Track Athlete Quotes

Athletes need to enjoy their training. They don't enjoy going down to the track with a coach making them do repetitions until they're exhausted. From enjoyment comes the will to win.

Someone who doesn't make the (Olympic) team might weep and collapse. In my day no one fell on the track and cried like a baby. We lost gracefully. And when someone won, he didn't act like he'd just become king of the world, either. Athletes in my day were simply humble in our victory. I believe we were more mature then...Maybe it's because the media puts so much pressure on athletes; maybe it's also the money. In my day we competed for the love of the sport...In my day we patted the guy who beat us on the back, wished him well, and that was it.

It is in experiencing and accepting the pain of defeat, that we may truly acknowledge the joy of victory.

I don't believe in wearing track pants unless you are in an actual athletic situation.

You know how athletes get ready for the Olympics? They swim early in the morning and late at night. They run around the track for hours and hours without a crowd to cheer them on.

Kay Cannon was a woman I’d known from the Chicago improv world. A beautiful, strong midwestern gal who had played lots of sports and run track in college, Kay had submitted a good writing sample, but I was more impressed by her athlete’s approach to the world. She has a can-do attitude, a willingness to learn through practice, and she was comfortable being coached. Her success at the show is a testament to why all parents should make their daughters pursue team sports instead of pageants. Not that Kay couldn’t win a beauty pageant - she could, as long as for the talent competition she could sing a karaoke version of ‘Redneck Woman’ while shooting a Nerf rifle.

It is no different in sales. Elite salespeople, like elite athletes, track everything. You will never reach peak performance until you know your numbers and use those numbers to make directional corrections.

Owen had been using the track for months, but he didn't recall Sterling doing anything more athletic than tapping his pencil against his desk until Owen's fingers had itched with the need to spank the brat out of him.

We have not advanced very far in our spiritual lives if we have not encountered the basic paradox of freedom, to the effect that we are most free when we are bound. But not just any way of being bound will suffice; what matters is the character of our binding. The one who would like to be an athlete, but who is unwilling to discipline his body by regular exercise and by abstinence, is not free to excel on the field or the track. His failure to train rigorously and to live abstemiously denies him the freedom to go over the bar at the desired height, or to run with the desired speed and endurance. With one concerted voice the giants of the devotional life apply the same principle to the whole of life with the dictum: Discipline is the price of freedom.

As any athlete will tell you, you need to tear muscle to build it, over and over again. Like building muscle, we need to train our intentions to make them resilient and strong.

Tennis is the sport in which you talk to yourself. No athletes talk to themselves like tennis players. Pitchers, golfers, goalkeepers, they mutter to themselves, of course, but tennis players talk to themselves—and answer. In the heat of a match, tennis players look like lunatics in a public square, ranting and swearing and conducting Lincoln-Douglas debates with their alter egos. Why? Because tennis is so damned lonely. Only boxers can understand the loneliness of tennis players—and yet boxers have their corner men and managers. Even a boxer’s opponent provides a kind of companionship, someone he can grapple with and grunt at. In tennis you stand face-to-face with the enemy, trade blows with him, but never touch him or talk to him, or anyone else. The rules forbid a tennis player from even talking to his coach while on the court. People sometimes mention the track-and-field runner as a comparably lonely figure, but I have to laugh. At least the runner can feel and smell his opponents. They’re inches away. In tennis you’re on an island. Of all the games men and women play, tennis is the closest to solitary confinement, which inevitably leads to self-talk, and for me the self-talk starts here in the afternoon shower. This is when I begin to say things to myself, crazy things, over and over, until I believe them. For instance, that a quasi-cripple can compete at the U.S. Open. That a thirty-six-year-old man can beat an opponent just entering his prime. I’ve won 869 matches in my career, fifth on the all-time list, and many were won during the afternoon shower.

