Change

Wow. Ninth grade has gone by so fast and it has been a huge year of change.

A major change this year is that I stopped doing gymnastics half way through the year. Gymnastics has been a part of my life for literally forever, so stopping was a really tough decision. I didn’t know what I would do without it, but I have become closer to my friends and made some new ones. I started doing track, which was really fun, but I am sad to say is coming to an end with the school year.

Until next year track.

This summer will be the first summer I have absolutely nothing on my weekly schedule. I have made many plans to explore new opportunities. I am planning to try new sports such as cross-country running, tennis, diving, and anything else I come across. I also hope to take art classes and travel with my friends.

I am still close with my teammates from gymnastics, after all the time we spent together I don’t think I could ever part from them (we are all going to see Pitch Perfect 2 together next week and I am super stoked). My previous coach even wants me to come in and start coaching this summer.

Throw back to that one time. We are CUTE.

A question a lot of people have been asking me is if I will ever go back to gymnastics. Well here is my answer. Right now, I don’t know what I am going to do. I am just going to try new things and have fun over the summer. Maybe one day I will find myself back in the world of gymnastics. But don’t you worry, “I am going to do back-tucks (which is the same thing as a backflip for all of you uneducated people) until I am eighty”. I have stolen this saying from a teammate who stopped a few years before me. So far she has kept it up, and so have I. I mean she is only seventeen and I am only fourteen but….we will get there one day.

Tumbling on the beach.

I will never regret the time I spent in gymnastics. It shaped me into who I am today and allowed me to meet many new people and give me opportunities I wouldn’t have had without it. Now it is time to start a new chapter of my life and see what comes next. (yes, yes, I know, cheesy as cheese)

Who knows if I will use this blog again, but it has been a fun experience for me, and I am sure you had a glorious time reading about my life, because I am the most interesting person out there. But really, I enjoyed writing for all of you. Well, have a great summer (or HAGS if you want to throw it back to fourth grade). Until next time…

Morgan

Meet 2

Five days after my first track meet, there was a second. This meet was more fun and less chaotic, in my opinion. There were about half the amount of people who went to this meet than to the last. Guess what that means…..NO CROWDED SCHOOL BUSES! There were only two to a seat, and no one was on the floor. YAY! While on the bus, Daisy and I decided to play card games. This was quite fun, and we surprisingly did not have the complications of the slipping, sliding, and falling cards until we were towards the end of the ride. 

We got to the meet, unloaded, and waited to see what we were going to run. This meet was set up differently than the last one. The first meet, everyone had to be registered in advance for what event they would be doing and that was the coaches job. At this meet, we could do up to four events, and choose whatever we wanted. I decided to do the one-hundred, two-hundred, four-hundred, and long jump. But it wasn’t as easy as that. I mean, I am super bad at making decisions, so it took me a while, and I still wasn’t sure if I was going to run some of those events for sure until it came time for them. 

The 100 was the first event, followed directly by long jump. Then I just hung out on the bleachers while waiting for the 400-hundred. This was the first time I had ever run the four-hundred at an actual race pace. I had run it as a slow jog, but never for time. This was the event I was debating about doing the most. I finally decided to run it when they announced the last call for the event. Last was the two hundred, which I knew I definitely was going to do. After that is was time to wrap up in a blanket, huddle with your teammates, and cheer everyone else on. 

Sunset at the end of the meet!

Meet 1

Today was my first track meet ever. I was not feeling very prepared because there have only been two weeks of practice, but, it went pretty well. It was Friday, so we still had school, but it was a super short day because there was a debate tournament at the school. When we got out of school at eleven-thirty, Daisy, Ali, Ansley and I went to El Chubasco for lunch. This place is amazing. (I seem to say that about every restaurant. I guess you could say I just love food.) 

After stuffing ourselves as much as we could without getting sick when we run, we walked over to the Maverick gas station. Ummm…why would we go to the gas station? None of us have cars….well, here is my explanation. I was freaking out because I didn’t have any gum so I convinced them to go to the gas station so I could buy gum. Yep. That happened. So while we were at the gas station, everyone else bought some candy to put in the food locker for school. Yes, we have a food locker, no, you cannot have the combination. 

Waiting for our first event to start.

From the gas station we walked back to the high school and got ready for the meet. We got back a little later than we had hoped, so while we were scrambling around for our uniforms, the team started to load onto the bus. By the time we were on the bus, it was totally full. Luckily, Daisy, Ansley and I found a seat, but Ali had to cram into a seat with two other unknown girls . Whoops. Sorry Ali. You may think, “Eh, that’s not bad”, but imagine a bus filled with seventy-two high school students (we happened to have exactly the maximum capacity allowed on the bus), with all of their school bags, and track bags. There were three students to a seat, and some people had to sit on the floor by the emergency exits. It was about a forty-five minute drive.

 We arrive at the track meet, and that is when the commotion escalates even more. No one has any idea what we are going to run, when each event is happening, where the coaches are, where we need to be, etc. It didn’t help that the upperclassman were not at this meet to help guide us through the chaos and cluelessness. 

