[1] Since discovering a love of athletics, I have always been in awe of the greatness achieved by athletes all around the world as they reach the highest levels of their sports. Growing up playing just about every sport available to me, I never truly found the one that clicked with me. Baseball, basketball, lacrosse, and soccer all had team components which were infuriating when you couldn’t control the individuals in the game. Physical limitations held me back in many of the sports I played, including the one that I ultimately found the most joy in. Throughout middle school, I started running. I barely hobbled through races and was greatly limited by my mental strength and physical endurance. Once I reached High School, however, the mentality changed from a sport to a privilege. Running became something that I get to do, that made me feel good about myself. This reaffirmed itself as I started to progress in my running career, dropping my times and building friends in the process of working towards goals. The love that I found for running carried heavily into my college decisions as I looked for a space to develop my athletic career further still. Since coming to college I found an even further love and appreciation for running in the Steeplechase discipline. Now my sights are set on a time barrier. Breaking 9 minutes in this event cracks onto the top 10 all-time list at Bucknell and it has been in my periphery since my first race in this event.
In my design, I hope to convey this growing desire to put my name in the record books in this event. I don’t necessarily have a specific audience to cater to as I truly want this piece to be a reflection of an insatiable need to work hard and get as close as I can to my version of greatness. I feel the need to communicate the difficulties and struggles of the event itself in my work but I am wed to a general amount of ambiguity to allow for multiple interpretations of the piece.