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From Identity to Inspiration: A Reading List on Why We Run

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Running is a sport of contradiction. Finishing a marathon is at once extraordinary and unremarkable: Running 26.2 miles is an exceptional achievement, but it’s also one that 1.1 million people complete every year.

In running, themes of life and death coexist. On one hand, it’s a celebration of what the human body can do and achieve. Some events, like cancer charity runs, are associated with the will to survive. But at the other end, in the sport’s most extreme races like the 135-mile Badwater Ultramarathon in California’s Death Valley, participants teeter on the edge of mortality. The truth is, the marathon was born out of, quite literally, death.*

* The first marathoner , an Athenian man delivering news of a Greek victory after a battle, collapsed and died after finishing his journey.

Other contrasts abound. Sociological analyses of running culture also show how it can be egalitarian and unequal at once: Theoretically, running has no barrier to entry, and all you really need is a good pair of sneakers, but the socioeconomic and racial disparities in the world of competitive running are hard to ignore. The median household income of the Runner’s World print audience in 2022 was $120,050 (well above the 2021 national median of $70,784 ), implying that running is somehow associated with wealth. (A study on the meaning of running in American society looks at how running perpetuates ideals of capitalism and consumerism.) On the other hand, the simple act of jogging by yourself, in your own neighborhood, can be deadly for those less privileged; the most high-profile running stories in recent years haven’t been about heroes, but victims .

All of which is to say, running can be a complex subject, and essays and features about running fascinate me, especially after I became a runner myself.

The appeal of running isn’t always obvious to outsiders. Until I became a runner, I had been mystified why people would subject themselves to such a tedious kind of suffering. Masochists , I thought, whenever a group of runners passed by me in college.

But now the joke’s on me. I’m that guy running with a varicolored Dri-FIT running tank, six-inch lined running shorts, a Garmin feature-packed to conquer K2. My face is smeared with sunscreen, enough to trap dirt and insects that land on my face.

My transformation from an unbeliever to that friend who guilt-trips you to cheer for me on a Sunday morning happened two-plus years ago, thanks to — what else? — the pandemic. One fateful day in March 2020, after indoor gyms shut down, I decided to run across the Queensboro Bridge in Queens, New York. Back then, I didn’t have a smartphone, so I put my iPad mini in my polyester drawstring bag and ran across the bridge, listening to What We Talk About When We Talk About Running by Haruki Murakami. What started that day as a lockdown pastime evolved into something more, and thanks to Murakami, I’ve since added marathon entry fees as a line item in my annual expenses.

I’d like to think that all runners have experienced that moment when they cross over from “someone who runs” to a “runner.” The more you run, the more you experience moments of endorphin-induced glee. But one day you achieve escape velocity — and feel the euphoria of the “runner’s high.”

As the pieces below will show, runner’s high is not the only reason — nor is it the most meaningful one — writers run. If you’re Murakami, the reason can be as mundane as to stay fit after committing to a sedentary job. For other writers, it’s more complicated. The stories in this reading list highlight six writers’ insights on the act and art of running.

“The Running Novelist” (Haruki Murakami, The New Yorker , June 2008)

Longtime fans of the Murakami Cinematic Universe will find familiar elements here: baseball, jazz, understated prose, and non sequiturs. For a time, before Murakami became a novelist, he was the owner of a jazz club in Tokyo. In this piece, he describes how — and exactly when — he decided to write and how his early habits and commitments allowed him to do so prolifically for decades.

Running a jazz club required constant physical labor, but when Murakami started to spend more time at his desk, he started gaining weight. “This couldn’t be good for me,” he writes in a deadpan statement. “If I wanted to have a long life as a novelist, I needed to find a way to stay in shape.” Being metabolically challenged helped Murakami develop his work ethic.

Murakami drops writing advice while making parallel points about running. But the way he does it is frustratingly tantalizing — he’s not the one to share his tips openly à la Robert McKee. Murakami suggests that writing, like running, relies less on quick decision-making skills than patience and long contemplation: “Long-distance running suits my personality better, which may explain why I was able to incorporate it so smoothly into my daily life.” 

Murakami calls himself a no-talent — a colossal understatement — but readers who have encountered unreliable narrators in his novels know better: We shouldn’t be so naïve as to take his words at face value. 

Writers who are blessed with inborn talent can write easily, no matter what they do—or don’t do. Like water from a natural spring, the sentences just well up, and with little or no effort these writers can complete a work. Unfortunately, I don’t fall into that category. I have to pound away at a rock with a chisel and dig out a deep hole before I can locate the source of my creativity. Every time I begin a new novel, I have to dredge out another hole. But, as I’ve sustained this kind of life over many years, I’ve become quite efficient, both technically and physically, at opening those holes in the rock and locating new water veins.

Murakami doesn’t debunk the myth of an artistic genius but shows that with a sustainable routine, the genius can be prolific. If you’re reading for concrete advice on writing and a neat analogy comparing running to writing, you won’t find it here. Rather, we get something better: a portrait of the artist as a young runner.

“Why I Run: On Thoreau and the Pleasures of Not Quite Knowing Where You’re Going” (Rachel Richardson, Literary Hub , October 2022)

Don’t let the title fool you. Rachel Richardson has no unconditional praise for Thoreau; she politely defies him. In his essay “Walking,” Thoreau spoke to an audience of men as he opined on nature. To him, women were symbols — “for the splay of land on which such a free man saunters,” writes Richardson — rather than his target readers.

To read Thoreau’s essay in 2023 is to be startled by his problematic view of women and puritanical sense of “capital-N” Nature. He would not approve of the urban environment that Richardson describes while she runs: “I was born in a California he didn’t imagine, in a hospital in a town laid out with lawns and gardens.” Her piece is a bracing tonic against the writer’s anachronistic thoughts.

Richardson, like many other runners like me, was not always a runner: “How or why anyone would do this for pleasure was beyond my ability to fathom,” she thought when growing up. But in her 20s, she discovered running as a refreshingly guilt-free activity to do in a world that made her anxious. (People who started running during the pandemic, like me, might agree. Unlike going to the gym or participating in a team sport, which were risky at the time, running was easier to navigate and do on our own.)

