Here are the essay I've written thus far for my EN 211B class: Narrative and Descriptive Writing. please select the essay you wich to read from the drop down menu below. Below that, I will post the grades to my essays when I recieve them.

“…And Then I Ran Some More.”

        Runners, to your marks! Suddenly I forgot where I was, where I came from. I forgot who my friends to either side of me were. I forgot that my feet were cold and that I could hardly breathe. I forgot where I put my sweats or who had my jogging shoes.
        “Set!” I heard an official yell into a microphone. The cracking noise was just barely understandable over the roaring crowd and the thunder of four hundred runners’ feet prancing as they lined up to my left and right.
        “Yes, I remember now. That’s the same pebble I saw here while warming up.” I thought to myself in less than an instant. Like a light switch turning on, I remembered what I was doing there. I remembered every day at practice since I started running cross-country in seventh grade. I remembered the people immediately to my right and left were my teammates. I glanced at them and realized how focused they were, and for a split second I wondered why.
        “No time to think!” I said to myself. I must have said that to myself before every race. My mind always wandered. It kept me calm. Adrenaline was not a good thing to waste. I tried to save my rushes until I needed them in a few seconds.
        BANG! That was the gun. Move. Jeremy, you’ve got to go. This is it, your last race. It’s now or never.

        “Jeremy!” I woke up to my friend Garrett hitting my knee. He seemed excited. I was tired and therefore couldn’t possibly imagine why.
        “We’re here!”
        “What?” I asked, groggily rubbing my eyes. I never did care for what my mom called “eye boogers,” but it always felt good to rub it out of my eyes after waking up. I sat up in my bus seat. I saw everyone in front of me looking out of the bus windows on my side of the bus. I turned to my right and saw the purpose of the four-hour bus trip, Michigan International Speedway. Ah, the state meet. The end-all, be-all of high school cross-country meets. Suddenly it clicked, a feeling of anxious nervousness mixed with a double shot of awe and adrenaline. The state meet! I was suddenly so excited to get inside the stadium, to get warmed up, to race, and to be at the awards ceremony. I could hardly wait for everything to happen, yet knowing full well, it was the last time I would experience any of it, and that it was all such a long time away.
        The whole team walked around the course, just as we did before any race. We had to be familiar with the course so as to not take any wrong turns by mistake. I remember walking along by myself, with my hands in my coat pockets straining for every bit of heat. My head, shrouded by the hood on my sweatshirt made me feel as though I were in a cave. I always walked by myself. It was my way of focusing on the race to come. It was my time to devise strategy and figure out whom I wanted to beat.
        We eventually finished walking the five-kilometer course and headed to our team tent to regroup before our warm-up. Three hours had passed since we were on the bus, but it seemed to pass like 3 minutes. However, the fifteen-minute warm-up jog seemed, as it always did, like fifteen days. I could feel the anxiety and excitement building up inside of me the whole way. I tried to concentrate on my form to calm myself down. It worked, but soon my mind began to wander back to the coming race.
        Somehow through the crowd and twists and turns that had me lost almost immediately after beginning our warm-up, we arrived back at our tent. Stretch, change shoes, get to the start line, strides, shed sweats; this was the routine we had been doing every Saturday for the past 14 weeks. Except this time it was different. Everyone paid deathly attention to getting their shoes laced up just right and to getting the proper amount of strides. Everyone was focused. Everyone had that look of disgusted anger, eyes narrow and cold as the dry, crisp air surrounding us all. The only reason we weren’t frowning in our annoyed sort of focus, was that we were breathing heavily through our mouths in anticipation, in preparation. Everyone knew what must be done. Everyone knew what was at stake.
        The next few minutes seemed to pass as quick as our warm-up passed slowly. I eventually found myself staring at the ground with my left foot on a painted white line wearing little more than half a pound of polyester shorts and jersey that offered me little more warmth and comfort than can of pop would. I was, we all were listening for one thing, the ear piercing sound of a gun that would stand out in life and memory as sharp in contrast as the sun would stand out in the black emptiness of space.
