Never limit yourself!

By: Pol Oriach

I remember my first time in the world of athletics with a bit of anguish. My father has been an athlete all his life and I remember that we accompanied him to all his races and that I never wanted to participate in children's races ... I was afraid! Yes, I was afraid of mistaking the path of the race, afraid of loosing my family among the crowd...

So football was the first sport I started practicing, because all my friends played. Until one day I realized that I did not like what I was doing. What really amused me was running. And at the age of 7 finally I started in the world of athletics.

The fact is that I would never thought that the 7-year-old boy who went to the track twice a week more to play than to run would reach to be in the national championship at the age of 13. And the fact of living in a small town, as it is my case, could generate you an inferiority complex.

In my last year in the sub14 I was regional champion in the steeples, so I was very satisfied. When I reached the sub16 category I ran the regional cross-country championship and achieved to end in first position beating big rivals that had won me always until that race. I couldn´t believed it. I had fulfilled my objective for that season, which was to go to the national cross-country championship. The anecdote on this day was that half an hour before the starting of my race I realized that I had left my running shoes in the hotel where we were staying. I had the good fortune that a team member of a higher category lend me his spikes as he ran later and had the same shoe size as me. Despite the nerves because of the spikes shoes not being mine and facing my first national championship, I achieved to end in second position! Thanks to this competition I haven´t  forget my shoes never again.

It was a completely unexpected achievement and it took me a long time to assimilate it. What started as a game it was becoming a reality.

At the end of the sub16 category I have achieved six national medals (two in cross country and four in steeples) and a regional record in 1000m.

This year I am in the sub18 category and I know it will be difficult for me, but I still have the same enthusiasm. We'll see what happens….