Richardson writes that she never knows what her running route will be. But that uncertainty brings relief. Freedom. Inspiration. Running rewards runners with a sense of uncomplicated happiness and goodwill, which Richardson details in this delightful passage: 

When I run, I smile and people smile back. Kids wave at me and cyclists nod as they zoom by. Other runners raise a hand of hello or, my favorite, flash a big grin. Sometimes we’re wearing the same race shirt—me too!, I point. Sometimes they’re in a zone I can’t penetrate, with their earbuds and podcast or playlist keeping them company. I still smile, even when they don’t look up. Hey, we’re out here, doing this beautiful thing. When the endorphins start kicking in, around mile three, I love everybody, even the sourest-faced walker or most oblivious group of teenagers taking up the whole trail and dropping Doritos on the ground. Nice dog!, I shout when I see a dog happily panting at her runner’s side, or You’ve got this! to the struggling jogger stumbling to the end of his route. … I am an unrepentant dork when I run.

“To Run My Best Marathon at Age 44, I Had to Outrun My Past” (Nicholas Thompson, Wired , April 2020)

I have beef with running memoirs that try to overburden the sport with dramatic insights. Not because insights can’t be found in running, but because execution without sentimentality is no easy feat. Thompson’s essay — which deals with, among many things, family relationships, parental abuse and influence, sexuality, ambition, and mortality — is a clear-eyed piece that demonstrates what can be done in the hands of a dexterous editor and writer.

I’ve read this piece many times, and like a good novel, I’m drawn to different themes every time. In my most recent read, two ideas resonated: defining one’s identity separate from one’s parents’ and identifying with one’s masculinity without being poisoned by it. It’s an all-consuming narrative that spans four generations of men in Thompson’s family. 

As he would later tell me, running was the rare sport where you mostly competed against yourself. You could learn without having to lose. It was also something he hadn’t failed at in front of his father.

I sent an early version of this essay to my older sister, who saw something clearly that I hadn’t identified yet. “Running solved nothing for [Dad]. You’ve had a longer journey with it, and used it in ways that are much more productive. But I have this nagging sense that your story of needing to follow footsteps (the schools, the running) and needing so much not to follow footsteps (the overindulgence, the flameout, the irresponsibility and failure) are more complexly interwoven.

“To Invigorate Literary Mind, Start Moving Literary Feet” (Joyce Carol Oates, The New York Times , July 1999)

Whereas Murakami’s piece, detached from romanticism, was not a very effective sales pitch for running, Joyce Carol Oates’ ode to running may intrigue any writer who could use more literary imagination; she writes about running as a consciousness-expanding activity, allowing her to envision what she writes as a film or dream: “I’ve never thought of writing as the mere arrangement of words on the page but as the attempted embodiment of a vision: a complex of emotions, raw experience.” 

This piece was written more than 20 years ago. Oates, one of America’s most renowned storytellers, has published more than 70 books in her literary career. For her, running certainly seems to work.

The effort of memorable art is to evoke in the reader or spectator emotions appropriate to that effort. Running is a meditation; more practicably it allows me to scroll through, in my mind’s eye, the pages I’ve just written, proofreading for errors and improvements. My method is one of continuous revision. While writing a long novel, every day I loop back to earlier sections to rewrite, in order to maintain a consistent, fluid voice. When I write the final two or three chapters of a novel, I write them simultaneously with the rewriting of the opening, so that, ideally at least, the novel is like a river uniformly flowing, each passage concurrent with all the others.

Though I can’t claim the same level of inspiration, something similar happened when I first started running. During my daily runs, I experienced breakthroughs where I felt stuck: A connective sentence or a word I’d been looking for would pop into my head. On some days, this happened so often that I needed to stop every few minutes to record it on my phone, which disrupted my run. Eventually, I learned to run with a waterproof pocket notebook in my left hand and a retractable pen in my right.

“Running in the Age of Coronavirus” (Chris Ballard, Sports Illustrated , May 2020)

The May 2020 timing of this piece on Jim Fixx, the “father of recreational running,” was wonderfully apt for pandemic-inspired runners. It was as if Chris Ballard, a seasoned sports writer, was inducting new runners into the history of the sport. 

Ballard observed that more people started running during the pandemic, believing it “would in some way do them good, or make them feel better about themselves or the world, if even for a moment.” But the belief that running is good for your body and soul wasn’t always accepted wisdom but once an argument, even a radical and contrarian one. 

It may sound glib to say that “running saved my life.” But for Fixx, it really did. And, in a tragic irony, it also killed him. Fixx was one of the central figures of the running boom of the ’70s and whose book, The Complete Book of Running , became “the most lucrative nonfiction title ever published by Random House,” writes Ballard. It was a hit, and the media couldn’t get enough of him. As Ballard writes, “a fad had become a craze,” and for the first time in a year, 100,000 Americans finished a marathon. The book was noteworthy not just because it was an encyclopedia of running; it heralded a certain kind of running memoir, one in which an author details their salvation by running.

Ballard writes both a pocket history guide on how running became a major sport in America and a personal history of the man who made it possible. Although this story has been told many times, Ballard’s reporting is enriched by Fixx’s journals, to which his family offered access for the first time. 

After his death, the sports world changed profoundly. Running was no longer a craze, or a miracle cure. But neither did it die. Instead, it evolved. In 1977, 25,000 Americans finished marathons; By ’94, more than 300,000 did. In ’94, Oprah ran, and completed, her only marathon, spurring a boom among those who felt the feat previously unreachable. By the turn of the century, how you ran mattered as much as whether you did. Christopher McDougall’s Born to Run spurred thousands to tromp through the woods barefoot. Ultramarathons gained in popularity. Rock ’n’ roll marathon and fun run entered the lexicon. By 2011, women accounted for close to 60% of the finishers in half-marathons.

It’s not exactly a light read, so let me leave you with an irresistible detail: Fixx’s father was born a Fix but added a second x to his name. Why? He thought, “a person’s name ought to be a proper noun, not a verb.”

“What We Think About When We Run” (Kathryn Schulz, The New Yorker , November 2015)

I couldn’t think of a better piece to wrap up this reading list than a meta-essay about writing on running by Kathryn Schulz who is, after all, a master of meta-writing. ( Her piece about Oxford’s “A Very Short Introduction” series is a good example.)

What do runners think about when they run? In the first part of this two-part story, Schulz looks to scientific research and lays out the uninspiring results. She writes: “Like a fair number of psychological studies, this one confirmed the obvious while simultaneously missing it.” But she continues:

Of course runners think about their route, their pace, their pain, and their environment. But what of everything else that routinely surfaces in the mind during a run? The new girlfriend, the professional dilemma, the batteries you need to remember to buy for the smoke detector, what to get your mom for her birthday, the brilliance with which Daveed Diggs plays Thomas Jefferson (if you are listening to the soundtrack to “Hamilton”), the music, the moment (if you are listening to Eminem), the Walter Mitty meanderings into alternate lives: all of this is strangely missing from Samson’s study. The British author Alan Sillitoe got it right in his 1958 short story “The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner”: “They can spy on us all day to see if we’re … doing our ‘athletics,’ but they can’t make an X-ray of our guts to find out what we’re telling ourselves.”

