My name is Paul.

I started running this year, for the freshman team. I'm kind of slow, but that's okay. I am getting better. I went from an 8:40 mile at the end of eighth grade to a sub 7 a few weeks into the ninth grade.

I like to run.

I have a complex relationship with running. On the one hand, while I'm running (hard) it's most definetely the worst torture known to man, comparable to such heavy hitters as waterboarding and bad clowns, and yet somehow, whenever I'm done, my brain decides that that 5 mile tempo run was "fun" and "productive", and here I am. I think it's gotten more bearable though, I've started to learn how to pace myself, and not kill myself before I'm even halfway done.

I'm still really behind, though.

It's really easy to get down on myself, especially beacause I'm pretty much the worst runner on our team, with one exception, but he's exceptionally bad, so I don't think he really counts. But our freshman team is also pretty good (I don't think we've scored below second place), and almost everyone else is objectively a good runner. I don't want to use this as a crutch though, if anything, it just pushes me to work harder since the people I need to be with are just that much better. I'm gonna do it though, I'm gonna catch up, because I'll be damned if a year from now I'm known as the slow one.

That's all for now.

Thank you for reading all that stuff, unless you just came down here for a tl;dr, in which case, nope(!), I don't reward people who don't take the time to read a 3 paragraph rant about how I'm slow but with the power of friendship and determination, I will overcome this, so ha!

tl;dr I'm slow but with the power of friendship and determination I will overcome this.

TIMES

1 mile: 6:40

2 mile: 14:05

5k: 26:38 (out of date)