Essay

It’s six in the morning and I wake up groggily and make my way to the bathroom that seemed so far away. While brushing my teeth, I notice the time is moving so rapidly. It was already 6:20 a.m. The first day of camp started at seven in the morning. I rushed myself and got dressed and made my lunch. Time was ticking and I had this gut feeling that I was going to be late. Luckily traffic wasn’t that bad, so I made it there at a reasonable time. The drum line was walking out to the practice field and everyone knew that the pain and heat was going to start soon. In mid July, the sun comes out rather early so the temperature raised quite quickly. The band was divided into 3 running blocks and of course the drum line was in the fastest one. It was intense, and immensely difficult. I had a hard time keeping up and catching my breath. At least 20 minuets had gone by and the block was sprinting to the rest of the band. Pickering 2 People were cheering us to continue. I ignored them and ran as hard and fast as I could. I made it to the field and nearly collapsed. I was wheezing with the lack of oxygen in my lungs and felt the stitches on my sides digging at me. I was told to place my hands over my head while breathing in through my nose and out through my mouth. I felt dizzy! I could barely handle it. It was clear I wasn’t in shape. We had maybe a five minuet break and had gone into the next section of the morning; basics. Our drum tech had asked, “Are you guys ready to go'” Of course no one answered. People were too tired and felt like jelly after the forever long run. Overcast came over the field along with a slight breeze. That made the day partly more bearable. Steve called us out of the bunker and told us to place our drums on. It was hard. We marched over and over, back and forth, left to right, diagonal. We received water breaks in between 30-40 minuet sections. The intensity of the first day was unbelievable for the freshmen. Many of them got sick and had to sit out for a while. Water was going in and coming out as sweat. As tough as it was, they still pushed themselves. Personally, I think they were too frightened to do anything other than what was assigned. This was a good thing. The day went on and I was so grateful for the weather. Pretty much everyone was. I hoped for rain the start pouring and shower us with the cool water. Sadly, not a single drop had fallen from the sky. We were instructed to continue to march and push ourselves to our fullest.