Then, Schulz points out, with a knowing wit, the shortcomings of contemporary writing on running. Writing about running without schmaltz — like Murakami — is no easy feat, which makes it hard for people to find books that “address the mind of the runner in descriptive rather than inspirational or aspirational terms.” You could also argue that Christopher McDougall’s Born to Run , despite being enjoyable, reads like gonzo journalism. And some running memoirs that read like redemption memoirs, such as Robin Harvie’s The Lure of Long Distances , follow the same formula.

Later, Schulz champions Poverty Creek Journal , a book by literary-critic-cum-runner Thomas Gardner, as “the only one to uncover the literary possibilities inside the terse, repetitive, normally unimaginative genre of the running log.” After reading this piece, I read this strangely profound book — it’s a mix of literary criticism, running logs, and thoughts that range from complaints to grief.

When Schulz says running logs are “terse, repetitive, normally unimaginative,” she doesn’t intend it as a criticism. Running is, admittedly, an incredibly understimulating sport to watch, so much so that I suspect even the most avid runners probably don’t sit down to watch the Boston Marathon from beginning to the end. 

And here’s a pitfall of sports writing: There’s often too great a desire to imbue a grand meaning to the sport. “Life is a marathon,” goes the cliché. But the thing is, life is like a marathon. So writing about running becomes a balancing act, one in which — without sufficient craft and self-awareness — can be a challenge. But here, Schulz (and Gardner) masterfully explore the essence of running, in all its glory and tedium. A sport of contradiction indeed. 

Sheon Han is a writer and programmer based in Palo Alto, California. His work has appeared in The New Yorker , The Atlantic , The New York Times Magazine , Quanta Magazine , and elsewhere. You can read his work at sheon.tk .

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How to Write a Non-Cliche College Essay About Sports + Examples

What’s covered:, what makes a sports essay cliche.

• How To Make Your Sports Essay Unique

Great Examples of College Essays About Sports

Where to get your college essay edited for free, or by an expert.

You’ve been brainstorming essay topics for your college applications, and you think you’ve finally found the right one: an extended metaphor likening your experience on the field with overcoming personal struggles. The problem: many other students have this same thought. 

The purpose of a college essay is to make yourself stand out as a unique individual, but when students write about sports, they often blend in. Because of that, students are usually advised to pick a different topic.

That being said, it is possible to write a non-cliche college essay about sports if you put in a little extra effort. Read along to learn how to make your sports essay different from all the other sports essays.

Sports essays are cliche when they follow a standard trajectory. Some of these trajectories include writing a story about:

• An agonizing defeat
• Forging bonds with teammates
• Overcoming adversity
• Overcoming an injury
• Refusing to quit
• Victory during a big game

Because sports essays have very similar themes and “lessons learned,” it can be difficult to make your story stand out. These trajectories also often focus too much on the sport or storyline, and not enough on the writer’s reflections and personality.

As you write your essay, try to think about what your experience says about you rather than what you learned from your experience. You are more than just one lesson you learned!

(Keep in mind that the sports essay is not the only college essay cliche. Learn about other essay cliches and how to fix them in our complete guide).

How to Make Your Sports Essay Unique

1. focus on a specific moment or reflection..

The college essay is a way for students to humanize themselves to admissions officers. You do not feel human if you are describing yourself as just another player on the field!

One important way to make your essay about you (not just about sports) is by focusing on a specific moment in time and inviting the reader to join you in that moment. Explain to the reader what it would be like to be sitting in that locker room as you questioned the values of the other players on your team. Ask your reader to sit with you on the cot in the trainer’s room as your identity was stripped away from you when they said “your body can’t take this anymore.” Bring your reader to the dinner table and involve them in your family’s conversation about how sports were affecting your mental health and your treatment of those around you.

Intense descriptions of a specific experience will evoke emotions in your reader and allow them to connect with you and feel for you.

When in doubt, avoid anything that can be covered by ESPN. On ESPN, we see the games, we see the benches, we even see the locker rooms and training rooms. Take your reader somewhere different and show them something unique.

2. Use sports to point out broader themes in your life.

The main risk when writing about sports is neglecting to write about yourself. Before you get started, think about the main values that you want to express in your sports essay. Sports are simply your avenue for telling the reader what makes you unique. 

As a test, imagine if you were a pianist. Would you be able to talk about these same values? What if you were a writer? Or a chemist? Articulating your values is the end, and sports should simply be your means.

Some values that you might want to focus on:

• Autonomy (you want to be able to set your mind to anything and achieve it on your own)
• Growth (you seek improvement constantly)
• Curiosity (you are willing to try anything once)
• Vulnerability (you aren’t afraid to fail, as long as you give it your all)
• Community (you value the feedback of others and need camaraderie to succeed)
• Craft (you think that with deliberate care, anything can be perfected)
• Responsibility (you believe that you owe something to those around you and perhaps they also owe something to you)

You can use the ESPN check again to make sure that you are using sports as an avenue to show your depth.

Things ESPN covers: how a player reacts to defeat, how injuries affect a player’s gameplay/attitude, how players who don’t normally work well together are working together on their new team.

Things ESPN doesn’t cover: the conversation that a player had with their mother about fear of death before going into a big surgery (value: family and connection), the ways that the intense pressure to succeed consumed a player to the point they couldn’t be there for the people in their life (value: supporting others and community), the body image issues that weigh on a player’s mind when playing their sport and how they overcame those (value: health and growth).

3. Turn a cliche storyline on its head.

There’s no getting around the fact that sports essays are often cliche. But there is a way to confront the cliche head-on. For example, lots of people write essays about the lessons they learned from an injury, victory, and so on, but fewer students explain how they are embracing those lessons. 

Perhaps you learned that competition is overwhelming for you and you prefer teamwork, so you switched from playing basketball to playing Dungeons & Dragons. Maybe, when your softball career ended abruptly, you had to find a new identity and that’s when you became obsessed with your flower garden and decided to pursue botany. Or maybe, you have stuck with football through it all, but your junior-year mental health struggle showed you that football should be fun and you have since started a nonprofit for local children to healthily engage with sports.

