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Please criticize and comment on my essay:

At the instant the gunshot went off, the adrenaline kicked in and I began running my hardest race of the year. With the rain blurring my glasses and drenching my shoes with mud water, I dashed the first one hundred meters. While some of the runners in front of me slipped in a mud pit, I veered to the left, barely avoiding it. Altering between pavement and mud, my legs quickly adjusted to this course. Breathing hard and not yielding to anything, I hoped to continue my 6:30 mile pace. Nearing the end of my first mile, I felt a cramp in my legs. With the pain accumulating, I wanted to call it quits and walk, but I knew I would make it, I always had. Focusing only on the course, I kept running at a steady pace. As I approached the end of the second mile, I knew the end was near. Feeling as if my legs would fall off in the rain, I started to sprint, giving everything that I had, I was determined to hit the finish line. When the strenuous twenty minutes and twenty-seven seconds of running ended, I stopped with a great sense of accomplishment. I regained my breath, and smiled as I walked towards a bench. I took off my race number and wrote down my time and the date next to the “3078”, a tradition I had after every meet. Taking 4th place overall in the Cross Country County Championships I was ready to go home.
Looking back at that race, I realized how my effort, hard work, and dedication throughout the years had resulted in a successful season. Remembering how it all began, it was my father that encouraged me to run instead of watching pointless television shows. Soon, I joined the cross-country team and at every meet, I strived to improve. Beating my peers or placing in the top ten was not important to me, but competing against myself was. With that goal in mind, practices and races became increasingly important. Throughout the many meets, I averaged an improvement of about twenty seconds. Starting in tenth grade with twenty-six minutes, I passed through different time ranges until I reached my present personal record of sub twenty-one minutes.
Cross-country, has impacted me in more ways than I can think of. Surely, one way that I know is how my body reacts to running: when to pick up the pace, when to slow down, and other insights that only a runner gets. Cross-country has taught me about determination and initiative. By taking the initiative to run daily with my friend, Ross, I got a healthy workout while enjoying the run. Last month, my friend and I decided to run around the nearby Short Hills reservation area. While carrying on long conversations and being covered in sweat, I realized that we ran for about two hours. We covered a distance of approximately thirteen miles. This new record came as a surprise, since it didn’t seem so long when I ran with company. I later concluded that if I trained for several months on heightening my endurance, I would be able to run the New York City marathon, my new goal.