“Come on ladies! Pick up the pace!” The varsity coach yelled at us. Picking up the pace would mean running faster than an Olympic sprinter in the race for a gold medal, but the coach, Julie, didn’t care. I’ve heard horror stories of practices for sideline, where they didn’t go a day without 3 people puking. Though it was challenging, the pack of upperclassmen girls in front of me did pick up the pace, giving it all they had. The other freshman girls from my grade were far behind, puking in trash cans. I had middle school cross country to thank for this, training me for the hardcore running, even though I never thought it would do me any good.

I finished the run in a 100 meter sprint, but still not passing many of the girls doing this. We rounded the corner of the track and slowed our sprint to a walk. I raised my hands above my head to get a breath of air. My heart was pounding harder than ever before and my body was dripping in sweat. The scary part was that this was just the warm up.

I was an incoming freshman and I had come to the first optional conditioning of the summer. It was 7:00 in the morning and it was not my ideal way to start off the summer. The older girls I was with had been doing this for years, but were still puking in the trash. This terrified me, I had no idea what I had gotten myself into.

“Alright girls, come on over here,” the weight training coach, Tully, said to us, not even giving the girls who had just finished a break. A swarm of cheerleaders gathered around him on the lines of the track.

“Welcome to summer conditioning! I’m Tully and I’ll be here every Tuesday and Thursday from 7-9 and so will you. This summer we will work on getting you stronger so we can get you the back to back state championship.” A round of applause went to this because the program had just come off of being state champions. “Now, many of you will puke this summer, and some of you already have. I want to make it your goal to puke, as that means you are working hard enough. You will feel like you’re dying, but that's okay. Do you think any other teams will be working this hard? If they are, then they will take the championship away from you. In the end it’s going to come down to a couple tenths of a point, and whoever works harder will get it. Now let's start with some 400 meter sprints and while you are sprinting, your partner will be wall sitting until you get done and then switch until I can say you can stop.”

I grabbed my best friend Katelyn and we decided who was going to do what first. I went behind the starting line, getting butterflies in my stomach like it was the beginning of a marathon.  “GO!” someone yelled out, and everyone took off as fast as they possibly could, like horses coming out of a stable. My legs went along with everyone else's, though I was not expecting it. I ran as fast as I could around the track and finished it out by switching spots with Katelyn.

By the 5th time around, my heart was racing and I was short of breath. I would take a breath but feel like I was getting no air. My legs throbbed and shook as I waited for Katelyn to finish her lap. I heard a fellow teammate gasping for air and wheezing as she did it. I turn my attention back towards Katelyn, watching her placement on the track, when someone 2 down from me, leaned over and puked at her feet. This is insane, I thought, it is like cruelty. We are in 80 degree weather, 4 girls had already puked and we were only 20 minutes into our workout. The older girls on varsity kept yelling out encouragement, though I have no idea how they could stay this positive. I had never experienced something so hard in my life and it was just beginning.

Throughout the workout, we did hurdles, ladders, shorter sprints and then went inside to do some of the most intense weight lifting I had ever done. Every muscle in my body shook from exhaustion, and that was even after I didn’t push myself throughout the whole workout and took it easy.  I slowly walk down the stairs leading out of the weight room to the doors and go to meet my mom in the car.

“How was it?” she asked

“The most painful thing I have ever experienced,” I replied, laying my head back on the headrest and closing my eyes.

“I can tell; every girl who walked out of the door look absolutely wiped out.”

“My legs won’t stop shaking,” I said. “I don’t think I’m going back; that was too hard.”

“Jenna, I know it’s hard but you made a commitment and how is it going to look to the coach if you quit after the first day? But if you really don’t want to go, then that’s okay, but it’s your decision,” Mom advised me. Leaving me with that thought, not another word was said the rest of the way home.
  
“Beep, beep, beep,” the repetitive sound of my alarm clock sang at 6:15.

“Ugh,” I grumbled to myself, barely being able to roll out of bed because I was so sore from conditioning 2 days ago. I had been going to morning conditioning every Tuesday and Thursday every week for a month now but still didn’t notice a difference. It seemed really pointless to me. I slowly sat up, and went into the bathroom to brush my teeth and hair. Thankfully, I didn’t have to change because I decided to wear my exercise clothing to bed. Yes I know that this is past lazy, but it was one less thing I had to do in the morning, right? The minty toothpaste smell helped to open my eyes a bit wider. I spit out my toothpaste, brushed my hair, grabbed my tennis shoes and slowly headed out the door.

“Good morning, I’m glad you decided to go today,” my mom greeted me.
“As pointless as it is,” I grumbled.
“Nice attitude,” she retorted.

I ignored her and tried to get as much sleep as I could on the way to the high school track. Thursday’s workout consisted of a 2 mile warmup, sprints, sets of bleachers, hurdles, and 400 meters worth of lunges (it’s a lot harder than it sounds). The second hour of conditioning was weight lifting. We walked in the narrow old weightlifting room. This room was extremely long and hot. With 40+ cheerleaders in the room, it seemed to be a lot smaller than it actually was. We gathered around Tully and he gave us a synopsis of our workout and then sent us to work.
Katelyn and I grabbed a rack and pulled out the bench so that we could start out our workout with some pull ups. I went over to grab a band so that our pull ups would be easier.

“Hey, I think we should try to challenge ourselves today,” Katelyn said, taking the band from me and putting it back.
“Um, I don’t think either of us can do pull ups without the band,” I replied.

“Just try,” Katelyn told me. I went along with it, though I was not very excited to “challenge ourselves”. I stood up on the old maroon bench so that I could reach the pull up bar. I grabbed on and attempted to pull my body weight over the bar. To my surprise, I was strong enough and could do it. I couldn’t do many, but I did them on my own and I was proud of myself for that. I jumped off the bench and let Katelyn try too.

The rest of the workout we added more weight than we had ever before. I could do more than I thought I could and made some major gains that day. I had to fight for it and my muscles shook, but I was stronger than I had imagined. I finally started to noticed some changes once I started to push myself.

My body seemed to die more and more everytime and I had to miss out on fun times with my friends, but it was one of the best things I had ever experienced. I learned how to persevere with something I didn’t want to do, face one of the biggest physical challenges I have ever had to face and also ended up puking a couple of times. In the end, I was more fit than I had ever been before and being strong, lead to amazing wins in the competitive cheer season. I also learned how to work with other people and to not give up right away when you are challenged because not everything in life is easy. This experience helped me to later work really hard for what I wanted in the future with some major rewards. I learned how to work for good grades, no matter how difficult it was, resulting in pretty good grades. I also learned how to encourage people and work with them, which made my competitive team very close. We worked together great, resulting in getting 3rd in state at the end of the season. Even though it was a challenge, it worked out in the end.