I've played tennis for many years since I was little. So when it was time to go to high school, it wasn't much of a surprise to make varsity freshman year. During the season, I had my ups and downs because I had never played tennis quite so competitively like we do. But overall, it was a fun learning experience. So after the season was over and we had our banquet, I sort of thought to myself, now what? So then a few friends and I thought we should join another sport, even if we didn't all end up together. I mentally made a pros and cons list of all the sports left in the year. After crossing off basketball, soccer, and girls water polo, I eventually narrowed down my choices to track and field, and the swim team.

     What interested me in these two sports was that it's like having mini sports in one main sport. Such as for track, there's sprints, throwing, jumping, hurdles, and pole vault, and even those events are divided into subgroups. For swim, backstroke, freestyle, breaststroke, sidestroke, and relays. But ultimately it came down to whether I wanted to be on land or be a fish.I decided I would be better running so I decided on the former.

     About two weeks of pre-season practice, I found the conditioning we did to be very strenuous and exhausting. My body was used to running a mile at most, then suddenly it had to go through multiple sets of various sprints, bleachers, froggies, cherry picks, and box drills. I wanted to quit almost everyday I went. But the next morning, something would tell me to go at least one more day. Eventually, I became stronger and faster. I also made some fantastic new friends who gave me advice along the way, on things aside from the sport too when needed. When the first meet came and went and I got my jumping results, I felt an overwhelming sense of accomplishment that all of my hard work had resulted in something. Throughout the season I kept improving until the finals meet I beat my personal record by two feet in triple jump with 26' 7''. I was so esctatic I was smiling all the way home. Looking back this sport made me more diciplined to not give up in the workouts and things in life in general. It also taught me that even though something may be difficult, you should keep going at it because you will improve over time. So even though when I thought of joining this sport I didn't think it would make much of a difference, it turned out to be one of the best decisions my freshman year. You never know what can happen when you take chances and try something new. Now, I look forward to next year so I can jump even further.