If your story itself is more cliche, try bringing readers to the present moment with you and show why the cliche matters and what it did for you. This requires a fair amount of creativity. Ensure you’re not parroting a frequently used topic by really thinking deeply to find your own unique spin.

Night had robbed the academy of its daytime colors, yet there was comfort in the dim lights that cast shadows of our advances against the bare studio walls. Silhouettes of roundhouse kicks, spin crescent kicks, uppercuts and the occasional butterfly kick danced while we sparred. She approached me, eyes narrowed with the trace of a smirk challenging me. “Ready spar!” Her arm began an upward trajectory targeting my shoulder, a common first move. I sidestepped — only to almost collide with another flying fist. Pivoting my right foot, I snapped my left leg, aiming my heel at her midsection. The center judge raised one finger. 

There was no time to celebrate, not in the traditional sense at least. Master Pollard gave a brief command greeted with a unanimous “Yes, sir” and the thud of 20 hands dropping-down-and-giving-him-30, while the “winners” celebrated their victory with laps as usual. 

Three years ago, seven-thirty in the evening meant I was a warrior. It meant standing up straighter, pushing a little harder, “Yes, sir” and “Yes, ma’am”, celebrating birthdays by breaking boards, never pointing your toes, and familiarity. Three years later, seven-thirty in the morning meant I was nervous. 

The room is uncomfortably large. The sprung floor soaks up the checkerboard of sunlight piercing through the colonial windows. The mirrored walls further illuminate the studio and I feel the light scrutinizing my sorry attempts at a pas de bourrée, while capturing the organic fluidity of the dancers around me. “Chassé en croix, grand battement, pique, pirouette.” I follow the graceful limbs of the woman in front of me, her legs floating ribbons, as she executes what seems to be a perfect ronds de jambes. Each movement remains a negotiation. With admirable patience, Ms. Tan casts me a sympathetic glance.   

There is no time to wallow in the misery that is my right foot. Taekwondo calls for dorsiflexion; pointed toes are synonymous with broken toes. My thoughts drag me into a flashback of the usual response to this painful mistake: “You might as well grab a tutu and head to the ballet studio next door.” Well, here I am Master Pollard, unfortunately still following your orders to never point my toes, but no longer feeling the satisfaction that comes with being a third degree black belt with 5 years of experience quite literally under her belt. It’s like being a white belt again — just in a leotard and ballet slippers. 

But the appetite for new beginnings that brought me here doesn’t falter. It is only reinforced by the classical rendition of “Dancing Queen” that floods the room and the ghost of familiarity that reassures me that this new beginning does not and will not erase the past. After years spent at the top, it’s hard to start over. But surrendering what you are only leads you to what you may become. In Taekwondo, we started each class reciting the tenets: honor, courtesy, integrity, perseverance, self-control, courage, humility, and knowledge, and I have never felt that I embodied those traits more so than when I started ballet. 

The thing about change is that it eventually stops making things so different. After nine different schools, four different countries, three different continents, fluency in Tamil, Norwegian, and English, there are more blurred lines than there are clear fragments. My life has not been a tactfully executed, gold medal-worthy Taekwondo form with each movement defined, nor has it been a series of frappés performed by a prima ballerina with each extension identical and precise, but thankfully it has been like the dynamics of a spinning back kick, fluid, and like my chances of landing a pirouette, unpredictable. 

Why it works:

What’s especially powerful about this essay is that the author uses detailed imagery to convey a picture of what they’re experiencing, so much so that the reader is along for the ride. This works as a sports essay not only because of the language and sensory details, but also because the writer focuses on a specific moment in time, while at the same time exploring why Taekwondo is such an important part of their life.

After the emotional image is created, the student finishes their essay with valuable reflection. With the reflection, they show admissions officers that they are mature and self-aware. Self-awareness comes through with statements like “surrendering what you are only leads you to what you may become” and maturity can be seen through the student’s discussion of values “honor, courtesy, integrity, perseverance, self-control, courage, humility, and knowledge, and I have never felt that I embodied those traits more so than when I started ballet.” These are the kinds of comments that should find their way into a sports essay!

“Advanced females ages 13 to 14 please proceed to staging with your coaches at this time.” Skittering around the room, eyes wide and pleading, I frantically explained my situation to nearby coaches. The seconds ticked away in my head; every polite refusal increased my desperation.

Despair weighed me down. I sank to my knees as a stream of competitors, coaches, and officials flowed around me. My dojang had no coach, and the tournament rules prohibited me from competing without one.

Although I wanted to remain strong, doubts began to cloud my mind. I could not help wondering: what was the point of perfecting my skills if I would never even compete? The other members of my team, who had found coaches minutes earlier, attempted to comfort me, but I barely heard their words. They couldn’t understand my despair at being left on the outside, and I never wanted them to understand.

Since my first lesson 12 years ago, the members of my dojang have become family. I have watched them grow up, finding my own happiness in theirs. Together, we have honed our kicks, blocks, and strikes. We have pushed one another to aim higher and become better martial artists. Although my dojang had searched for a reliable coach for years, we had not found one. When we attended competitions in the past, my teammates and I had always gotten lucky and found a sympathetic coach. Now, I knew this practice was unsustainable. It would devastate me to see the other members of my dojang in my situation, unable to compete and losing hope as a result. My dojang needed a coach, and I decided it was up to me to find one. 

I first approached the adults in the dojang – both instructors and members’ parents. However, these attempts only reacquainted me with polite refusals. Everyone I asked told me they couldn’t devote multiple weekends per year to competitions. I soon realized that I would have become the coach myself.

At first, the inner workings of tournaments were a mystery to me. To prepare myself for success as a coach, I spent the next year as an official and took coaching classes on the side. I learned everything from motivational strategies to technical, behind-the-scenes components of Taekwondo competitions. Though I emerged with new knowledge and confidence in my capabilities, others did not share this faith.

Parents threw me disbelieving looks when they learned that their children’s coach was only a child herself. My self-confidence was my armor, deflecting their surly glances. Every armor is penetrable, however, and as the relentless barrage of doubts pounded my resilience, it began to wear down. I grew unsure of my own abilities.

Despite the attack, I refused to give up. When I saw the shining eyes of the youngest students preparing for their first competition, I knew I couldn’t let them down. To quit would be to set them up to be barred from competing like I was. The knowledge that I could solve my dojang’s longtime problem motivated me to overcome my apprehension.

