The reason I go into running was very simple.  I started running because my father had a farm that I worked on until I was about 10.  That ended when my parents split up because my dad was very abusive. To both my mom and I for about a five to six years.

          After we got out of there, we found a small apartment.  My mom had to start working three jobs.  That gave a lot of free time to run on the streets, plus I found a small job that got me about four dollar a day.

          The bathroom only had a shower and a toilet.  The kitchen was the only room with a sink.  The kitchen had shelves and the sinks but did not have a dish washer or a microwave.  There was only one bedroom, with a queen-size bed in it.  I told my mom I could sleep on the couch in the living room because I wanted her to have her privacy.

          The couch was the first thing that had to go because the couch had been falling apart. I grew up to be very mature, not in height, but in mood and in maturity.  I always got my homework done at I was very good at getting things done.  Running was still part of my life, and read a lot of books on running to improve and stories on running.

          Two months into my 7th grade year, something horrible happened.  My mom had been fighting a drug addiction. That morning I woke up not to hear my mom cooking breakfast or getting ready for work. I saw my mom passed out, on the kitchen floor.  I tried to wake her up, but she was already was dead.  I cried for what seemed like hours, but then called the police. 

When they arrived, I was crying my head off.  I didn’t matter what they said it was too much.  After a while I ran, ran for the hills hoping I could find a person I knew.  With nothing but about 35 dollars in my pocket, I kept running.  I stopped when I realized where I was.  I came to a place from my childhood.  I had come upon my father’s farm.

I walked up the driveway up to the barn where my brother and my dad were working.  My brother saw me first and motioned to my dad to look.  When they came up to me and I started to tear up.  They had realized something had happened.  I told them about what happened to mom and the drugs.  Grief fell over my family as for the next two months.

Sports were not part of my daily things to do.  Until I got to junior high, I was told to be a sprinter.  This would help me with cross country, and with long distance track.  I did do very well as a sprinter, I was normally a 400-meter runner, and I would run the relays as well.  Entering my 8th grade year, I decided to go to distance.  This was really the cause for me to run cross country, and I found it more difficult than shorter races.

Longer races are more tiring, plus you must be mentally and physically ready to race.  Physically, just running the distance is hard, but add rain, wind or even snow can make it as harder.  Mentally, you have to now when you are going to run fast and past people when you need to and at the right place.  All of these parts that distance running is harder than short distance running.

But running the High School races was more difficult, and I always think of this horrific story of losing my mother.  This has always motivated me to never give up and remember from were you came.  And I always remember what my mom said just before she died,

“I want you to run, not for me or for dad, run for something more honorable.  Run for you, and your life.”