The young athlete would be well advised to keep athletics in its place. Be passionately involved in the activity, exert yourself to succeed. Gain from competing the massive satisfaction that competing offers. Yet be a well-rounded, sensitive, literate human being. It is not the job of athletics to produce people who know or care for nothing except athletics. Keep it in its place, behind your family, your concern for the general life of the world, and your education. There are athletes and coaches who prepare to act as if athletics were life; it is not. It is but a corner—and a rich one—of life which will contribute immensely to the holistic development of the individual. -- Joe I. Vigil

Great athletes practice, train, study, and develop. So do great learners. As students empowering ourselves with knowledge, what can we learn from Olympic-caliber athletes about success, and how to achieve it? 1. Preparation = Success! “If you fail to prepare, you're prepared to fail.” —Mark Spitz, Gold Medalist, Swimming 2. Learning is lifelong “Never put an age limit on your dreams.” —Dara Torres, Gold Medalist, Swimming 3. Failure is opportunity "One shouldn't be afraid to lose” —Oksana Baiul, Gold Medalist, Figure Skating 4. The only person who can stop you is yourself “This ability to conquer oneself is no doubt the most precious of all things sports bestows.” —Olga Korbut, Gold Medalist, Gymnastics 5. Learning is fun! “If you're not having fun, then what the hell are you doing?” —Allison Jones, six-time Paralympian 6. You have to be in it to win it “Failure I can live with. Not trying is what I can't handle.” —Sanya Richards-Ross, Gold Medalist, Track & Field There are always new skills to learn, new challenges to overcome, new ways to succeed. The only guarantee of failure is if you don’t get started in the first place.

For years before the Olympic swimmer Michael Phelps won the gold at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, he followed the same routine at every race. He arrived two hours early.1 He stretched and loosened up, according to a precise pattern: eight hundred mixer, fifty freestyle, six hundred kicking with kickboard, four hundred pulling a buoy, and more. After the warm-up he would dry off, put in his earphones, and sit—never lie down—on the massage table. From that moment, he and his coach, Bob Bowman, wouldn’t speak a word to each other until after the race was over. At forty-five minutes before the race he would put on his race suit. At thirty minutes he would get into the warm-up pool and do six hundred to eight hundred meters. With ten minutes to go he would walk to the ready room. He would find a seat alone, never next to anyone. He liked to keep the seats on both sides of him clear for his things: goggles on one side and his towel on the other. When his race was called he would walk to the blocks. There he would do what he always did: two stretches, first a straight-leg stretch and then with a bent knee. Left leg first every time. Then the right earbud would come out. When his name was called, he would take out the left earbud. He would step onto the block—always from the left side. He would dry the block—every time. Then he would stand and flap his arms in such a way that his hands hit his back. Phelps explains: “It’s just a routine. My routine. It’s the routine I’ve gone through my whole life. I’m not going to change it.” And that is that. His coach, Bob Bowman, designed this physical routine with Phelps. But that’s not all. He also gave Phelps a routine for what to think about as he went to sleep and first thing when he awoke. He called it “Watching the Videotape.”2 There was no actual tape, of course. The “tape” was a visualization of the perfect race. In exquisite detail and slow motion Phelps would visualize every moment from his starting position on top of the blocks, through each stroke, until he emerged from the pool, victorious, with water dripping off his face. Phelps didn’t do this mental routine occasionally. He did it every day before he went to bed and every day when he woke up—for years. When Bob wanted to challenge him in practices he would shout, “Put in the videotape!” and Phelps would push beyond his limits. Eventually the mental routine was so deeply ingrained that Bob barely had to whisper the phrase, “Get the videotape ready,” before a race. Phelps was always ready to “hit play.” When asked about the routine, Bowman said: “If you were to ask Michael what’s going on in his head before competition, he would say he’s not really thinking about anything. He’s just following the program. But that’s not right. It’s more like his habits have taken over. When the race arrives, he’s more than halfway through his plan and he’s been victorious at every step. All the stretches went like he planned. The warm-up laps were just like he visualized. His headphones are playing exactly what he expected. The actual race is just another step in a pattern that started earlier that day and has been nothing but victories. Winning is a natural extension.”3 As we all know, Phelps won the record eight gold medals at the 2008 Beijing Olympics. When visiting Beijing, years after Phelps’s breathtaking accomplishment, I couldn’t help but think about how Phelps and the other Olympians make all these feats of amazing athleticism seem so effortless. Of course Olympic athletes arguably practice longer and train harder than any other athletes in the world—but when they get in that pool, or on that track, or onto that rink, they make it look positively easy. It’s more than just a natural extension of their training. It’s a testament to the genius of the right routine.

