Run harder, faster! Catch her! I thought as I was coming up to the finish line. My brown hair was up in a ponytail and I was wearing our track shirt. This year they made it maroon and it said ‘Dexter’ in big letters on the front. I could hear my friends and my mom cheering for me as I was racing the Tecumseh girl who was a couple of feet in front of me. I started to pull ahead of her but I guess she had more of a kick than I did. When she saw me coming she started to run as fast as lightning. I did my best to keep up with her but she was just too strong of a runner for me. Then all of a sudden she was 20 meters in front and there was no way I could catch her in the last 40 meters. She beat me. So of course I came in fourth and that was pretty good you could say but I wanted third. That place had been my goal since the start of the season and I was pretty disappointed that I didn’t get it (again). The only thing that had stopped me was that Tecumseh girl. Third place was a good spot for me too because the first and second place were way too fast. They are usually half of a lap in front of me so I think I’ll just stick with third for my goal right now.

I’m pretty fast in track and Cross Country. I get all A’s and B’s in school and get my homework done in time. My family is pretty crazy since I have three brothers and my parents are divorced. I guess having a ton of sports, three brothers, my parents divorced, and good grades keeps me busy.


Anyways, back to the track meet. After I finished that race, which was the mile, I went over to talk to my mom about how much I hated losing to that one Tecumseh girl. I am very competitive, especially at track meets. “There will be other races, Shelby. Stop complaining.” She said.


“But mom, I was one spot away from third place! I almost passed her!” I replied.


“ You were running like crazy!” said my little brother, Brennan. “ That was really fast.”


“Thank you, Brennan.” I told him.

Brennan was my only sibling and he was four years old. We’re nice to each other because he’s so young. We barely fight and when we do, the fights aren’t very big. My step-dad has to work on all of my track meets so Brennan comes to all of them. Then my best friend Lily came up and said that I did a good job. I thanked her too but I was still pretty bummed about the race.

The next race that I was in was the 800 relays. My team was Lily, Emma, and Katie. It was a pretty bad race too because Lily had Asthma, Kate had to leave early, and Emma could barely walk from her ankle being all messed up. Emma fought through it as best as she could but ended up coming last in her relay part but since I had nothing wrong with me I caught us back up at the end. Lily was a little slow but she took her inhaler and that made it a little better. Another girl ended up filling in for Kate and she wasn’t bad. When Emma handed the baton off to me she was crying and I told her good job and took off. I brought us up another place but the places in front of me even when I did were way too far ahead to catch. We got second to last place but at least it wasn’t last.

My last event was really short. It was only a 200-meter dash but it was hard for me because I am a distance runner not a sprinter. I ran my hardest but still didn’t have enough time to catch any body. I got sixth place out of eight girls and did pretty bad.

By the end of the meet I was feeling bad about how badly I did during the meet. I told Lily and she said it doesn’t matter what the time or place was, it just matters if you tried your best and had fun. I thought that made a lot of sense.

That night I thought about what Lily had said and I started to feel a lot better. She was right about how it doesn’t matter as long as you did your best. Then I decided that if I was having a rough day or having really bad luck the next track meet, I just have to remember that I did my best.