Randomality
Oct. 27th, 2010 08:32 pmHaven't been feeling too right lately, but through some chattering with ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
limiinal (who I need to keep chattering too) and a recent call back home, I'm feeling better than I did.
And so, with no segue whatsoever, high school cross country.
It's weird to think that had I not broken my arm I never would have joined.
The last month before starting my high school career (why is that even called that?), a friend of my parents had left his four-wheeler ATV at our house. Being the kids we were, my sister and I used it as much as we could before it disappeared. One afternoon, I and a neighbor were racing each other; myself on the four-wheeler, he on a dirtbike. The four-wheeler was not exactly powerful, so for the most part lost in any races against the dirtbike. But at one point I got ahead, and being a wider wheeled vehicle could kick up a lot more dust, and was feeling pretty good.
Then I decided to turn around and see how far back he was.
The next time I opened my eyes, and it literally felt like less than a blink, I was in the passenger seat of the truck, my mom driving me to the hospital, and my left arm doing its best impression of the letter "Z" in my lap. Awesome.
Turns out I broke my arm in the most difficult way, a clean break. Should you not know, a doctor would rather your arm be jagged when it breaks, because then it's a relatively simple matter of putting the two parts back together, like a puzzle piece. With a clean break, it's more of pressing two flat pieces of wood together and telling them to stay there with no glue. So I was looking at several months in a cast.
During this period, I recieved in the mail a flyer for school teams, one of which being cross-country. At the time I can't say I had much interest, but my mom wanted me to do something, and suggested that I could be a team manager if nothing else, and so packed me into the truck and drove me to practice. My best friend and neighbor came with, to keep me company.
I'm still not sure how it happened exactly, but somehow I ended up doing warmups, then running, and my friend took over manager duties, and it remained so for both of us for the rest of high school.
I love cross-country. Seeing people's looks when you say you "run for fun" is always worth a laugh, because more often than not they then you're mental for doing so without any provication. For our school at least, I also think it was the most tight-knit of teams. While not team wide all the time, we all were good friends, and most of us would end up doing something with another over the rest of the year, even after the season ended. New members were quickly absorbed into the fold and cheered on.
It was helped that cross-country was the highest ranking team sport in the school. I still hate football and basketball for being the big sports in school, when the teams weren't really that good and it was considered a big deal just to rank in semi-finals (never winning beyond the first round). Cross-country rountinely went to state finals almost every year, and actually won my sophmore year. But who gets the pep rallies? *grumble* The PTA at one point bought pendants to hang around the gym, each for every sport that got to a certain level in their divisions. A full 70% were cross-country.
I still enjoy running, though I don't make myself do it as much as I'd like. I don't think I'd ever have joined on my own had my arm not be broken. So while I can't say I enjoyed having the annoyance of a full arm cast for two months, followed by a forearm cast for another two, I also can't say I see it as a bad thing to happen.
limiinal (who I need to keep chattering too) and a recent call back home, I'm feeling better than I did.And so, with no segue whatsoever, high school cross country.
It's weird to think that had I not broken my arm I never would have joined.
The last month before starting my high school career (why is that even called that?), a friend of my parents had left his four-wheeler ATV at our house. Being the kids we were, my sister and I used it as much as we could before it disappeared. One afternoon, I and a neighbor were racing each other; myself on the four-wheeler, he on a dirtbike. The four-wheeler was not exactly powerful, so for the most part lost in any races against the dirtbike. But at one point I got ahead, and being a wider wheeled vehicle could kick up a lot more dust, and was feeling pretty good.
Then I decided to turn around and see how far back he was.
The next time I opened my eyes, and it literally felt like less than a blink, I was in the passenger seat of the truck, my mom driving me to the hospital, and my left arm doing its best impression of the letter "Z" in my lap. Awesome.
Turns out I broke my arm in the most difficult way, a clean break. Should you not know, a doctor would rather your arm be jagged when it breaks, because then it's a relatively simple matter of putting the two parts back together, like a puzzle piece. With a clean break, it's more of pressing two flat pieces of wood together and telling them to stay there with no glue. So I was looking at several months in a cast.
During this period, I recieved in the mail a flyer for school teams, one of which being cross-country. At the time I can't say I had much interest, but my mom wanted me to do something, and suggested that I could be a team manager if nothing else, and so packed me into the truck and drove me to practice. My best friend and neighbor came with, to keep me company.
I'm still not sure how it happened exactly, but somehow I ended up doing warmups, then running, and my friend took over manager duties, and it remained so for both of us for the rest of high school.
I love cross-country. Seeing people's looks when you say you "run for fun" is always worth a laugh, because more often than not they then you're mental for doing so without any provication. For our school at least, I also think it was the most tight-knit of teams. While not team wide all the time, we all were good friends, and most of us would end up doing something with another over the rest of the year, even after the season ended. New members were quickly absorbed into the fold and cheered on.
It was helped that cross-country was the highest ranking team sport in the school. I still hate football and basketball for being the big sports in school, when the teams weren't really that good and it was considered a big deal just to rank in semi-finals (never winning beyond the first round). Cross-country rountinely went to state finals almost every year, and actually won my sophmore year. But who gets the pep rallies? *grumble* The PTA at one point bought pendants to hang around the gym, each for every sport that got to a certain level in their divisions. A full 70% were cross-country.
I still enjoy running, though I don't make myself do it as much as I'd like. I don't think I'd ever have joined on my own had my arm not be broken. So while I can't say I enjoyed having the annoyance of a full arm cast for two months, followed by a forearm cast for another two, I also can't say I see it as a bad thing to happen.