HUMBLE BEGINNINGS -PART 1

By Alex H.​

With hard work comes progress. From where you were, to where you are now, and where you are going, a journey takes development. Some of this comes with maturity, both physical and mental, and some just takes sheer will mixed with many trials and equally as many errors. It is learning from these errors that I have grown as an athlete and a person.
    Every runner can point back towards a moment or time period when they first picked up the sport. I began running for soccer conditioning going into my freshman year of high school. I played soccer year round since I was 10, but was never very good. I knew I would have to outwork the more talented kids over the summer. I quickly began enjoying my daily runs more than I enjoyed the sport of soccer, and after two years sticking with it, I switched over to cross country. A big reason why I was not able to accomplish much as a soccer player was my size. When I started running competitively my junior year of high school I was a touch over 5 feet tall and not even 90 pounds. This didn't matter in running.  I was always a really good trier, but in most other sports, If you're 60 pounds smaller than your competition, you're going to be at a major disadvantage. But my coach preached that effort is all he was looking for and I bought in. After 2 years of high school running that brought me just enough success to fully buy in to my potential in the sport and commit to competing at the next level , I continued to run at Monmouth University for the next four years.
     Now, remember earlier when I said how a journey takes development? College is where I developed! Physically, I grew ELEVEN inches. Mentally, I would argue I grew even more. Next blog post, I'll discuss the 4 years of small gains and large setbacks that had to take place in order to pave the way for further success.