This year, for CAS activity I choose the participate in the cross country. We ran a total of 3 runs; 5km, 5km and 7km each on rough terrain. I took up this opportunity given by school to challenge myself to run short distance over a short time on rough terrain. These runs were done before noon, to make the challenge more interesting.

LO1 – Identify own strengths and develop areas for growth

Personally for me, as someone with mediocre fitness, running 5-7 Km is not a challenge. However doing the same in rough terrain in the sun was a bit of a challenge. During the runs, I realised that I needed to take breaks while running and start walking. This is possibly my poor endurance and lack of a proper diet. I can do well in anaerobic exercises, however activities like cross country run required getting accustomed to aerobic exercises. Through the course of these run, I decided to improve on my stamina, and endurance.

LO2 – Demonstrate that challenges have been undertaken, developing new skills

Developing a good endurance was a challenge. For the first run (5km) I had to stop 3 times before completing it in 30 mins. However I was not satisfied with my time, so I tried reading on the internet on how I can improve my skills. I found out that before starting the run, I should be warmup my body by walking for 1-2 km before I can start to run. Another article I read talked about improving endurance over time by going for shorter runs. Which is also something I tried todo. One challenge during development of good endurance was commitment. Rather than just the physical strength required to complete a 5km run, it was the determination that was a challenge to keep up in the sun. However during the course of all the 3 runs, I also re-learned how to run during a marathon from the surrounding coaches with proper form and posture. Adapting to this new and correct style of running was also bit of a challenge.

LO4 – Show perseverance and commitment in CAS experience.

Apart from just showing up on all the run, I was also determined to improve my skill in running. For which I attempted to run short runs on my pace to improve my endurance. To-do so I used to go on short runs at my place to see how would I perform, over the timeline of these 3 runs. This enabled me to understand where I fall and how I am supposed to improve. Perseverance to this CAS activity, helped me gain more endurance and also a passion for running.

In conclusion, through this CAS activity I developed the basic skills of running in a cross country domain. This experienced helped me map where my physical and mental abilities are and where there is scope for more improvement.

Evidence for the actual cross country runs:

Evidence: for short runs I did: