Happy New Year, MVXC and MVTF!
I was going back over some articles I read looking for personal inspiration and inspiration for all of you as we start 2021, and I came across this article by Lindsay Crouse. I’ve shared this link with some of you recently, and in the past, and as we start the new year I wanted to highlight some parts of Lindsay’s article that tell a story about the change in her mindset:
I thought I was “who I was.” I didn’t think it was still possible to improve significantly in anything, let alone something involving my body…I had to dismantle all that. To qualify, I had to run a marathon pace of 6 minutes 17 seconds per mile. For me, that’s usually a sprint. When I started training on a path along the Hudson River, I couldn’t even hit that pace for one mile. I tried anyway, over and over. I would stagger home afterward, late at night or before work or both. Once, at the end of a workout, I cried out, “Oh, God!” so loudly that a man across the path looked up at me in alarm. But I kept trying, repeating something someone told me about “getting comfortable with the uncomfortable.”
It never got comfortable.
But it did become possible. One evening in the fall, after logging 22 miles in Central Park close to my goal pace, I paused. Who did I think I was?…That was the point. After months of work, my physical and psychological reframing had worked. [Qualifying for the Olympic Trials] wasn’t an idea anymore. It was my plan.
And then something unexpected happened. I realized I could do a lot of other impossible things. I could be a reporter like the journalists I’d always admired. I could produce work that changes corporate policies and reaches millions of people, and I could help other athletes along the way.
Lindsay’s experience captures what might my main hope for the MVXC athletes that I am so honored to coach. I hope that you, my athletes, my kids, have successes on the cross country and track & field teams that lead you to reach for successes in fields that are important to your success in life. I hope that you run more than a week than you ever had before, and think you can also become completely fluent in Japanese. Or that you run the Palm Avenue tempo route faster than you ever had before, and wonder if you have a higher ceiling in mathematics than you had thought. Or that you set a new personal FKT on Horse+Garrods and think, if I can do that, maybe I should add another stretch school to my college applications (and think about joining my college track team, too!).
There are lots of things we can take away from high school cross and track teams–health and fitness habits now and for life, learning how to be part of a team, developing our grit (!!!), making friends with healthy, driven, goal oriented people. For sure, one of the main things I hope for you is that you come out of your cross and track experience with a mindset that helps you set high goals, and a gritty and disciplined work ethic that helps you achieve those goals while enjoying, or at least appreciating and embracing, the grind along the way.
Lindsay ultimately did not qualify for the Olympic Trials. While I would have liked to have seen her do that, just like I’d like to see all of you win medals or make varsity, I’m not sure that the success is as necessary as the effort and the goal. I am sure at the end of her race at CIM Lindsay felt some disappointment, yet I read her column and feel that she had real joy and satisfaction in her effort. (I hope you read the piece and see if you agree, and see what else you personally take from the column.) Lindsay is proud of what she did achieve. Lindsay gave herself a really hard goal, and did not hold anything back as she threw herself into the attempt. Achieving the goal is desired, for sure, but it’s not a requirement. As she said, she “transformed herself trying”. This transformation in mindset is what I wish for all of you, too–now, in the past, and in the coming year 2021.
Happy New Year!
Coach Flatow
