Hi Storm Team,
Congrats to you all for stepping up at our Invitational!! The results were incredible! This week I would like to remind you all that after each race the athletes need to do a 10 minute cool down run, and stretch. This is very important for their recovery and to prevent injury!!
There are so many factors that play into every single race. What if you aren’t full-blown sick, but your body is starting to have the effects on race day? Or what if you just didn’t sleep well for a couple nights and just can’t get it together to race hard? What if there was some issue at home that had a negative effect on your race? What if mentally you are struggling to push through and you are losing that battle? What if you lost a race to someone you never had before? What if that loss is to a friend on the team? What if on this day the other athlete was spot on and having a great day?
All of these and many more are real experiences I’d say have happened this year and every year I’ve been a coach. It’s easy to let failures or sub-par performances bring you down. The true champions are the ones who keep fighting.
This makes you all fighters! The truth is we all know when we toe the line there are only a few fighting for first place. To those few, awesome, great job! To the rest,
which is a much bigger number
, we fight: to PR, to encourage our teammates, to be a better teammate, to be more humble, to be a better person. All of those traits and accomplishments I can assure you will help you more in life than being 1
st
. If you get the chance to be the winner, to get 1
st
place, please do so with humility and grace.
One more thing, as we train and race together as Storm, remember that we are a family!! Your goal should be to beat anyone and everyone you can, including your teammates. How do you think over the years you guys have gotten so fast? It’s not by letting others beat you. It’s by getting beat, and then working harder the next week and beating your friend. As you go back and forth, you push each other to excellence. Next thing you know,
you both have huge pr’s
and are running faster than you ever thought possible! Your teammate however, should never be your enemy. Remember that this week as you train for battle!
There are no Losers on our team, you are all just fighting your own battles to get your victory each week. Don’t give up, don’t ever give up!!
See you Tuesday night.
Coach Jeremy