What would be the natural thing? A man goes to college. He works as he wants to work, he plays as he wants to play, he exercises for the fun of the game, he makes friends where he wants to make them, he is held in by no fear of criticism above, for the class ahead of him has nothing to do with his standing in his own class. Everything he does has the one vital quality: it is spontaneous. That is the flame of youth itself. Now, what really exists?" "...I say our colleges to-day are business colleges—Yale more so, perhaps, because it is more sensitively American. Let's take up any side of our life here. Begin with athletics. What has become of the natural, spontaneous joy of contest? Instead you have one of the most perfectly organized business systems for achieving a required result—success. Football is driving, slavish work; there isn't one man in twenty who gets any real pleasure out of it. Professional baseball is not more rigorously disciplined and driven than our 'amateur' teams. Add the crew and the track. Play, the fun of the thing itself, doesn't exist; and why? Because we have made a business out of it all, and the college is scoured for material, just as drummers are sent out to bring in business. "Take another case. A man has a knack at the banjo or guitar, or has a good voice. What is the spontaneous thing? To meet with other kindred spirits in informal gatherings in one another's rooms or at the fence, according to the whim of the moment. Instead what happens? You have our university musical clubs, thoroughly professional organizations. If you are material, you must get out and begin to work for them—coach with a professional coach, make the Apollo clubs, and, working on, some day in junior year reach the varsity organization and go out on a professional tour. Again an organization conceived on business lines. "The same is true with the competition for our papers: the struggle for existence outside in a business world is not one whit more intense than the struggle to win out in the News or Lit competition. We are like a beef trust, with every by-product organized, down to the last possibility. You come to Yale—what is said to you? 'Be natural, be spontaneous, revel in a certain freedom, enjoy a leisure you'll never get again, browse around, give your imagination a chance, see every one, rub wits with every one, get to know yourself.' "Is that what's said? No. What are you told, instead? 'Here are twenty great machines that need new bolts and wheels. Get out and work. Work harder than the next man, who is going to try to outwork you. And, in order to succeed, work at only one thing. You don't count—everything for the college.' Regan says the colleges don't represent the nation; I say they don't even represent the individual.

MARIE He’s gotta take off his clothes. LOLA Huh? (Closes door) MARIE These drawings are for my life class. LOLA (Consoled but still mystified) Oh. MARIE    (Sits on couch) Turk’s the best male model we’ve had all year. Lotsa athletes pose for us ’cause they’ve all got muscles. They’re easier to draw. LOLA You mean … he’s gonna pose naked? MARIE    (Laughs) No. The women do, but the men are always more proper. Turk’s going to pose in his track suit. LOLA    Oh. (Almost to herself) The women pose naked but the men don’t. (This strikes her as a startling inconsistency) If it’s all right for a woman, it oughta be for a man.

When you’re a coach or athlete and you win a championship, you realize that the championship was really a work-in-progress. What you went through during the pre-season, in the regular-season and then during the post-season enabled you to win a title. I treated the stages of my cancer treatment as the phases of a championship season, and it kept me on track to accomplishing my ultimate goal.

Hyperrationalized training techniques and evaluation tools mean that promising child athletes are tracked and engineered from elementary school, which is also when they start learning about college scholarships.

For about 81 weeks as of this writing, I’ve tracked my daily habits on a “Lights Spreadsheet”; it’s got entries like — Did I adhere to set wake-time? Did I wake 3+ hours before first appointments? Is today clear/known? Is health high, moderate, low?   Morning Routine Meditate 10+ Min Zazen Journal Move Active Project(s) Forwards Early Review Commitments and Time Sensitive   Recharge: Nap Recharge: Music Health & Athletics Eat Right (Y: 8 Best Groups, Half: Nothing Processed, N: Something processed)    Review Day Plan Tomorrow Set Wake Time Sleep Well   I mark those with a simple green “Y” if I do them, a yellow “Half” if I partially did them, a red “N” if I don’t do them.   ***

The students at Sudbury Valley are “doin’ what comes natur’ly.” But they are not necessarily choosing what comes easily. A close look discovers that everyone is challenging themselves; that every kid is acutely aware of their own weaknesses and strengths, and extremely likely to be working hardest on their weaknesses. If their weaknesses are social, they are very unlikely to be stuck away in a quiet room with a book. And if athletics are hard, they are likely to be outdoors playing basketball. Along with the ebullient good spirits, there is an underlying seriousness—even the 6 year olds know that they, and only they, are responsible for their education. They have been given the gift of tremendous trust, and they understand that this gift is as big a responsibility as it is a delight. They are acutely aware that very young people are not given this much freedom or this much responsibility almost anywhere in the world. But growing up shouldering this responsibility makes for a very early confidence in your own abilities—you get, as one graduate says, a “track record.” Self-motivation is never even a question. That’s all there is.

