensive and they are great at stopping muscle pain.

                Another thing that I quite enjoy as a runner is Sport Beans. These are jelly beans that provide a quick burst of energy. They are really nice to have on days that you are just exhausted and don’t want to run. I’m not quite sure if they are actually very healthy for you, but they do give you a burst of energy and they taste really good! They come in small packets and taste a lot better than normal jelly beans. The Sport Beans website says, “Sport Beans energizing jelly beans are formulated to help you blast through any athletic endeavor. Used by the Jelly Belly Pro Cyclingas well as other athletes, Sport Beans are clinically proven to maximize sports performance.” I am not sure how well they “maximize sports performances,” but they are really nice to have when you are too tired and lazy to run.

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Being Fat

In class we have been talking a lot about being fat. Eating healthy is something that I am constantly trying to do (unless it’s the week after cross country or track ends, which I call my fat week). It has really been bothering me that there are so many people who are too concerned about their weight and then try to lose weight in unhealthy ways. People are too obsessed with looking skinny, rather than being healthy.

Everyone has an ideal weight that they are supposed to be and not everyone is supposed to weigh 110 pounds and look like a skinny anorexic model. Some people have faster metabolisms and smaller bone structures and are, therefore supposed to weigh less than someone who is not built like that. People are always complaining about their weight and comparing themselves to people they see in magazines, but being that skinny can be extremely unhealthy. My sister is constantly whining about how she weighs more than me. She thinks she is fat, because she is a whole 10 pounds heavier than her older sister, but she also happens to be 2 inches taller and extremely thin. I am constantly trying to explain to her how she isn’t fat, but she, like many others, focus way too much on the numbers on the scale.

To be healthy, you need to exercise and eat healthy. I am completely against any diet that makes you miss meals or even eat fewer calories. It’s not about how many calories you eat a day, but what kind of calories you are eating. For example, eating 300 calories of vegetables is not only healthier, but also is a lot easier to burn than if you ate 300 calories of doughnuts. There are some exceptions; no one should be eating 5000 calories a day unless they are really trying to gain weight, but no one should be eating less than the recommended amount of calories for them. It is super unhealthy to not eat enough food and not eating enough will leave you exhausted, and then you will not get proper exercise. Stop reading the calorie count and start reading the ingredient list, and I can guarantee it will make you a lot healthier.

Being overweight is okay as long as you are healthy. Stop looking at the numbers on the scale and the calories in the food and start paying attention to what is in the food and how much exercise you are getting.

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American High Schools

Although American high schools are pretty good at providing a decent education to all kids who want it, there are some issues in high schools across America. As a current high school student, I have noticed some of these problems in American high school. Kids aren’t as motivated to learn and high schools don’t always provide the kind of education that kids need and want. I do believe that there are solutions to these problems in American high schools. 

                The motivation of kids to learn in high schools has become a major problem. Kids have a wonderful opportunity in America to get a proper education, but don’t always take advantage of that opportunity. In the essay, A Model for High Schools, David S. Broder talks about a program called Gateway, which educates kids who were not motivated and ended up dropping out of high school. Broder blames the reason on why kids drop out comes from the way current high schools are educating kids. Broder writes, “…teenagers with few credits, low grade point average and a host of personal problems-the challenge of a tough curriculum, backed by skillful teaching in small classes and plenty of personal counseling, can be a path to success.” I agree with Broder, in that if high schools change to be more like that, students will be more motivated in school. High schools in America should have smaller classes and a well taught, challenging curriculum.

                Another problem in American high schools is that high schools don’t provide the type of education that kids need. Todd Gitlin claims that there is not enough liberal arts being taught in high school. He states, “A strong liberal-arts curriculum could teach them about their history, their social condition, themselves.” In high school we do not have that much liberal-arts teaching and Gitlin makes a good claim about how liberal-arts could help students. Changing the curriculum in schools could help students in the future with what they will need to know for college and their careers after college.

                There are other issues in high schools around the nation, but I think the biggest issues are that kids aren’t very motivated, because of how and what they are taught, and that high schools are not teaching students everything that they will find useful in the future. High schools in America need to change to have more benefit for the students.

I Know Why the Cage Bird Cannot Read

Last year I read the book To Kill a Mockingbird in Language Arts and I could agree with a lot of things that Prose said about the book in her essay, I Know Why the Cage Bird Cannot Read. My personal experience reading this book is very similar to how Prose describes the book and what kids learn while reading it. I really did not enjoy reading this book and in class discussions about this book, we focused more on the issues this book talks about, rather than the actual quality of the literature.           

                Most of the students in my class would agree that To Kill a Mockingbird was not the best book. Kids didn’t really enjoy reading it and after a few chapters a lot of students were either skimming the text or looking the book up on Sparknotes. Prose gives a short, one paragraph summary of the book in her essay and after words states, “Such summary reduces the book, but not by all that much.” I agree with her summary and what she said about the book. Even though most kids didn’t take time to carefully read the text, most of them still did well on the quizzes and discussions over the book, because the plot was so simple and the book wasn’t very challenging. To Kill a Mockingbird was not a very good book for students to read and because of that most students didn’t read it very closely.

                When discussing this book in class we spent a lot of time talking about the issues of prejudice that the book talks about. Throughout the essay Prose mentions the type of things students are taught when reading this book and the things she says are very close to what I was being taught when reading the book. She says, “… I obtained from the Internet, outlines the ‘overall goal’ of teaching the book (‘To understand problems relating to discrimination and prejudice that exist in our present day society. To understand and apply these principles to our own lives’).” I do believe that the goal Prose mentions in reading this book is similar to the goal of reading this book in my Language Arts class last year. We did spend a lot of time discussing the issues of prejudice mentioned in the book.

                Throughout Prose’s essay, I Know Why the Cage Bird Cannot Read, she talks about how students aren’t getting much out of books like To Kill a Mockingbird and I agree with her. After reading this book, I really didn’t learn much and didn’t enjoy reading it. I think she makes a valid argument when criticizing To Kill a Mocking Bird.

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