I touch the red rubber asphalt beneath me, placing my hands in between the lines of my lane. My feet are horizontal with the earth pressing against the blocks. I look beside me and watch the seven other competitors get in the same position. “On your marks, get set,” the official said on his pedestal. “...Bang!” I hear while all of us jolt up and start sprinting. I feel the wind rushing against my face while I cut through it with the motion of my arms. Nearing the final stretch, I watch the racer on my left barely pass the finish line before me.  I gaze at the little electronic screen hunching over to catch my breath, eagerly awaiting my race time. I lost by a tenth of a second. More importantly, I was three tenths of a second below my personal record. 

As a track athlete, you don’t expect to blow your personal record out of the water every race. I ran sprints as well as hurdles for my high school track team. In order to learn hurdles, I combined many small components that are difficult to master. My lead leg must be perfectly straight while my toes are fully flexed. If I fail to do so, my toe may clip the hurdle and I’ll tumble over. The toes on my trail leg must also be fully flexed, and if they aren’t I may hit the top of the hurdle scratching seconds off my time and hindering my balance. The arm opposite to my lead leg is the arm that goes in a forward motion. I aggressively push this arm towards my face as if I'm looking at a watch on my wrist. My back arm must simultaneously shoot backward in order to maintain balance. If it goes too far, my torso twists ever so slightly, making it difficult to maintain top speed.

Many people also think that I need to be able to jump high to do hurdles. The fact is that I don’t need to be able to jump high at all because the goal is to jump at the lowest possible height, with just enough room to clear the hurdle, in order to ground myself as fast as possible and keep sprinting. 

“Nick, come over here I want you to try something,” Coach Pedrin shouted one Tuesday afternoon at practice. I jogged over, watching him place a dime on top of the hurdle. “I want you to try and kick only the dime off without hitting the hurdle,” he said with a grin on his face. Intrigued and intimidated by the request, I tried it over and over again. Sometimes I wasn’t even close to hitting the coin, and other times I kicked the entire hurdle down trying to go as low as I could. Every practice after that I stayed on the track for a few minutes to try it again. I set my phone down and recorded myself to watch how close I was getting to the dime. This was helpful to see if I was improving over the weeks. Every day I was consistently getting maybe a hundredth of an inch closer to the very top of the hurdle. A few months later I told my coach, “I want to show you something,” as I placed the dime on top of the hurdle. I took a deep breath, focusing on all the small little parts to the perfect hurdle. I set my feet down in a sprinting position, gripping the asphalt with my toes. Sprinting towards the hurdle, I jumped with my arms and legs in flawless form as I felt the end of my heel kick off the dime. The hurdle didn’t make a sound, it lay there on the track motionless, while I was on the other side. “That was amazing! You’re gonna win 'em all this year,” Coach Pedrin said as he was running over. Obviously, you can’t win ‘em all, but Coach Pedrin was always the most positive guy around. 

The difference in the video I took on day 1 and my ability to hurdle today is a primary source on the idea that if I make an effort to better myself in any way, I will reap the benefits sooner than later because the more improvement you can see, the hungrier your brain will be to exceed. 

Life to me is like a hurdle race. So many little things come together to help me succeed in life and perform at my best every day. Each day that passes, I get a thousandth times better than the day before. Whether that means going to the gym, studying towards my career, maintaining relationships with my friends and family, or learning a new fact or skill that I didn’t know before. Not keeping my toes flexed or twisting my back arm too hard may be the difference in acing that physics exam or squatting 320 pounds. The motivation to polish every little detail will eventually unite and help me finish first in my race in life. 

However, it’s not all fun and games. People endure thousands of various problems that make the journey of life exponentially harder. They may be ridden with an incurable cancer, have lived through abuse or trauma, or be riddled with depression and anxiety. Some may think that people like this can’t improve, or their problems decline even further. Although some may not improve in the same ways I do, every day they have the opportunity to recover from past trauma, fight illness, and push through any wall that they are put in front of. The past is history, the future is a mystery, and the present is a gift. Every single day is like a day at track practice, improving one little thing at a time until it all comes together to comprise a new personal record. Some days I don’t perform at my highest because of a mental or physical barrier. I may fall off my skateboard, lose a loved one, not eat enough food, or may not feel happy for whatever reason. Despite setbacks that happen to someone, each day is a single moment in their small little world that allows them to stride closer towards their ambitions. 

When you’re racing, even if you get first place, there is someone out there in the world that has a faster time. Life is a race that I sometimes don’t even realize I'm racing in. Everyday people are getting a microscopic amount stronger, faster, and smarter than before. The world is constantly changing for the better and everyone is improving in their own way. The race I’m in is completely different from the race of anyone else. Some people may be born with perfect mental health, an athletic body, a good relationship with their parents, and others won’t be as fortunate. Each of these people are running in their own race and are focusing on the little things that are most important to their success. It’s okay to not finish first in a race because we aren’t racing against each other, we are racing against the interminable forward motion known as time. When I am in a hurdle race, I could care less if I finish dead last as long as I won against time and beat my individual record.