The Metaphor That Stuck In 1996, the Summer Olympic Games were held in my home city of Atlanta. As I watched athletes from all over the world perform in their respective events, I remember wondering what motivated them to compete at the highest levels. On the surface, it seemed logical to assume that these world-class athletes were driven by all the positive rewards that would go to the champion—fame, admiration, and of course, the gold medal. After training for most of their lives, who wouldn’t want to experience “the thrill of victory”? But as I watched the games unfold, it became obvious that while some athletes were motivated by positive rewards, many others were trying to avoid “the agony of defeat.” Rather than think about all the accolades that would come from success, some athletes were motivated to run even faster, and jump even higher, because they were trying to avoid an undesirable outcome. Carl Lewis, arguably one of the greatest track and field athletes of all time, and nine-time Olympic gold medalist, was an excellent example of this. After his last event in Atlanta, when he won the gold medal on his final attempt in the long jump, the sportscaster asked, “Mr. Lewis, what were you thinking about just before you jumped?” As it turned out, Carl Lewis wasn’t thinking about medals, money, or having his picture on a box of Wheaties. Instead, he said his primary motivation was that his family was in the stadium and he didn’t want to disappoint them by losing his final Olympic event.

Alfie is the goon in the team: think of Scooby-Doo with the brains of Homer Simpson. People often can’t believe he’s a collie because he is as smooth as a piglet and built like a lurcher with long legs and a deep chest. He is a true athlete and can run for miles and miles without tiring. Dog owners call it ‘having a good engine.’ He is obedient to the last – but sometimes ‘obedient’ can be another word for ‘stupid.’ If I ask him to lie down and get side-tracked, he will stay glued to the very spot until eventually I come looking for him ten minutes later. I would take sheep out the same gate every day for a week and on day seven Alfie would still need to be told what to do. But he is a great work dog and very honest, and no matter what situation he gets into he is always listening for my commands and has full faith that I will not see him wrong.

Neuroscience was becoming "this thing we all do" — go to conferences, write papers, apply for grants. It was losing its intrepidity. All the finger tapping, the feeble reaches, the cartographic expeditions in the scanner—this was not behavior. John Hughlings Jackson divined enduring wisdom about the motor system without conducting a single experiment; I could sense John Krakauer’s wheels spinning the same way, as he groped for the right track. “It’s about being intellectual rather than academic,” he said.

Lamar, Sr. began coaching his son at a young age, throwing the football with him and helping him get faster. By the age of eight, Lamar could outrun many high school track athletes.

The world’s fastest humans, then, are no match for much of the animal world. Consider also that we have been comparing the speediest humans alive—exceptional athletes who have trained for years with the help of coaches and others for the sole purpose of sprinting prescribed distances on tracks as fast as possible—with average, untrained mammals.

What feels like fun to me, but work to others? The mark of whether you are made for a task is not whether you love it but whether you can handle the pain of the task easier than most people. When are you enjoying yourself while other people are complaining? The work that hurts you less than it hurts others is the work you were made to do. What makes me lose track of time? Flow is the mental state you enter when you are so focused on the task at hand that the rest of the world fades away. This blend of happiness and peak performance is what athletes and performers experience when they are “in the zone.” It is nearly impossible to experience a flow state and not find the task satisfying at least to some degree. Where do I get greater returns than the average person?

Women’s track and field is under provisional status for these Olympic Games, and officials have given some indication that the ladies will not be asked to return because these feats of endurance can be too strenuous for the fairer sex." Pierre de Coubertin, founder of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and its second president, always a staunch advocate of banning women from athletic participation, has made his vision of feminine participation clear by saying, “At the Olympic Games, a woman’s role should only be to crown the victors.

Betty cannot train with the boys’ track team. In fact, the Illinois State Athletic Association prohibits interscholastic competition for girls in track and field events for good reason; it is well documented that women cannot be subjected to the same mental and physical strains that men can withstand.

