Get Out Of That Box

It is easy to be put into a box, or put ourselves into boxes.  It is easy to decide what our athletic possibilities, and our limits, are:  This is how fast I am, this is how far I can jump, these are my limits.  Just like it is easy to decide what our academic limits are:  I’m just OK at math; I’m not a creative type; I’m not great at languages; I’m not a great public speaker; I’m not artistic.

Often we quickly put ourselves into those boxes:  I don’t have any endurance (I figured that out when I went running for the first time with the cross country team in summer running).  I’m just not good at learning foreign languages (I learned that in the first month of Spanish 1).  I can’t throw a discus (I tried and tried for a half hour).  I’m not really artistic (my doodles are pretty ugly).

As we start our 2020 track season, I’d like everyone to try to throw away their preconceptions of personal limits.  Let’s go into this season with open minds about what we might achieve if we put our hearts into our training.  What we might achieve if we are really, really gritty.

Last year, Lindsay Crouse, a writer for the New York Times, decided to try to qualify for the Olympic Trials in the marathon.  Lindsay describes herself as a good but not great college runner; she says her college races were so forgettable that she was not even listed on some of the rosters.  She had been watching the revolution in women’s running over the last decade, women like Shalane Flanagan and Des Linden, and Lindsay thought to herself–Why not me, too?

Lindsay started her training to qualify for the Olympic Trials in the marathon; the training was incredibly hard. Lindsay writes that often she would stagger home after workouts, that once after a workout she cried out “oh, God!” loud enough that a man across the trail looked up at her in alarm.  But she kept working and trying.

One day, after a 22 mile run at her goal pace in New York’s Central Park, Lindsay paused and thought:  Who do I think I am?  Lindsay felt that this thought was the point of all her work.  After months of training and effort, Lindsay had reframed the way she thought of herself as an athlete.  Qualifying for the Olympic Trials was no longer an idea.  Now, qualifying for the Olympic Trials was a plan.  Previously, Lindsay had internalized an image about her athletic potential–that she was what she was to that point in time, and there was not much more progress or many achievements to look forward to.  But by the time she had finished that 22 miles in Central Park, Lindsay had torn up the narrative about her athletic limits.

Lindsay writes that something else unexpected happened.  Lindsay realized that she could do other impossible things, besides run faster than ever before.  Lindsay was thinking that she could be a reporter like the great journalists she looked up to.  Lindsay had come to believe that she could produce work that would reach millions of people.  She now believed her writing could impact the world.

This change in mindset is what your coaches hope for the Monta Vista track and field athletes this season.  Your coaches want you to open your minds to the possibility of big athletic breakthroughs this season. We want to see your faces filled with the joy of success, success hard-earned by sustained focus and effort and persistence and grit.  We want to see you realize that you had more athletic potential than you thought you had, and that with effort you can mine that potential.  And more importantly, just as happened for Lindsay Crouse, your coaches hope that you have experiences this track season that are empowering throughout your life, empowering as you think about your academic goals, as well as your athletics.

At the end, last December at the California International Marathon, Lindsay ultimately missed the qualifying time for the Trials.  That qualifying time is really hard.  But she ran faster than she had thought she ever could.  And during her training, Lindsay realized that she had become complacent about her life.  Her athletic experience had changed her view of the limits in her professional life.  She was no longer complacent about what her life was, Lindsay had raised her expectations of what she could achieve both athletically and professionally.

Your coaches want that experience, that feeling, for you.

Your coaches want you to stop and think, “I can do other impossible things”.

This season, let’s all get out of any boxes that we have built around ourselves.

Read Lindsay Crouse’s story in the New York Times (she tells her own story better than I ever could).

If a picture is worth a thousand words, what about four pictures?  Here is what a mind-blowing joy-inducing athletic achievement looks like!

Getting to the finish line after four years of training:

Seeing the finish clock:

Realizing that you have a new PR:

Yea, that is pretty great!  Your coaches want you all to have this moment (and this moment does not require a medal!).