Now that my dojang flourishes at competitions, the attacks on me have weakened, but not ended. I may never win the approval of every parent; at times, I am still tormented by doubts, but I find solace in the fact that members of my dojang now only worry about competing to the best of their abilities.

Now, as I arrive at a tournament with my students, I close my eyes and remember the past. I visualize the frantic search for a coach and the chaos amongst my teammates as we compete with one another to find coaches before the staging calls for our respective divisions. I open my eyes to the exact opposite scene. Lacking a coach hurt my ability to compete, but I am proud to know that no member of my dojang will have to face that problem again.

In the beginning, you might think this is another cliche sports essay about overcoming adversity. But instead, it becomes a unique statement and coming-of-age tale that reads as a suspenseful narrative. 

The author connects their experience with martial arts to larger themes in their life but manages to do so without riffing off of tried-and-true themes. Through statements like “I knew I couldn’t let them down. To quit would be to set them up to be barred from competing like I was” we learn about the students values and their desire to be there for those who depend on them. 

The student also brings it full circle, demonstrating their true transformation. By using the “Same, but Different” ending technique , the student places themself in the same environment that we saw in the intro, but experiences it differently due to their actions throughout the narrative. This is very compelling!

“1…2…3…4 pirouettes! New record!” My friends cheered as I landed my turns. Pleased with my progress, I gazed down at my worn-out pointe shoes. The sweltering blisters, numbing ice-baths, and draining late-night practices did not seem so bad after all. Next goal: five turns.

For as long as I can remember, ballet, in all its finesse and glamor, had kept me driven day to day. As a child, the lithe ballerinas, donning ethereal costumes as they floated across the stage, were my motivation. While others admired Messi and Adele, I idolized Carlos Acosta, principal dancer of the Royal Ballet. 

As I devoted more time and energy towards my craft, I became obsessed with improving my technique. I would stretch for hours after class, forcing my leg one inch higher in an effort to mirror the Dance Magazine cover girls. I injured my feet and ruined pair after pair of pointe shoes, turning on wood, cement, and even grass to improve my balance as I spun. At competitions, the dancers with the 180-degree leg extensions, endless turns, and soaring leaps—the ones who received “Bravos!” from the roaring audience—further pushed me to refine my skills and perfect my form. I believed that, with enough determination, I would one day attain their level of perfection. Reaching the quadruple-pirouette milestone only intensified my desire to accomplish even more. 

My efforts seemed to have come to fruition two summers ago when I was accepted to dance with Moscow’s Bolshoi Ballet at their renowned New York City summer intensive. I walked into my first session eager to learn from distinguished ballet masters and worldly dancers, already anticipating my improvement. Yet, as I danced alongside the accomplished ballerinas, I felt out of place. Despite their clean technique and professional training, they did not aim for glorious leg extensions or prodigious leaps. When they performed their turn combinations, most of them only executed two turns as I attempted four. 

“Dancers, double-pirouettes only.” 

Taken aback and confused, I wondered why our teacher expected so little from us. The other ballerinas seemed content, gracing the studio with their simple movements. 

As I grew closer with my Moscow roommates, I gradually learned that their training emphasized the history of the art form instead of stylistic tricks. Rather than show off their physical ability, their performances aimed to convey a story, one that embodied the rich culture of ballet and captured both the legacy of the dancers before them and their own artistry. As I observed my friends more intently in repertoire class, I felt the pain of the grief-stricken white swan from Swan Lake, the sass of the flirtatious Kitri from Don Quijote, and I gradually saw what I had overlooked before. My definition of talent had been molded by crowd-pleasing elements—whirring pirouettes, gravity-defying leaps, and mind-blowing leg extensions. This mindset slowly stripped me from the roots of my passion and my personal connection with ballet. 

With the Bolshoi, I learned to step back and explore the meaning behind each step and the people behind the scenes. Ballet carries history in its movements, from the societal values of the era to each choreographer’s unique flair. As I uncovered the messages behind each pirouette, kick, and jump, my appreciation for ballet grew beyond my obsession with raw athleticism and developed into a love for the art form’s emotive abilities in bridging the dancers with the audience. My journey as an artist has allowed me to see how technical execution is only the means to a greater understanding between dancer and spectator, between storyteller and listener. The elegance and complexity of ballet does not revolve around astonishing stunts but rather the evocative strength and artistry manifested in the dancer, in me. It is the combination of sentiments, history, tradition, and passion that has allowed ballet and its lessons of human connection to become my lifestyle both on and off stage.

This essay is about lessons. While the author is a dancer, this narrative isn’t really about ballet, per se — it’s about the author’s personal growth. It is purposefully reflective as the student shows a nice character arc that begins with an eager young ballerina and ends with a reflection on their past. The primary strength of this essay is the honesty and authenticity that the student approaches it with.

In the end, the student turns a cliche on its head as they embrace the idea of overcoming adversity and demonstrate how the adversity, in this case, was their own stereotypes about their art. It’s beautiful!

“Getting beat is one thing – it’s part of competing – but I want no part in losing.” Coach Rob Stark’s motto never fails to remind me of his encouragement on early-morning bus rides to track meets around the state. I’ve always appreciated the phrase, but an experience last June helped me understand its more profound, universal meaning.

Stark, as we affectionately call him, has coached track at my high school for 25 years. His care, dedication, and emphasis on developing good character has left an enduring impact on me and hundreds of other students. Not only did he help me discover my talent and love for running, but he also taught me the importance of commitment and discipline and to approach every endeavor with the passion and intensity that I bring to running. When I learned a neighboring high school had dedicated their track to a longtime coach, I felt that Stark deserved similar honors.

Our school district’s board of education indicated they would only dedicate our track to Stark if I could demonstrate that he was extraordinary. I took charge and mobilized my teammates to distribute petitions, reach out to alumni, and compile statistics on the many team and individual champions Stark had coached over the years. We received astounding support, collecting almost 3,000 signatures and pages of endorsements from across the community. With help from my teammates, I presented this evidence to the board.

They didn’t bite. 

Most members argued that dedicating the track was a low priority. Knowing that we had to act quickly to convince them of its importance, I called a team meeting where we drafted a rebuttal for the next board meeting. To my surprise, they chose me to deliver it. I was far from the best public speaker in the group, and I felt nervous about going before the unsympathetic board again. However, at that second meeting, I discovered that I enjoy articulating and arguing for something that I’m passionate about.

