Almost every athlete that competes in their respective sport has two things in common. One: their sport is one of their passions. They simply eat, sleep and breathe their sport. Two: they have some really awesome story about how their passion for their sport started. It could be scoring their first goal in little league soccer or everyone in their family played the sport, so they were destined for greatness, but that little story is the foundation of their career.

I am a Division III cross country runner at Hanover College, and the two things I claim every athlete has are the two things I don't have. I am not passionate about my sport, and I don't have some super awesome story to say why I started running.

I started running my sophomore year of high school because I didn't want to take gym class. Awesome story, right? When my guidance counselor told me I had to take gym, I told her I refused and I would run cross country. She followed with the question, "Why do you want to run cross country?" and my response was, and I quote, "I put in too much effort in the morning to go ruin it in gym class."

Little did I know, I would find a second family, a constant support system, a new challenge, and a unexpected love. Whoa, didn't I say my sport wasn't one of my passions? Dictionary.com states that a passion is "a very strong feeling about a person or thing...an intense emotion, a compelling enthusiasm or desire for something." Yes, you could say I do have a strong emotion, which is love, towards my sport, but I don't have "the compelling enthusiam or desire" and don't have the "eat, sleep, breathe" attitude towards my sport.

So why do I do it?

I run because it keeps me healthy. I run because it gave me a second family and some of my best friends. I run because I have memories of long practices, sweaty car rides home, and songs sung on the ways to meets. Most importantly, I run because I love to.

Yes, it is not one of my passions. Yes, I don't have an overwhelming desire to do it, and most certainly it's not something I want to do every single day. Yes, it also gave me injuries I could have lived without. Yet, cross country gave me many things I could never imagine my life without.

It is my coaches, my best friends, my second family, my walking boot, and the runs that shaped my love, not passion, for the sport. And with that, I thank it. Thank you cross country for giving me not a passion, but something better: an unexpected love.