Mar Despradel

Dear Collage Admissions Officer,

Since I was thirteen, I’ve always had this image stuck in my head of somehow reaching
the Olympics. Growing up, sports, no matter which one, was always a part of my life and a
family thing. Some families may have the traditions of gathering or having family reunions,
while one of the traditions my family had was to run a 10k during the month of May every year.
After I was nominated the youngest runner and had no category to be placed at the age of nine, I
had this urge to always be that type of best, the best that doesn’t have a category. But because I
found running more of a tradition than a sport that could have become my discipline, I left it
aside, until I turned thirteen. Once I reached my freshmen year, I made the decision that being on
the school soccer team wasn’t what I wanted to do, but to be a runner. My parents and I found a
trainer who was willing to go to my house twice a week and give me a plan where I trained 6
days a week for long distance running, I liked it at first but somehow I found myself unsatisfied
with what I was doing even when I reached my goal of doing a 10k under an hour. After training
for about a year, I decided that long distance wasn’t for me, I enjoyed the thrill and I loved rush,
so I concluded that a wanted to try the 100-meter dash.

A family friend reached out to us and told us they knew someone that might help us with
what I wanted to do, so we took a quick trip to Higüey, where the coach of the federation of
sports from that region was willing to look at what I could do. After that day, my hopes of
reaching the Olympics became a goal. After school, twice per week I went on a forty-minute car
trip to train with people that I’ve never seen before and were more advanced when it came to
technique and strategies, feeling like a nobody motivated me to push myself to get to their level
and overpass them. Three months of training and I qualified for the nationals, and ended up in
seventh place in my category, even though I was seventh, I was very proud of myself because I
was the only one who had less than 2 years of training and came seventh out of seventeen. After
that, I kept training twice a week with my trainer and trained 3 times a week by myself with a
routine provided by my coach.
 It was so complicated for my parents to take me all the way to Higüey, so I came up with
the idea to involve the school with Track and Field as an extracurricular activity. During the
second semester of my Sophomore year I was trying to convince the school to take it into
consideration and that I will help with everything they needed with the trainer. After months of
asking and offering to help, the school approved the coach to train students as an extracurricular
activity. When September came around, I was already a Junior, I can proudly say that the school
finally had their own unofficial Track and Field team, where 9 kids and I attended twice a week
to a two-hour training. After a couple of months, we attended to regionals, where all the team
members got to participate, and I qualified second, winning a silver medal. Now I can happily
and proudly say that not only was I getting closer to my goal, but I was helping others do what
they liked.

And so, I am certain that LYNN university will help me reach this goal, and be the best
of the best, and one day help others reach that goal too.