Public speaking resembles a cross country race. Walking to the starting line, you have to trust your training and quell your last minute doubts. When the gun fires, you can’t think too hard about anything; your performance has to be instinctual, natural, even relaxed. At the next board meeting, the podium was my starting line. As I walked up to it, familiar butterflies fluttered in my stomach. Instead of the track stretching out in front of me, I faced the vast audience of teachers, board members, and my teammates. I felt my adrenaline build, and reassured myself: I’ve put in the work, my argument is powerful and sound. As the board president told me to introduce myself, I heard, “runners set” in the back of my mind. She finished speaking, and Bang! The brief silence was the gunshot for me to begin. 

The next few minutes blurred together, but when the dust settled, I knew from the board members’ expressions and the audience’s thunderous approval that I had run quite a race. Unfortunately, it wasn’t enough; the board voted down our proposal. I was disappointed, but proud of myself, my team, and our collaboration off the track. We stood up for a cause we believed in, and I overcame my worries about being a leader. Although I discovered that changing the status quo through an elected body can be a painstakingly difficult process and requires perseverance, I learned that I enjoy the challenges this effort offers. Last month, one of the school board members joked that I had become a “regular” – I now often show up to meetings to advocate for a variety of causes, including better environmental practices in cafeterias and safer equipment for athletes.

Just as Stark taught me, I worked passionately to achieve my goal. I may have been beaten when I appealed to the board, but I certainly didn’t lose, and that would have made Stark proud.

This essay uses the idea of sports to explore a more profound topic—growing through relationships. They really embrace using sports as an avenue to tell the reader about a specific experience that changed the way they approach the world. 

The emphasis on relationships is why this essay works well and doesn’t fall into a cliche. The narrator grows not because of their experience with track but because of their relationship with their coach, who inspired them to evolve and become a leader.

Have a draft of your college essay? We’re here to help you polish it. Students can participate in a free Peer Review, or they can sign up for a paid review by CollegeVine’s experts. Sign up for your free CollegeVine account today to start improving your essay and your chances of acceptance!

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Essays on Running

Faq about running.

Running Has Taught Me to Appreciate What My Body Can Do, Not What Size It Is

Growing up, I was always small and scrawny. I never really noticed my body size until I started high school. I remember hearing people say, "Oh, you're so tiny. How do you do that?" I took pride in being small — something I feel ashamed about now — and the pressure of maintaining that body size led me to be careful about what I ate as I became an adult.

I didn't play sports back then, but my brother ran cross country in high school, and I remember that he would come home stinky and covered in mud. I thought, "This is so silly! Why would you choose to run?" I didn't "get it" until my boyfriend started training for a marathon in 2014. I was 25, and I wanted to understand what he was doing when he left the house for hours at a time. So I just tried running one mile. It was hard, but I kept at it because I wanted to be supportive. That's really why I wanted to get into running.

At the time, I lived near a park with a one-mile loop. I specifically remember the first time I finished that course and didn't feel absolutely exhausted. I think I looked around to see if anyone else was witnessing this moment. It felt both so big and so ordinary at the same time: so big because it was a new feeling; so ordinary because it was already part of a new habit. It was exciting and validating to literally feel the progress of something that had been really hard getting easier and easier.

When you start running, you improve fast . You're running half a mile, then one mile, then one-and-a-half, then two, then three. I started tagging along on my boyfriend's miles, and one day, as we slowed to a jog, he said: "Do you know how long that was? Five miles." Just like when I finished that one-mile loop, this felt like a huge milestone. By then, I was well and truly hooked; I ran the Army Ten-Miler that fall.

Around the same time, I started rethinking my relationship with my body. Before, my approach to eating was "less, less, less." I never had a huge appetite to begin with, but looking back I realize I'd also unconsciously internalized the social pressure to stay small.

But as I began to run more , I realized food is fuel. Making that connection between food and running outcomes was an aha moment. Eating stopped being about controlling the size of my body, and started being more about how to best optimize my performance at this sport that I'd come to love so much.

I was still thin, but I knew that I needed fuel to feel strong on my runs. I've never been a breakfast person, but I started making myself eat a fruit bar before my morning runs. When I was out, I would set an alarm on my phone and eat energy chews every 30 minutes.

I logged two major races in my first two years as a runner: the Marine Corps Marathon in 2015 and Grandma's Marathon in 2017. I made an ambitious goal for the latter event — one that I missed, which ultimately destroyed my relationship with running for a while. I took two years off, and that's when my body really started to change.

I wasn't a "skinny" woman anymore. I no longer heard the "oh you're so tiny" comments. At first, it was an odd, even uncomfortable feeling. Then, a friend who was doing some photos for me — which I felt fairly self-conscious about — admired my muscly calves. Her words stuck with me, and some time later I had another perspective shift, similar to my earlier realization about food being fuel: Heck yes, my calves have grown! Although I wasn't running much at the time, during the previous two years they'd taken an enormous amount of total force over the course of my runs. I was able to celebrate their strength as a result of — even an homage to — my love for the sport.

But our relationships with our bodies ebb and flow, and during the COVID-19 pandemic , I entered an ebb. I felt tired. My depression got worse, and I felt stuck in a vicious cycle: my body wasn't achieving anything for me, and so I wasn't treating it like the amazing machine it is. I felt trapped in it instead of empowered by it.

For several years, I wasn't in a great place with my body image. This discouraged me from getting back into running because I started to think of myself as "out of shape."

But as the pandemic dragged on, I — like so many people — needed a reason to leave the house every day. So I decided to return to running. I started from scratch, using a Couch to 5K program. This time, I felt more empowered and educated. I strength trained and focused on nutrition. I laced up more consistently than I ever had before.

Now, I think my body is probably the same size or even bigger than it was during my break from running, but my relationship with it is totally different. It's strong. I'm not necessarily faster, but I have more energy and passion for what I'm doing.

There's this hill at the end of my regular route. In just the last few weeks, I realized that I've been finishing my runs with my heart rate in an easy zone . Going up that hill is no longer a problem, even though I used to dread it. That's strong.

I've now raced three of four of my spring races, with the Marine Core Historic Half this Sunday. I haven't hit any personal records so far, but I've never completed this many hard-effort runs back-to-back.

Now when I hear comments like, "Wow, your legs are so strong!" I can take them as the compliments they are. I think the biggest takeaway for me is to focus on what my body can do, not what it looks like — and running helps me keep that perspective.

— As told to Kells McPhillips.

Kells McPhillips is a health and wellness writer living in Los Angeles. In addition to PS, her journalism has appeared in The New York Times, Well+Good, Fortune, Runner's World, Outside, Yoga Journal, and others. On the brand side, she regularly works with Peloton, Calm, and Equinox.

