Rainbow POV
It started out well enough. I was primed and ready. Then I took off with the other 99 pegasi, and got battered by my own team. We were in close quarters, you see, and one of them smacked into my side.
I stumbled, but righted myself.
I kept flying.
I started out at a good pace, but I didn't keep it.
I thought I could. The wind was rough, and it battered my small frame. I was muscular and in shape, but not as good as I should have been.
I would encourage other flyers, but I had no breath.
I misjudged the distance, and couldn't hold my speed for the entire 2 miles.
Somewhere along the line, I became disheartened, and didn't try. I gave up. After the first mile, I flew lazily.
I hadn't been lifting weights or exercising my core anymore, and it was affecting me more than orignally thought.
I was not the most confident flyer, because I was, ironically, then, not very competitive.
It must have been the numbers. There were so many pegasi; there were a hundred of them.
Flight schools from all over the district were there. The high school flying coach was there.
Ponies said that it was probably the numbers. They said that it was the pressure.
But that wasn't a reason to have taken two minutes longer.
They said it was a hard course.
They said that I wasn't used to it.
They said there were too many ponies.
They said a lot of things.
Everybody said that I had been doing good.
That I was doing fine.
But I knew the truth. It was like my friend AJ always said, "honesty is the best policy."
Anyway, I was keeping at a nice brisk pace, but then I lost my drive.
I stopped caring.
I was so turned off, so drained, that nothing could make me keep at that pace. I hovered a couple of times. I stopped a couple of times.
Yeah, let that sink in.
I, Rainbow Danger Professionalism Dash, stopped and hovered during a race.
I stopped and hovered several times. I flew at a jogging pace.
Mares from fancier schools passed me.
Where was my determination? It wasn't there that day.
"You did great.", they said.
But I had more. I should've pushed to my limit and then some.
I had about a mile left, and I was just done, I jogged and flew incredibly slow. It was the damned clouds. We weren't allowed to bust them, and we had to go over them, making us exert more energy.
I wasn't used to such a rigorous course, but that was no excuse.
I gave up. I could have flew all day long with proper motivation, but I just stopped caring!
'What is wrong with me?,' I asked myself later.
Of course, I was tough on myself.
"This was a hard course," Coach said after I finished, and had laid on the clouds for a good minute, trying to figure out what 17 divided by 2 was.
I couldn't even do math. I couldn't even do simple division. I was just that drained.
"You did really good," one of my teammates said.
But I shook my head.
When I had the last half mile to go, I sped up by a bit at the end, and that was it.
It was truly pathetic.
A truly feeble performance.
They said that a lot of factors could have resulted in me doing worse than in my first race.
They said it was the weather.
They said it was my size.
They said it was all the mountains of clouds that were hard to go over.
They said that it was my first time on such a challenging course, that I should be proud.
But, let me ask you something reader, if you've done a race like this before and you know you can do better, would you try your best? Because I didn't.
When I crossed the finish line, I immediately couldn't see well. My head was pounding.
When I had trained, I had trained with my friend. And my friend was not fast. I'm sorry, but she wasn't. I felt like I was tied to her somehow though, like I should stay with her.
She liked to tell me which paces I could keep, and which paces she thought she knew I couldn't.
Half the time, her opinions were horseshit. She was rarely right, and she talked about her friends behind their backs.
She wasn't ever really right, anyway.
All my time training with her, doing easy pansy times, when I should been pushing myself with the guys, was paying off. And not in a good way.
Of course she would get upset.
But I just needed to train with somebody my speed, before I lost some of my speed.
Unfortunately, I lost some of my speed.
So when I crossed the finish line, I was drained. Everything was fuzzy.
"It's okay," one of the coaches tried to tell me. "This was good. Have you ever done a course like this?"
I don't know why but I lied and nodded.
I guess I couldn't think straight, I guess I needed some pride to hold onto. But for whatever reason, I told him that I'd done something like this before.
"There are a lot of factors in why you didn't do as well as in your first race.", everypony said.
I ignored the positive and focused on the truth, though.
The fact was, that I had more, and didn't use it. I had more energy, but I was lazy, and didn't go like I should've.
I had no motivation, and I gave up.
Why did I give up? Why did I not care?
I don't know.
I really don't know. Please don't judge me.
But as I flew home, two words were echoing in my mind. No excuse.
Because guess what reader?
The weather was no excuse.
The large clouds were no excuse.
The 'rigorous' course was no excuse.
My size was no excuse.
The numbers were no excuse.
My own performance level was no excuse.
Because if you didn't do as well as you could have, then you didn't try your best, and if you didn't try your best, you will never know what place you could've came in. You'll never know how you could've won, and how you would've celebrated. You'll definitely never know the congratulations you could've received if you would've put your all into it instead of putting half effort into it. Or less than half.
There is no excuse for not being the best you can be.
There is no excuse for failure to be a winner.
It doesn't matter of you're tall or short, the underdog, or the obvious winner.
You try. You try your hardest. Until your muscles are burning, and you're screaming internally. Just a few more feet, you tell yourself.
You sweat, and you pant, and you kill yourself in training, and in races so one day, you'll be the very best.
And you can tell your family that you did do that Sonic Rainboom again.
And you can tell your fight school bullies that you fucking made it. Because when they see your name on the Equestrian Games record board, and you've set another new record, breaking the freaking sound barrier, you're gonna thank yourself for pushing as hard as you can, as long as you can.
There's no excuse to not grow as an athlete. Big or small, lean or heavy, you have no excuse.
If you wanna be a winner, you try your very best, and you get out there, and win it. And if your best isn't enough, then get a fucking upgrade, because you're playing with the big dogs now, and you're gonna need one.
No excuse. Those were the words echoing in my head that race day. And they're the same words echoing in my head today, because guess what?
I have no excuse to not be the best flier I can be. And neither do you.
It's how I got where I am now. A wonderbolt. Pretty sweet, huh?
So keep these words like I do, and hold them tight, remember them when you go to sleep tonight.
You don't have one, I don't have one.
We don't have one.
We have no excuse.
