'Developing a Strong Work Ethic'

'The commiseration and self-disgust that follows an pretend of cowardice had already taken utilize of me. Lingering at the starting line, I stared down at my sickeningly exonerated sneakers k presentlying they wouldnt go through a meter. I was in Munich, for the ISST running swindle festival. I cogitate the freezing temperatures. It was as if the frigid winds from the yon Alps had blown over the tutor with their icy breath. They added to my build anxiety, chattering my dentition and blowing my sweaty, curly locks all in all over my nauseated forehead. So, I was fundamentally known as the young rookie, a hotshot fluent in his middle- schooltime old age who was brought up to the varsity level to repugn internationally. I was a total underdog. non that it mattered. There was an underdog in every school. serve hard fair to middling and you can enamour him. Bony knees, immature; larger-than-life round, nauseous eyes, a deer caught in the headlights.\nWe were har d to work on with the big boys. Well. I say, play. Do you play cross-coun correct? no(prenominal) You run until you wretch up your viscera into your mouth, and then you try to hold them deep down that heaving infernal region with your sweaty palms. I was aghast(predicate) of pushing myself to that point, because aboveboard I knew that I would when the time came. You entirely do the outflank you can, my family all said. I laughed bitterly at that phrase, even now I do. They arrive no fancy how much attempt ones best childbed requires of them in that sport. When I ran, it was always a game of the mind. I knew I had the forcible capacity, so I withdrew into myself, ignoring the repeating imposition in my lungs and the algid stab of distributively breath. It was gruelling plenteous to engage in that mental shin with middle school runners. I was up against 18 category olds with the body robust percentages of racehorses, and the discipline of Buddhist monks. I wouldve collapsed in a muddy, bile-stained hammock on the coda line.\nIt was all also much. I faked illness, unfit myself from the race, and consequentially my self-esteem becam... '