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Essay Samples on Running

The highlights of some of the best kinesiology tapes.

Whether you are a runner, skater, baller or involved in any form of athletics, a kinesiology tape is your ticket to less painful joints and muscles. The sports tape is used by professional athletes to support their muscles, joints, tendons, and ligaments. The tape is...

• Kinesiology

Importance Of Physical Fitness In Marathon Runners

Running is one of the most popular sports and it is performed in various distances like long distances and short distances and there are also various other competitions as well as the events for the runners and the most popular one is the Marathon. Marathon...

Effects Of Running On Our Health

Running is tiring, it’s tedious, it’s painful and it’s exhausting. We often hear many complaining about aching knees, strained muscles, and how energy-consuming it is, not to mention how hot and humid it is to run here in Singapore. So why do people still run?...

The Disadvantages of Intense Training Among Runners

In sports and athletics, the common belief is that the harder you train and the faster you complete rounds and cycles, the stronger you become. While this is mostly true, it also varies according to the type of sport and competition. It seems counter-intuitive, but...

What Running Means to Me

Since I was 11 years old, I've run. In that sense, running is all I've ever known. Take that away and who am I?Recently, I haven't been running as much as I use to. Everyone assumed I was injured and well, I was for a...

• Physical Exercise

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The Importance of Practicing Running Regularly

Lying of a comfortable couch and watching your favorite series all day it sounds fantastic and fun but have you think what you are doing with your body by doing so. A person who lay down and the person who goes for running each day...

How to Improve Your Running Form

How Do I Improve My Running Form? Answer: With improved running form, you will be able to run further and faster. If you are thinking about how you can improve your form you are definitely on the right track to becoming a better runner. When...

• Healthy Lifestyle

Treadmill or Running Outside: Pros and Cons of Each Practice

One of the simplest ways of maintaining a healthy lifestyle is through running. It is simple and effective and you can either run outside or on a treadmill. However, there has been an old age debate of which option is better; running on a treadmill...

Best topics on Running

1. The Highlights of Some of the Best Kinesiology Tapes

2. Importance Of Physical Fitness In Marathon Runners

3. Effects Of Running On Our Health

4. The Disadvantages of Intense Training Among Runners

5. What Running Means to Me

6. The Importance of Practicing Running Regularly

7. How to Improve Your Running Form

8. Treadmill or Running Outside: Pros and Cons of Each Practice

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Your chance of acceptance, your chancing factors, extracurriculars, writing about sports in college essays.

Hey guys, I'm a junior and I'm starting to think about the topics for my college essay. I'm really passionate about sports and it's been a significant part of my high school experience. Is it a good idea to write about sports in my college essay? Can you share any tips and suggestions for making it stand out?

Writing about sports in your college essay can be a great idea if you approach it in a unique and personal way. While it's true that some sports-related essay topics are considered cliché, like sports injuries or victories, there's still a way to make yours stand out.

Here are some tips and suggestions for making your sports essay stand out:

1. Focus on a specific aspect: Instead of writing about your entire sports experience, choose a specific aspect or moment that carries personal significance. For example, how your connection with a teammate shaped your perspective on teamwork or how a particular challenge on the field taught you perseverance and resilience.

2. Share personal growth: Rather than just discussing your accomplishments or stats, emphasize how your involvement in sports has contributed to your personal growth and character development. Mention the skills and qualities you've gained and how they'll contribute to your success in college and beyond.

3. Write about a unique experience: Avoid the clichés by writing about an unusual or unexpected experience related to sports. For example, an essay could focus on how coaching a youth sports team shaped your leadership skills or how organizing a charity sports tournament benefited your community.

4. Show your passion: Make sure your genuine love for the sport comes across in your writing. This could be reflected in the vivid description of memorable moments or the enthusiasm with which you talk about your dedication and commitment to the sport.

5. Connect it to your future goals: Tie your sports experiences to your academic and career aspirations to show the admissions committee how your background in sports will contribute to your future success. For example, if you have a passion for sports science or sports management, discuss how your experiences on the field have fueled your interest in those fields.

By considering these tips, you can craft a compelling essay about your passion for sports without falling into cliché territory. Remember to make your essay personal, focused, and reflective of your personal growth, and you'll be well on your way to writing a standout sports-related essay.

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CollegeVine’s Q&A seeks to offer informed perspectives on commonly asked admissions questions. Every answer is refined and validated by our team of admissions experts to ensure it resonates with trusted knowledge in the field.

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Essay on Athletics in 100, 200, and 300 Words

• Updated on  
• Jan 22, 2024

Essay on Athletics: Did you know there are a total of 47 events in athletics? 24 for men and 23 for women. Athletics is a group of sporting events such as running, walking, jumping, and throwing. Some of the most popular athletic events are 100m, 200m, and 400m sprints, javelin throw, long jump, and triple jump. 

International athletics events, such as the Olympic games, World Athletics Championship, Inter-continental events, Grand Prix, etc. are all managed by World Athletics, previously known as the International Association of Athletics Federation (IAAF). In 2023, Noah Lyles, an American Sprinter, Armand Duplantis, a Swedish pole-vault champion, and Kelvin Kiptum, a Kenyan long-distance runner were awarded the Athlete of the Year titles. 

Table of Contents

• 1 Essay on Athletics in 150 Words
• 2 Essay on Athletics in 250 Words
• 3 Essay on Athletics in 350 Words

Participating in athletic activities offers a wide range of benefits to students. It helps increase their physical health, boosts mental strength, positively impacts academic performance, builds social skills, etc. Today, we will provide you with an essay on athletics, which will cover its history, importance, benefits, and a lot more.

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Essay on Athletics in 150 Words

Athletics is a group of sporting events, which includes a total of 47 activities. Some of the most popular athletic events are 100m and 200m sprints, 110m hurdles, javelin throw, and triple jump. In India, the legendary Milkha Singh was the first athlete to win global events and represent India at the International Level. At the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, Neeraj Chopra became the first Indian to win a Gold medal at any major sporting event. His spectacular performance inspired millions of young Indians to participate in sporting events at school, college, and national and international events. 

Athletics is not just a sport, it’s an emotion. Athletics teaches us the art of discipline, makes us responsible for our duties, instills a love for physical activity and a healthy lifestyle, etc. The life of an athlete is not an easy one, as it requires deliberate practice, filled with passion and spirit to achieve certain goals. Athletes have the mentality to become a better version of themselves, to become better than what they were yesterday by working hard. 