        BANG! That was the gun. Move. Jeremy, you’ve got to go. This is it, your last race. It’s now or never. My feet seemed to move forward on their own, requiring little conscious thought from me. I began to tilt my head back up to level so I could see in front of me. I felt a sharp pain in my chest as I saw the sea of runners before me. Countless runners all racing towards the first turn. I moved into position to avoid getting caught up in the mass. All of a sudden I realized I was alone in a huge crowd. I didn’t see any of my teammates; there were no familiar jerseys in sight. I didn’t even recognize any members from rival teams. Then I realized that they were ALL members of rival teams. They were all gunning for us, gunning to replace the returning state champions. It made the painful realization of my impending failure that much more realistic.
        I was no further than eight hundred meters into the race and I was already out of breath. I was gasping for air like a fish out of the water. I kept thinking how cool, yet how cheesy it would be if I actually did do well in this race. I was told by my parents and doctors not to run. Having pneumonia, wearing almost nothing in twenty-degree weather while running was not the sort of combination that could be called healthy. My lack of breath wasn’t because I was out of shape. I was choking because there was no room in my lungs for air. I had no choice really. I was the fourth ranked man on my team. I had to give it my best shot or our team was bound to lose the state championship.
        I ran step after step, mile after mile. I passed one man after the next. I ran to keep up with every man who passed me, some successfully, others not. I ran, until my mind blanked out. My mind had stopped, but my body refused to quit. I don’t remember what happened after the halfway point where my parents were standing yelling out how many more I needed to pass to medal and what my time was. I never heard what they said anyway, there were too many other people yelling and screaming for their friends, brothers, and sons, and I was coughing too much to pay attention to the crowd. We had somewhere along the course of the race left the stadium to run in the vast fields behind it. I knew that once I re-entered the stadium, I had three quarters of a mile left, and here it came. I tried to pick up my pace a little bit. I strained for every ounce of energy I could muster from my sore, energy starved, oxygen deficient muscles. I continued to cough. Gasping for air, I searched for a split second my body would let me take at least one deep breath. I coughed again, and felt something in my mouth. I spit it out as soon as I could, knowing that the more junk I had in my mouth, the less room it made for air to get by. I remembered seeing what I had spit as it flew to the ground. It was big; about the size of a peanut, and it was red. I immediately noticed the taste of blood in my mouth. The iron taste made me sick. Right then I wanted nothing more than to stop running. But if I did, I would have let everyone down, my coaches, my teammates, my family, my friends, and myself.
        Finally reentering the stadium, I pushed myself as hard as I could. I pushed myself harder and harder, searching for that little extra there always seems to be. I pushed myself to keep up with other runners as they passed me on their way to the finish.
        “Finally! It’s almost over!” I screamed in my head. I began to promise myself the faster I ran, the sooner the pain could go away. I ran harder. I ran as fast as I could. All the feeling in my legs went away as fast as all my care for keeping my body unharmed left me. A feeling of euphoria came over me. I felt nothing, yet I knew the pain was still there somewhere. I watched the huge black and white checkered sign marking the finish line pass high over my head as I ran beneath it. I knew I could finally stop running. I collapsed. I felt someone run into me. I felt someone else step on my foot. I couldn’t get up. I crawled. Someone came to me and picked me up onto my feet. I blacked out.
        I woke up a while later, the time since the race passing almost instantaneously, yet at the same time I remembered everything that happened between then and now. I had run. I had finished. I had given everything I had. My parents were happy I had finished. The doctors were surprised I survived what I had put myself through. Yet despite all of this, I hadn’t given enough for myself. I will always look back on that race and wonder what would have happened if I pushed myself harder, hard enough to keep up with those who passed me at the end.
        I’m a freshman in college now. That race was a lifetime ago. I don’t run anymore, I don’t compete anymore and that race has no significance in my life. It’s a ghost that keeps haunting me. It was the big game I was supposed to win, right? No, this isn’t Disney. This is life.

“The Water-Course Way”