“I was put in sports because my parents wanted me to for more of a social aspect. I went from sport to sport, jumped around, I wasn’t a big fan of it. It made me feel like I wasn’t a sport person, that I wasn’t good at any sports. I just didn’t really enjoy it. So I didn’t do sports in elementary school or middle school. Then my mom came up to me, ‘hey I think you should join a sport, you’re going into a new high school, you want to meet new people, they have really nice girls in cross country.’ So I agreed to it. I joined the cross-country team late and everyone knew each other so it was a little bit intimidating, I tried to open up, I was a little bit shy but I’ve met some of the best people and friends on the team.
Then I had health problems.
The health problems that happened was in my junior year, I was getting ready and my coached decided to bump me up to Frosh-Soph. Here with cross-country, Frosh-Soph is classified between Junior Varsity and Varsity. So he was moving me up from Junior Varsity to Frosh-Soph. I was really nervous, there’s so many less girls I’m racing with. The attention is all on me, I have to do good. I had to keep up with them because I didn’t want to be last and trailing behind all of them.
He told me the day before, I stayed hydrated, I drank so much water.
Going into that race, I kept up with all the girls, I was in the very front and all of the sudden towards the end of the race. I was 400m away from the finish line and I just started swerving when I was running and I just felt like I was going to pass out. I told my friend who was sitting on the sideline cheering me on, ‘I’m going to pass out.’ All of the sudden I collapsed and she ran and grabbed my head from hitting the ground. I got up and everyone came to my attention and obviously my placement didn’t matter at all because I passed out.
I was covered in dirt, I was covered up in dirt, I was just crying and so upset. I was that close to the finish line and getting the best placement ever in a race. That was very hard on me, I went to a bunch of different doctors after that. I went to heart doctors, respiratory doctors, brain doctors but no one can find anything. So we just didn’t know what it was.
After that, I begged my mom to do cross-country another year. So in my Junior year I decided to do it again and race. I was going good in a couple races in my Junior year. Then 1 race came and I was again, 400 meters away from the finish line. I was right there and I passed out again. This time it was worse. I was not breathing, I was almost blacking out. A lady heard me gasping and not being able to breathe. She came up to shaking, and asking if I was okay. I couldn’t really talk to her, so she called 911. The ambulance came and stopped the race. They put me in the back of the truck, tried taking my blood pressure and all that but obviously that was 20-30 minutes after the whole thing happened so they couldn’t find anything because I was a little bit more calmed and relaxed in getting my breathe back.
So after that, my coached and parents decided that it wasn’t safe to have me on the team anymore because it was a health hazard. They told me that this was my health, my life and obviously it got worse the second time so they said if I keep racing and it happens again, something bad can really happen. They told me I couldn’t race anymore which is pretty upsetting.
That summer, all the girls were practicing and I just remember I felt really sad and depressed because they were all my best friends and I couldn’t be with them. And that was my morning all the time, starting off my morning running with them. So I was just doing my own thing because I couldn’t be at practice and do that.
Once school started, I decided to just go to practices and watch them, to cheer them on. 1 of the girls said, ‘hey we really want you on the team, can you be an assistant, we’ll talk to the coach, we just really want you here.’ I was just like, ‘yeah that’d be awesome.’
When we were in circle for a talk at the end of practice, they were all like, ‘hey can Daniela be on our team, can she be the assistant or something, we want her here.’ The coach pulled me aside, ‘if you want to practice with us, and run with the girls, we’ll still have you train with them, but you just can’t race competitively. You can assist with the team.’
That meant a lot to me because I could be with them again. Yeah, I can’t race competitively but it was still something for me. I got to be with them, I helped a lot of the girls, I cheered them on, I did anything I could to help the coach out that year. This was my senior year.
At the banquet, my coach gave me a special award for being his assistant. They believe that something is wrong with my heart but we don’t exactly know it yet because my grandma had something similar to this when she passed out and they didn’t know what was wrong. They found it later in her life when she was older. So my coach announced at the banquet when he was giving this award, ‘Daniela had some problems, she couldn’t really be on the team anymore but it means a lot to give her this award.’
Receiving something like that, my eyes were tearing up. I was so grateful and shocked. I didn’t think I was going to get an award even though I was with the team, I didn’t feel like I was on the team. That really made me feel like I was a part of them.
When I got to receive that and talk to all the team and the girls about my experience. I just remember crying because it made me feel so welcomed when I feel like I wasn’t a part of them. They made me feel like I was. That was really awesome.
Ever since then, ever since Cross Country ended that season, I wanted to do something; I still wanted to be in fitness. It got me to see a different world of sports. After that I started going to the gym with my dad just because I had more free time. We would do some weight lifting in Cross Country. So eventually I just got really addicted to weight training and I stopped running.
So I’ve been doing that ever since, it’s been helping me with anxiety. My anxiety is really bad. It’s something I do for fun now, it makes me feel really happy. If I’m not working out I feel depressed and not myself.
It’s funny I’m saying Cross Country originated or made me do weight training because they are totally different things. Cardio Versus weight training. But it got me introduced to being into fitness. I was running 46 miles a week, so after doing that I wanted to do something but something different. For me, weight training was different but I still felt that adrenaline that I felt when I was running. That’s why it’s been addicting for me ever since.”
-Daniela Cervantes