Must Read Article: Another Gold in Neeraj Chopra’s Arsenal: Tokyo to Budapest

Essay on Athletics in 250 Words

There are a total of 47 sporting events in athletics, divided into running, walking, jumping, and throwing events. Running and walking are the basic physical activities. Jumping and throwing require both strength and technique, which athletes learn through years of deliberate practice and dedication. The first modern Olympic games were conducted in 1896 in Athens, Greece. It was also known as the Athens 1896 Olympic Games. It included a total of 9 sports from 10 disciplines. 

Participating in athletic activities keeps us mentally and physically fit, makes us goal-oriented people, provides meaning, and offers us a healthy lifestyle and a love for physical exercise. Students from a very young age are enrolled in sporting activities so that their body adapts to the physical demands. 

Athletic activities like running, jumping, and throwing keep us healthy and improve our cardiovascular system. As we sweat out, our body releases endorphins, which improve our mood and reduce stress levels. 

In athletics, there are team events also, such as relay races. Such activities teach us teamwork, communication, and cooperation. The more we participate in team events, the more our social skills and friendships will develop.

Every national or international athlete is passionate about a healthy lifestyle by eating healthy and physical activities. Milkha Singh, who represented India at the 1960 Rome Olympics, used to run two times a day till he was 85 years old. He is just one example, as most of the former athletes and hall-of-fame athletes have adopted that lifestyle. We all must participate in athletic activities enthusiastically not just as a career option, but for a healthy lifestyle.

Essay on Athletics in 350 Words

Athletics is a major sporting activity, where a total of 47 events are included for both male and female athletes. Out of these 47, 24 events are for male and 23 for female athletes. Athletics require a lot of hard work, dedication, and discipline, which takes years of practice. Athletes like Usain Bolt, Neeraj Chopra, and Micheal Johnson are some of the most outstanding athletes who have inspired millions of young athletes to achieve their goals.

History of Athletics

The history of athletics dates back to ancient times. Running, swimming, wrestling, chariot racing, and javelin throw are some of the oldest athletic events. The modern athletic events were first organized in the 1896 Olympic Games in Athens. The Olympics, World Athletics Championships, and Commonwealth Games are some of the international athletic events. The last Olympic games were held in Tokyo in 2021 and the next will take place in Paris in 2024. 

Importance of Athletics

Athletics brings discipline into our lives, as we have to perform physical activity every day, eat healthy and nutritious food, and follow a proper sleep cycle. Physical activity triggers the release of endorphins, which can reduce stress and improve mood. Regular physical exercise improves mental concentration and cognitive function, which can help students perform better in their academics. 

Athletics requires commitment and discipline and is not limited to physical activity. Success in sports increases self-esteem and confidence, making students goal-oriented and pursuing sports as a career. Every athletic event has some soft rules and regulations, which teach us the importance of guidelines in life.

Top 10 Athletes

Here are the top 10 athletics personalities with their events.

• Neeraj Chopra – Javelin Throw
• Usain Bolt – Sprinting (100m, 200m and 4x100m)
• Armando Duplantis – Pole Vault
• Noah Lyles – Sprinting (100m and 200m)
• Murali Sreeshankar – Long Jump 
• Yulimar Rojas Rodríguez – Triple Jump
• Annu Rani – Javelin Throw
• Hima Das – Sprinting
• Avinash Samble – Middle Distance Runner
• Sydney McLaughlin – 400mh

As a student, you must participate in athletic events, as it will teach you important life skills. You don’t need to participate in top-level events. Participating at the school level or in interclass competitions will also bring major benefits to you.

Also Read: How to Prepare for UPSC in 6 Months?

Related Articles

Ans: International athletics events, such as the Olympic games, World Athletics Championship, Inter-continental events, Grand Prix, etc. are all managed by World Athletics, previously known as the International Association of Athletics Federation (IAAF). In 2023, Noah Lyles, an American Sprinter, Armand Duplantis, a Swedish pole-vault champion, and Kelvin Kiptum, a Kenyan long-distance runner were awarded the Athlete of the Year titles. Athletics is a group of sporting events such as running, walking, jumping, and throwing. Some of the most popular athletic events are 100m, 200m, and 400m sprints, javelin throw, long jump and triple jump.

Ans: Some of the best athletic events for students are Sprinting, Long Jump, Javelin Throw, and Distance Running.

Ans: Neeraj Chopra, an Indian Javelin Thrower, was nominated for the Athlete of the Year category in 2023.

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Shiva Tyagi

With an experience of over a year, I've developed a passion for writing blogs on wide range of topics. I am mostly inspired from topics related to social and environmental fields, where you come up with a positive outcome.

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Home / Essay Samples / Sports / Running

Running Essay Examples

Mental and physical health benefits of running.

Running is tiring, it’s tedious, it’s painful and it’s exhausting. We often hear many complaining about aching knees, strained muscles and how energy consuming it is, not to mention how hot and humid it is to run here in Singapore. So why do people still...

Overcoming a Challenge of Cross-country Run

It was my senior year of high school and I decided to try something new. I had previously played baseball, but due to an arm injury, that wouldn’t heal, I could no longer play. So, I thought I would try a different sport, something that would challenge me, cross-country....

The Marathon Race: Endurance, Triumph, and Unity

The marathon race, a grueling long-distance event, embodies the spirit of human endurance, determination, and unity. This essay delves into the significance of the marathon race, exploring its historical roots, the physical and mental challenges participants face, and the sense of community and accomplishment that...

Development of a Safety Running Plan for Georgetown University Medical Center

Securing and principle now a day in this era is as important as maintaining profitability of any organization. When science and technology has wide-spread to every person there are both the aspects that exist. The report explains why we need a safety running plan for...

The Popularity of Running in America

In the modern world, sport has played an increasingly important role in our lives, and it's getting more and more popular. You may have heard of sports as medicine. It's not just a statement, it's a fact. There is plenty of scientific evidence that regular...

A Research on Reaction Time

The purpose of this lab was to explore the relationship between visual reaction time, auditory reaction time, and movement time. The functional definition of a reaction time is the amount of time from the onset of a stimulus to the initiation of response, and movement...

Germany in the Sport of Distance Running

From the notoriety of the Berlin Marathon being one of the fastest and most famous Abbott Marathon Majors, to the successful sub-2-hour marathon attempt in Vienna in October 2019 by Eliud Kipchoge, Germany and the surrounding countries are known for their robust running scenes. This...

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