Suck it Up

The one thing I hate most is when people complain about aches and pains. I am currently in track, and that is a sport where people just complain about everything. "My legs hurt", "my shins hurt", "I can't breathe". Yeah yeah yeah I'm feeling the same exact things you are but you don't hear me complaining! I swear people these days don't know what the word tough means.

Especially because I'm a girl, I hear it a lot. Girls aren't the toughest nails in the box. I will hear people complain every second of every workout we ever do in track and I just want to yell at them. I have tendinitis in both knees and my lower leg, scoliosis, and shin splints but no one ever hears me complain. Probably because I was a gymnast for ten years and you weren't aloud to be wimpy in gymnastics. You got penalized for crying (keep in mind these are little girls under ten years old!). Plus I am playing three sports at the moment, and most of the girls complaining about being "tired" are only doing track. Seriously people, suck it up! 

One of my best friends is one of these girls, and every time she complains about something, I tell her "well me too" and she always tries to refute it. One time at practice she was complaining about shin splints and I said me too and she said "well you don't have it in the same spot as me. Mines all in my bone." First off, that was a really dumb comment. Everyone's shin splints are in their bones. Second off, I long jump so I probably have worse ones than she does anyway. She was absolutely sure that hers were worse until I said "well mine were stress fractures last year" and she finally shut up. She no longer complains to me about her shin splints.. Mission accomplished! 

Unfortunately, I can't have this conversation with everyone, because I don't think they'd take it as well as my best friend. I'd probably be considered a bully or something stupid like that. That just goes to show you how wimpy people really are today.  

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Range of Competition

Unfortunately, in high school athletics, there is quite a different range of competition in each class. Now I bet you can expect that the competition is hardest in 5A, and it declines as you go down each class. This is unfortunate (not really unfortunate because it's fun to play hard teams) for my school because we are 5A.

It's pretty crazy to think that the state champion in 1A could probably be crushed by the worst team in 5A. I've had a few encounters with this situation. At a school volleyball tournament, we played a team called Tripoli. I had never heard of them before (they were 1A). They had gone to state the past like ten years, and we hadn't made it to state in five. We absolutely crushed that team. They were not very good... That makes me mad though because that would mean we would make state and probably win it. 

Now this doesn't mean that there are some really good teams in lower classes, it just means there are fewer of them. If you really think about it, it makes sense. In a 5A school, there are 2000 people who could potentially go out for a sport. There's probably a lot of good athletes to choose in that pool of people. But then you go to a 1A school, with only 100 people in it. Less people to choose from, probably means less quality athletes. 

I think one time, we should have a whole state tournament, including all classes. That would determine who the real state champion is, and it would be a LOT of fun to participate in. 

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