My Overprotective Sisters

2

I was not excited for track practice today, the coaches said they are going to make us run the whole time because we left so many things on the field yesterday. 

In their words, however many things were left, that's how many laps we're going to run. I spent all day mentally preparing myself. It almost felt like their only goal was to make us hate running. When the time finally came after our 15 minute homework time, all of us walked slowly to the field.

"I'm gonna die." Skye mumbled

"We got this, the quicker we go the better." Gwen says, she's the only one who looks confident right now.

"I already can't breathe." I say

"Walk quicker or we're adding more laps and you sure as hell don't want that do ya?" The boys coach yell at everyone.

The pace slowly picks up and once we reach the track the smug faces on the coach are not hard to detect.

"Now, everyone knows what we're doing today." Our coach says and everyone mumbles incoherent words.

"Great. Now today we're going to teach you that track and field isn't all about running. It's also about discipline." he counties 

I take in a deep breath.

"Is everyone ready to know how much stuff was left on the field yesterday?" The boys coach asks, when he gets no answer he keeps going, "We picked up 40 things from the field."

Everyone, including Gwen gapes at this. Our coach takes a cooler from behind her back and opens it, showing all the stuff left. Most are water bottles.

"You guys will be running 40 laps today with no breaks. You must run the first 5 laps and you can only walk one lap at a time after that. You have to keep moving even with water breaks." 

The crowd of track kids grow with noise from protesting but it's no use. No matter what we say, the coaches don't seem to be changing their minds.

Some kids argue that none of the stuff in the cooler is theirs but the coaches simply shrug and say, "we go down as a team and we're only as strong as our weakest link. This is a great opportunity for everyone to learn the importance of teamwork."

I don't think this is fair. Why should all of us have to run if only a few of us messed up? The coaches line us up and tell us to keep track of ourselves and not to cheat.

One of them blows a whistle and we all start running. I slow down a little after the first five laps but keep running. Gwen, Skye, and I were running together at first but Gwen sped off and Skye started walking after the fifth lap.

The coaches tell us that if we don't finish our laps by the end of practice then we have to stay until we do. There's no way I'm staying any longer than I have to. 

I push myself to keep running, I distract myself by watching the football team practice. Every time we pass the coach, we have to yell out the number lap we're on.

At lap 23, my jog had turned into sped walking. My muscles felt stiff and strained. Two kid were sitting out and being iced for shin splits and one boy's legs were so stiff that he couldn't move them.

When I saw them, I slowed down. I didn't want that to happen to me. I wince as I passed, seeing how much pain they were in. This is truly torture.

On my 37th lap my legs went from being numb to feeling really stiff. It started to become harder to jog but I only had a few laps left so I keep going.

Gwen was the first to finish and some boy was after her. I finished two minutes after practice was supposed to end. I walked slowly off the field and over to my stuff.