the perfect form

Running over a hurdle is an aggressive opened stride that most people confuse with jumping. My coach would constantly tell me when your fast you run over hurdles when your regular you are jumping them. I was taught to lift my lead knee, attack the hurdle, and follow through with my trail leg as soon as my front leg comes up. Also, it was branded into my brain to move my arms aggressive and don’t stop any movement. You run with your arms, so if they pause you pause. I never abandoned the perfect recipe to this day.

                My coach told me to remember three words commitment, courage, and concentration. These three words helped guide me through track and my life. No matter what I set my mind to with hard work and determination I can get to any point I desire.   

                When track started my senior year of high school I never had worked so hard for something until then. My goal was to win the state championships in the hurdle events. For the entire season I went to practice at school that lasted two and a half hours and then went to another practice three times out the week to hurdle for another  two hours. My life revolved around running because I didn’t want my parents to pay for me to attend college. I knew with hard work and dedication I would accomplish my goal.         

                As the season progressed my times began to decrease at every meet and the margin of victory did as well. I wasn’t beat all year and had one of the top times in the country. All I could do was smile because I knew my work paid off. I won states and also earned a scholarship. The best feeling was doing all of this in front of all my peers and being an example of what goals and hard work can do.

The give me generation

                My father constantly told my brothers and I that we are the me generation. We use to do simple things like not pick up a small piece of paper on the floor or not clean our bathroom on a Sunday. We didn’t really believe what he said, but after being away from school and seeing other people in my generation go about their lives, he was right. This generation is lazy and expects things to be given to them and they do things for themselves and don’t help others. For example, my coach believes in making his athletes earn their UMBC practice gear. Some athletes on the team expect to just be given gear just because they made the team they don’t know what hard work means.   120 words

Walking Across History

When I was younger I lived in a neighborhood in Southern Maryland called South Hampton. It’s about 15 miles from DC and a walking distance to the Potomac River. At night we could see the lights in Northern Virginia. Since the neighborhood lies so close to these two points, one would expect for the land to hold some type of history.

                My brothers and I use to play in the woods for hours and always find things and think, why is this here. We found multiple paths that had deep groves as if there was a lot of traffic going towards the river and also a lot of old large piles of dirt randomly in the woods near the river. We would find old tools like hammers wheels to wagons and markings on trees.  Then one day we found an old house that was basically flattened and as we walked we found a grave yard that was roped off by a metal chain fence. We typed the names into the computer and found out that the land was once owned by a slave owner and was later used to transport materials from DC and Virginia to each other. The paths we found were logging trails and the reason for all the dirt piles were due to broken down piles of wood..

                Places like this should be sacred to a town and not hidden in the woods.  They are pieces of history that should be saved and cherished. People walk amongst history daily and don’t even realize it. The land we walk on everyday holds so much history and we don’t even know it. These places matter.     254 words

walking across history

When I was younger I lived in a neighborhood in Southern Maryland called South Hampton. It’s about 15 miles from DC and a walking distance to the Potomac River. At night we could see the lights in Northern Virginia. Seeing as though the neighborhood was so close to these too points, a thought should come up that the land had some type of history to it.

We use to play in the woods a lot and notice a lot of awkward things in the woods and just feel uncomfortable. We found multiple paths that had deep groves as if there was a lot of traffic going towards the river and also a lot of old large piles of dirt randomly in the woods near the river. We would find old tools like hammers wheels to wagons and markings on trees.  Then one day we found a old house that was basically flattened and as we walked we found a grave yard that was roped off by a metal chain fence. Later we found out that the land was once owned by a slave owner and was later used to transport materials from DC and Virginia to each other. So the paths we found were logging trails.

I feel places like this should be sacred to a town. It’s a piece of history that should be saved and cherished. This is just an example of how people walk amongst history daily and don’t even realize it.

248 words