"NEXT GENERATION"
Sometimes the best stories of running are told through the eyes of the athlete. Meet my son Ben. Ben runs XC at Appoquinimink High School and recently wrote a class assignment about taking a journey. Here is his journey.
"Blue Hen Conference Championship" - by Ben Shearer
The weather was cold and rainy as I was shivering in the cold. The gun finally went into the air and went Boom!! The next thing I see is the backs of the other teams and the green grass as we sped into the woods. I chased the other teams into the woods as if they were the prey and I was the predator. As I keep getting closer to the 1st mile, I see a familiar face in the crowd telling me to keep with them. It was my coach!! I nod my head like I understand (which I did) and I keep up with some of the tougher teams ahead of me. I pass some of them one by one and I say to myself, keep them coming. I then get to the mile and a half and there's nobody around me, I feel relieved, and my stress went down. As I thought to myself alone, I realized that I was the number 5 guy on the Appo team. As I kept thinking, a Middletown kid passed me out of nowhere and I just let it be. I lost some ground as I was in my own world. As I kept thinking about the big pack of guys I passed earlier, I realized that some of the Appo guys who were ahead of me. As I get to the second mile and there's a group of guys that I recognized earlier, I stay with them until the 2nd and a half. Some of the guys I hung behind were Middletown, Concord, Saint Georges, Mount Pleasant, and Hodgson. A couple of them were good and the others, I was beating myself up on how they were in front of me. Just as I get to the 3rd mile mark, I see a farm that is planting flowers and trees and another familiar face. The family friend told me that I was super close to the finish and to turn on the speed, I nod my head and start to speed up. I´m super close to leaving the woods, all I have to do is to go up a big hill and turn right. I went up the hill like it was no problem and I made that turn. I knew that this was the moment to beat them after my teammates were there cheering me on telling me to go now. With the rest of my energy, I passed the 5 guys who were around me and left them in the dust. I finished and didn't have to go any faster because the 5 guys I stayed with were just finishing as I was catching my breath. My body was cold and a little numb. I came up to my coach to ask for my time and he said that I ran 19:40. This was the first time I broke 20 during the season.
I hope to see you on the roads, tracks and trails.