Finally, the coaches return, and told us our events. I was told I was running the coed-sprint medley, and doing long jump, but I was still freaking out because I didn’t know what leg of the medley, if I was supposed to be somewhere for long jump, or if the two events ended up overlapping. It all worked out though, and I ended up running the first leg, the one-hundred, of the medley. Then I did long jump. Then of course, after the long day at the track, there was another cramped bus ride back to the high school. One meet down, thirteen to go!

More Nerves

The very first track meet of the season is tomorrow. This is also my very first track meet ever. I know it is pretty obvious, but track is TOTALLY different than gymnastics. 

Here are a few of my reasons:

1. I have had practice for two weeks, and about two-thirds of us have no experience with track what-so-ever. With gymnastics, we had about nine months of training before the first meet. 

2. I have no idea what I will be running, along with everyone else. So I will find out at the meet. With gymnastics, you know what you will be competing two weeks in advance, at the very latest.

RUN! (that's me)

3. The coaches don’t know who you are. You could start talking to a coach about something you discussed the day before, and they don’t remember what you are talking about (this happened to me today). With gymnastics, at least with my team, the coaches know you as well as your parents do.

4. The team is HUGE. There are about one-hundred people on the track team, girls and guys. My gymnastics team only had ten people on it, all girls.

5. I am still clueless. I have no idea what the meet is going to be like, and what to do. With gymnastics, I knew every little detail there was to know. 

6. Everybody knows everybody, but not really. We all go to the same school, so I recognize most people on the team, but I don’t actually know them yet. With gymnastics, I knew my teammates so well, it was like they were my sisters.

Luckily, some of my friends on the team will be there so we can be clueless together!

Track and Time

Track is five days a week after school. As I mentioned earlier, I have no idea what I am doing, so today I decided to go with the sprinters. We warmed up inside, then went outside to the track. After running, we did some abs. I know this is weird, but I LOVE ABS. Anyways we had a plank competition. Everyone had to hold plank for thirty seconds, then it was a competition to see who could hold it the longest. I don’t mean to brag or anything…(cough, yes I do, cough)…but I won! I held plank for six minutes and fifty-four seconds. Being a gymnast definitely came in handy.

The rest of the week consisted of indian sprints, stairs, starts, mat runs, ankles, and more abs. On Thursday, I also decided to try hurdles. Hurdles are usually for tall people….but….wait for it…. I was not the shortest one there (I need a clapping emoji)! We didn’t actually jump over the hurdles, but we did a bunch of drills. There were about six of us who decided to try hurdles, and all of us were new to them. It was nice that I was not the only clueless one there.

Image courtesy of tmelero.com

Gymnastics took up twenty-four hours of my week. The rest of my time was spent going to school, doing homework, and sleeping. That’s about it. Now, about ten of those twenty-four hours a week are spent doing track. That leaves me with fourteen hours left. This leaves me plenty of time to do homework AND watch T.V.. WHAT IS THIS WORLD!? To blow your mind even more, on Friday, I was an actual teenager. If you are a gymnast, you know what it is like. You have VERY little social life. On this day, Ali, Daisy and I did not go to track because the honors chemistry placement test for next year was at the same time. When we finished the test, the three of us went to The Mine Bouldering Gym in Kimball Junction. After climbing for about an hour and a half, we walked over to Cafe Rio (I need the heart eyed emoji because it is delicious!). We ran into two other friends and the five of us ate dinner together. It was so fun! AND THEN to add to this day, my friend Jamie from gymnastics came to my house. We played board games, ate pizza, and watched Despicable Me in Spanish. I would say this was another successful week.

Day 1

So, now that I have so much time on my hands, I need something to do. It has been two weeks since I have quit, and so far all I have done is watch Netflix. Luckily, it was a break so I could get away with it. But now that break is over and school is starting again, that will not be happening. Sunday night before school, my mom and I were talking about school sports. So I texted my friend Daisy, and she told me she was doing track, and practice started sometime that week. I had nothing better to do so I thought I might as well try it out! Well, that wasn’t exactly my mind set. Even when I got to the high school I wasn’t sure if I wanted to go to practice. Daisy and I convinced our friend Ali to go to track with us. Oh, I forgot to mention track was that Monday. So, as we walked into the high school, I was still trying to convince Daisy and Ali that we should just go to Ali’s house instead. But they convinced me to go. The coaches started talking, and I had no idea what they were talking about, so I just followed Daisy (who did cross country earlier in the year and knew what she was doing) and ended up going with the long distance runners. 

Daisy and I in our uniforms!

This may be kind of sad to some of you guys, but the most I have run before is three miles. This was also the last time I ran distance, period. And it happened to be in May. It is now February. Nine months ago. If you know anything about track, (which I don’t), you would know the longest distance you run is two miles. WRONG. Well, kind of. Yes, in meets, you only run two miles, but not in practice. The long distance coach begins telling us about our training schedule and goals for the year. Everyones goal is to run ten miles by the end of year. TEN MILES!? WHO RUNS TEN MILES? Not me. For sure. Ali and I look at each with the “ARE YOU CRAZY?” kind of look. Then I look over to Daisy, the experienced one, and she has the “no big deal” face on. Alright….looks like we are running ten miles today. Except that didn’t happen. THANK THE LORD! Ali and I ran four miles (which is the most I have ever run. Yes, I know. Hold the applause.) and everyone else ran eight miles. So I guess you could consider my first day of track a success.