Little Inklings 2024

SPRINTING WITH SPIRIT By: Ella Griffin ’29 I pushed myself into the middle of the huddle of athletes, trying to hear the jabber of the starter. Missing one part of his incoherent speech could cost us the race, but honestly, I was more focused on keeping myself together until the competition had actually started. This was the biggest race for many of us, the 2023 Florida state championships. As team captain, I could feel the nerves of my fellow teammates. We were competing against 200 outstanding runners fromall sorts of different teams, and every single one of us was willing to push as hard as we could for a personal best, beating a rival team, or even better, winning a state championship. In our case, we had to beat our biggest adversary, Carrollton. We had crushed them in every meet but regionals, and this was the last time we would see them before next season. After the terrible speech from the starter about false starts and puzzling rules, we lined up on the start line. I looked atmy teammates, since this was the last time I would talk to them before the end of the race. “OK everyone, this is it.Whatever you have, you need to give if we want to win this race. This is our last opportunity to beat Carrollton this season, and they are NOTwinning again,” I told them, trying to sound calm and confident. Everyone nodded in agreement and I heard the muffled words of encouragement from one teammate to the other. Not only was I stressed about having to suffer through a race on a hot Saturday morning, but I also remembered howmuch of a failure I had felt last year when I had a regrettable time. I recalled the first day of cross country in 6th grade. I thought I would just do it to satisfy my parents, who wanted me to be a three-sport athlete. I thought about the first meet I ever ran, the temperature was at a dangerous high, and someone even passed out in the heat of the afternoon. I had put somuchwork into a sport where the way to excel was to ignore everything your brain was saying. Even if everything in your body told you to stop, you simply couldn’t. No matter the conditions, competitors, or course could stop you from giving everything you possibly could for a quick 13-minute race. I could smell the freshly cut grass, about to get trampled. Energy was sizzling in the air as the onlookers fell silent. The cool morning air started to dissipate and the scorching Florida sun was about to appear. An uncanny quiet settled over the racecourse as the starter raised his gun. I sucked in my last few breaths of air before the almost 2-mile grueling race began. POW! The race had started. In a whirlwind of action, the once-mute spectators started screaming as we sprinted out of our boxes. As I glanced back I saw that Maya had fallen in the chaos of the start. I hoped she could get back up swiftly but nowall I could focus on was myself. I held my sprint until the race started to slow. I quickly approached the first bend of the course. By now the race had fallen into a steady rhythm. I could hear the struggle of competitors trying to keep their breaths steady, the thump of feet onto the ground, and the occasional choke as someone was overtaken. Now that we had started, the only thing keeping me from success was myself. I had trained for the moment since August. I spent hours in the scorching sun and sticky humidity to beat my goal. I repeated in my mind, “Sub 13 minutes, sub 13, sub 13, sub 13.” By now, it felt as if my heart was beating out of my chest, my breathing becoming uncontrollable, a burning pain building in my legs. You never realize howeasy it is to breathe until each breath takes effort. I knew this would happen, which is why I dreaded race day. I kept pushing until I hit the 1-mile mark, which also happened to be a steep hill where the roar of passionate parents, siblings, and coaches was all you could hear. I pushed to the top, trying my best to hold my strong pace. Someone called out a time, yelling encouragingly, “6:33 mile!” The words were the fuel to the race. My energy exploded like a fire; I had less than a mile left, after all. I kicked down the hill. My heels flew up as my body was sharply angled towards the bottom of the hill, picking up speed. In the distance, I saw two familiar gray jerseys with a yellow cyclone pasted onto the back. “Carrollton,” I thought tomyself. They bobbed in the middle of a sea of runners, slowly pulling forward. If I wanted to beat them, I would have to pick up my pace in the second half of the race, a runner’s worst nightmare. I could already start to feel my legs giving up and tears pricking into the corners of my eyes, the pain of the race starting to become apparent.My chest throbbed. “Hold it together, all crying is going to do is make it harder to breathe,” I struggled to tell myself. A brief look at the course toldme I had about half amile left. This was the final stretch of themost competitive race I had ever raced, and those Carrollton girls were not getting away. The decline of hills urged my feet forward, the warm wind sending me closer and closer to them. I leaped over twigs and brushed the pointed branches of lush trees, hugging each curve. At last, two slicked- back braids of my biggest competitors flew right in front of me. In the distance I saw the light at the end of the tunnel, and the trees broke apart, thrusting me into the cries of spectators, with a tight loop all that was left before the finish line, and then all of a sudden, panic rose in me. I could no longer breathe properly, and I was about to collapse.My legs cried in 48