Developing a Strong Work Ethic

The shame and self-disgust that follows an affect of cowardice had already taken hold of me. Lingering at the starting line, I stared subject at my sickeningly gaudy sneakers knowing they wouldnt run a meter. I was in Munich, for the ISST trial festival. I remember the freeze temperatures. It was as if the frigid winds from the removed(p) Alps had blown everywhere the school with their icy breath. They added to my construct anxiety, chattering my teeth and blowing my sweaty, nappy locks any over my disgusted forehead. So, I was essentially know as the young rookie, a hotshot still in his essence-school days who was brought up to the first team level to compete internationally. I was a total underdog. not that it mattered. There was an underdog in every school. Look hard bountiful and you can see him. weedy knees, prepubescent; cosmic round, sickening eyes, a deer caught in the headlights.\nWe were riseing to play with the big boys. Well. I say, play. Do you play c ross-country? zero(prenominal) You run until you wretch up your innards into your mouth, and then you try to hold them inside that lift cavity with your sweaty palms. I was hydrophobic of pushing myself to that point, because frankly I knew that I would when the time came. You dear do the take up you can, my family all said. I laughed bitterly at that phrase, even now I do. They have no estimate how much effort ones best effort requires of them in that sport. When I ran, it was always a stake of the mind. I knew I had the bodily capacity, so I withdrew into myself, ignoring the retell pain in my lungs and the frozen stab of each breath. It was impenetrable enough to engage in that mental struggle with middle school runners. I was up against 18 year olds with the luggage compartment fat percentages of racehorses, and the discipline of Buddhistic monks. I wouldve collapsed in a muddy, bile-stained heap on the deplete line.\nIt was all too much. I faked illness, disqualif ied myself from the race, and consequentially my self-worth becam...