Competition is key for a good friendship,so my friend and I both signed up for a race in Maryland. We have been trash talking each other for the past week.”I’m going to cream you” I would say and he would respond with “In your dreams.”  We both wanted to demolish the other. It didn’t matter if I completely flunked this race, all that mattered was that I could beat my friend.  My Brother and Sister were both cross country runners at the time,and they were nice enough to show me how to warm-up.  This was the first time I really warmed up for a race and this was probably the first race that I didn’t do just for fun.

It was time for me and my friend to line up at the starting line.  We got into a running form. Them the announcer started talking into to a microphone ,but I wasn’t paying attention to him because all my attention was on my friend and started giving him a friendly death eye. Then, out of nowhere the announcer yelled,  “RUNNERS SET, GO.” I almost stumbled at the beginning, but then I launched forward. I was just trying to get to the front of the group to get my friend nervous. I loved the feeling of being close to the front of the group.

I was already getting tired ,why was I so confident. I shouldn’t have been ,but I couldn’t worry about that, it would just distract me.  As the rest of the runners and I run into a forest I realized there were branches everywhere I looked. Some of the branches were marked with a bright orange paint. Then there were some that you can barely see. It was around halfway through the race and I saw my friend was really close to me so I picked up my pace. As I was exiting the forest there was one branch I didn’t see. One branch that didn’t meet my eyes. One branch that ruined my day.

If only I was more experienced I could have avoided falling. I was on the ground with bruises everywhere and hoping that my friend would not pass me but, then I saw a shadow. It was him. He sped by me with no problem and I don’t even think he knew it was me on the ground.  I hoped and hoped that when I get up I can get into a nice run but I was already sore from the beginning of the race but now that I fell down I knew he was going to beat me. 

I ended up coming a minute or two after my friend.  He was already doing he cool downs and he wasn’t red faces anymore.  Also, looking back on that day ,the branch wasn’t my downfall. I just convinced myself that it was, so that I could have an excuse of why he beat me. I was way too confident in a race that I didn’t prepare for and was trash talking about with my fake skills that I didn’t have.  If I was smart I would have prepared for the race and not have trashed talked my friend.  I have learned from that experience not to get too confident on something that I never really do.