The sun sleeps as the desolate city streets await the morning rush hour. Driven by an inexplicable compulsion, I enter the building along with fifteen other Wrestlers, inching my way toward the cold, dark locker room of the Rio Grande High School Gym. One by one, we slip into our workout gear and make a mad dash through the chill of the morning air, stopping only to grab water bottles on our way to the mat. Nighttime temperatures in New Mexico dip into the mid thirties, but our wrestling room is warmed to eighty-eight degrees. Next comes the shock-running twelve suicides. As we finish, our coach emerges from the locker room. He offers no friendly accolades, just a rigid regimen of sets, intervals, and exhortations. .
Thus, we start another workout 25 more laps to go, then a quick shower and a short walk to class to begin our academic day. Then its back to the wrestling room. The afternoon training schedule features an additional 2.5-mile run and an hour and a half of one-on-one wrestling. Tomorrow, we start over again. The objective is to straighten our bodies and improve endurance. The end goal is to achieve that tiny, unexplainable difference at the end of match that separates success from failure, greatness from mediocrity. Somehow we accept the pitch--otherwise, we'd still be deep in our mattresses, slumbering beneath our blankets. In this sport, the antagonist is the other school. Coaches spend hours in specialized clinics, analyze the latest research on training technique, and experiment with workout schedules in an attempt to defeat rival schools. Yet there are no shortcuts to winning, and workouts are agonizing. .
I took part in my first wrestling match when I was a freshman. My parents, fearing injury, directed my athletic interests away from wrestling but I still continued. Three weeks into my new wrestling endeavor, I somehow persuaded my coach to let me enter the annual Tournament.
