Sunday, November 16, 2014

Cycling competition stirs up excitement

Originally by Megan Dortch
Edited by Monica McDougal

What she saw after getting to the racetrack was nothing like she had seen before. Cones and ribbons were placed all around to mark the course and fans huddled in blankets nearby. A table with Boulevard Beer was beside the track with a stack of waffles and Nutella were available. A Hawaiian food truck was parked to the south of the table selling warm chicken and rice. A voice echoed through the stadium announcing the last call for the next race. A few minutes later, the gun went off to signal the start of the race.


Out of the corner of her eye, she saw bicycles fly by as the cyclists strategically paced themselves for the 10-lap race. She watched as they crossed over steep hills and then jumped off their bikes and quickly carried them up six stairs. Then, they hopped back on and continued peddling towards the next obstacle. As the cyclists made their way around the stands, people yelled words of encouragement and motivation but the cyclists didn't seem to notice.


The announcer began to inform the crowd of which cyclists were the first, second and third place winners of the previous races, the juniors' race and the women's race. The winners claimed their medals and stood on the pedestals for people to take pictures of them. People standing by congratulated the medalists on a good race.


The girl wrapped a blanket around herself and watched those around her bond with others in attendance over their shared passion for cycling. They talked about where they had raced, how many races they had left to complete, what new bikes they had bought and what techniques had worked for them in previous races. Then, many of the people chatted about the weather and old gossip.


When fewer cyclists were rounding the corner, she realized the race was ending. She stretched her cold, stiff legs as she tried to walk in order to gain feeling back into them. Soon after, another race began. She briefly talked to the one cyclist she knew, and then she left the track to warm her car up. As she walked, she thought: there were no big crashes or tense rivalries that she knew of; there were just people cycling, not for the recognition or for the money, but because they loved to cycle.

12 comments:

  1. That is a great headline for the title. Great job!

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  2. I liked the title as well even though I dont think the girl in the story was very excited about what she was watching lol. Good job editing. It made the story flow better.

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  3. Your editing helped to clean up some of the passages while keeping the important parts. Good job.

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  4. You are a headline queen. I love it! You always pick great verbs and descriptive words. You also did a great job with changing the structure of some of the sentences for better flow. Nice job!

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  5. This story is near perfection. Great headline change, although I may have tried to incorporate girl back into the headline. Great job, Monica!

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  6. I feel like the story still needs a bit more work, but great job with the editing!

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  7. I like new headline! The new headline is more attractive and interesting. You also changed some words, and I think those changes are great! Nice job!

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  8. I really like the new headline. You do a very nice job of coming up with verbs for your headlines. Nice job.

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  9. You're a wizard at this. Thanks for making my story better! It was great to read. I think I was more interested in your version than my own. Great job!

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  10. Nice editing job! I didn't find very many errors in the first story but I definitely like what you changed in this one and I also really like the headline change. It goes with the story a lot more now and the whole story itself it much more clear and understanding. I'd have to agree with everyone else and say that the headline is much more interesting now and really sets the tone for the whole story.

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  11. I don't really know how you do it, but you do. I think I just like how you write, and how you choose to describe things. It get's the job done. Also I like the new title, still to the point and descriptive but with some pizzazz.

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