Never Give Up

You never know what is going to happen in a race. So why on earth would you ever just give up and put it into cruise control. People fall, people drop batons, people get DQ'ed. Strange things happen. So always run your hardest. A few seasons ago, our boys 4x400 team had not lost a race all season. And now we were in our conference championships. There was one team in the conference who was running similar times but we had not yet faced all season. So we knew it was going to be a great race. Our first leg good off to a great start and had a good lead coming into the handoff. And then the unthinkable happened. Has the first leg was handing off and the second leg was starting, they bumped into another runner (who did cut into my teams lane I might add) and he dropped the baton. The second leg had to let everyone pass and grab the baton. At this point we were in 8th at the start of the second leg. But that wouldn't last long as he made up tons of ground and got us back into 4th as he handed off to the third leg. Our third leg was our strongest 400 runner and most experienced. He made up the rest of the ground and we were neck and neck with the only other team that was as competitive. Our anchor runner was the most competitive athlete on the team and was a train runner. We knew that if he was close to the front he would do everything he could to win. And sure enough we did by more that a second. Still won after dropping the baton. Good thing for them that they never gave up and kicked it into that extra gear. So many times I see teams drop the baton and give up. Or fall back a little bit and give up. Never give up and never stop thinking that you can win. That 4x4 boys team was a state qualifier that year and came in 7th I believe at state.