CAS Blog: Physical Sports – Athletics

I have always enjoyed athletics, but it was the first time that this experience presented me with challenges: new demands that made me look at myself both as an athlete and as a person. In this way, the process made me reflect upon my strengths and weaknesses, and helped me to recognize those areas that need improvement, forcing me into ethical decisions regarding how I train and compete. Through perseverance and strategic planning, focusing on the choice that I have made, I have developed many new skills and deepened in self-awareness.

LO1: Identifying Strengths and Areas for Growth

I found several strengths that I hadn’t valued highly before going through this athletic journey. First of all, my determination is much stronger than I thought. Actually, I can remember giving up several times through hardships in training sessions. However, somehow I managed to push through even when exhausted or when muscles were saying otherwise. In all these, determination helped me stay positive and thus begin seeing gradual improvements in performance.

At the same time, however, I found areas where I have to grow. To begin with, time management has been open since I always had the problem of balancing my training schedule with academic work and other obligations. Sometimes, I was overwhelmed by my busy schedule, and if I had better organized myself, I could have trained much better, generating from that situation less stress. Looking ahead, I look to improve timeliness in management and to create a more defined training schedule in athletics incorporating my school and personal activities .

LO2: Demonstrating Challenges Undertaken and Developing New Skills

The different athletics events present unique types of challenges to athletes. Many of the disciplines required sprinting or long-distance running or indeed field events. All required different talents and approaches to training. To me, one of the most difficult was to fight off physical fatigue when running a long distance. One moment in which there was a need for endurance to maintain a steady stride while keeping proper form, way beyond anything I had thought it could be.

I have, therefore worked out to boost my endurance, speed, and strength. These changed my skills, for instance, I could learn to pace, sprint techniques for short distances, and managing breath during intense activity. I also became conscious of how different techniques applied to different athletic events. For example, I could not be explosive at a sprint but also make sure to balance this with sustained energy over long distances in running.

LO4: Showing Perseverance and Commitment in CAS Experience

Athletic sports are regarded as full of perseverance and mental toughness. There were times when the sessions were like running up a hill, as the previous exercises left me exhausted physically or otherwise due to school stress. But I had told myself that I would hold on to the training program, and each session would take me closer to getting better. At the end of everything, my persistence paid off, and soon enough, I began to get personal bests in races as well as field events. It was nothing easy, but each trying phase I passed through taught me a lesson in persistence.

Those were, however the tryingest moments, though: when competition came. Standing at the starting line of a race, knowing that you must give everything you’ve got, is both nerve-wracking and thrilling. And when I didn’t win, what I learned to do was come back as a better person and an even better athlete because every effort counted. That commitment to self-improvement in achieving something-the outcome aside-is something that’s going to stay with me even after the world of athletics.

LO7: Recognizing and Considering the Ethics of Choices and Actions

So much more important than the lesson, I learned that ethical choices make a big difference in sports. Athletics is very competitive, and sometimes it’s easier to take shortcuts—to skip training or to not focus on recovery for a more immediate outcome. I understood then that such decisions compromised not just my integrity but also my long-term progress.
I also had to consider what ethics entail in competition. In athletics, it is hard not to get carried away with winning. Sportsmanship, at that point, sets off the back burner, and support for fellow athletes-damn teammates or opponents-was always on my agenda. Rooting for others, even when we were in the same race, seemed like the right thing to do. It reminded me that success is not just personal achievement but respect and camaraderie established with others.