So training smart, training effectively, involves cycling through the three zones in any given week or training block: 75 percent easy running, 5 to 10 percent running at target race paces, and 15 to 20 percent fast running or hill training in the third zone to spike the heart and breathing rates. In my 5-days-a-week running schedule, that cycle looks like this: On Monday, I cross-train. Tuesday, I do an easy run in zone one, then speed up to a target race pace for a mile or two of zone-two work. On Wednesday, it’s an easy zone-one run. Thursday is an intense third-zone workout with hills, speed intervals, or a combination of the two. Friday is a recovery day to give my body time to adapt. On Saturday, I do a relaxed run with perhaps another mile or two of zone-two race pace or zone-three speed. Sunday is a long, slow run. That constant cycling through the three zones—a hard day followed by an easy or rest day—gradually improves my performance in each zone and my overall fitness. But today is not about training. It’s about cranking up that treadmill yet again, pushing me to run ever faster in the third zone, so Vescovi can measure my max HR and my max VO2, the greatest amount of oxygen my heart and lungs can pump to muscles working at their peak. When I pass into this third zone, Vescovi and his team start cheering: “Great job!” “Awesome!” “Nice work.” They sound impressed. And when I am in the moment of running rather than watching myself later on film, I really think I am impressing them, that I am lighting up the computer screen with numbers they have rarely seen from a middle-aged marathoner, maybe even from an Olympian in her prime. It’s not impossible: A test of male endurance athletes in Sweden, all over the age of 80 and having 50 years of consistent training for cross-country skiing, found they had relative max VO2 values (“relative” because the person’s weight was included in the calculation) comparable to those of men half their age and 80 percent higher than their sedentary cohorts. And I am going for a high max VO2. I am hauling in air. I am running well over what should be my max HR of 170 (according to that oft-used mathematical formula, 220 − age) and way over the 162 calculated using the Gulati formula, which is considered to be more accurate for women (0.88 × age, the result of which is then subtracted from 206). Those mathematical formulas simply can’t account for individual variables and fitness levels. A more accurate way to measure max HR, other than the test I’m in the middle of, is to strap on a heart rate monitor and run four laps at a 400-meter track, starting out at a moderate pace and running faster on each lap, then running the last one full out. That should spike your heart into its maximum range. My high max HR is not surprising, since endurance runners usually develop both a higher maximum rate at peak effort and a lower rate at rest than unconditioned people. What is surprising is that as the treadmill

Yaakov R. Feingold was born in Austin, Texas, but was raised in Sunbury, PA since he was in first grade. He excelled academically and athletically throughout his time at Sunbury while participating in football, basketball, baseball, and track.

If you’re an endomorph or you want to accelerate fat loss, decrease the carbs, and increase the protein (40% carbs, 40% protein, and 20% fat is super-popular among fitness models and physique athletes). Using nutrition tracking spreadsheets or software makes calculating your macronutrient ratios a cinch! But if you make sure to eat a lean protein, a fibrous vegetable, and a natural starchy carb with every meal, your numbers will be in the ballpark, automatically!

Great athletes practice, train, study, and develop. So do great learners. As students empowering ourselves with knowledge, what can we learn from Olympic-caliber athletes about success, and how to achieve it? 1. Preparation = Success! “If you fail to prepare, you're prepared to fail.” —Mark Spitz, Gold Medalist, Swimming 2. Learning is lifelong “Never put an age limit on your dreams.” —Dara Torres, Gold Medalist, Swimming 3. Failure is opportunity "One shouldn't be afraid to lose” —Oksana Baiul, Gold Medalist, Figure Skating 4. The only person who can stop you is yourself “This ability to conquer oneself is no doubt the most precious of all things sports bestows.” —Olga Korbut, Gold Medalist, Gymnastics 5. Learning is fun! “If you're not having fun, then what the hell are you doing?” —Allison Jones, six-time Paralympian 6. You have to be in it to win it “Failure I can live with. Not trying is what I can't handle.” —Sanya Richards-Ross, Gold Medalist, Track & Field There are always new skills to learn, new challenges to overcome, new ways to succeed. The only guarantee of failure is if you don’t get started in the first place.

you can’t make the most of who you are—your talents and resources and capabilities—until you are aware of and accountable for your actions. Every professional athlete and his or her coach track each performance down to the smallest minutiae.

I grew up in racially segregated Washington, D.C., the only son of the only white family in the midst of a black neighborhood. In the streets, the black attacked me for my whiteness, and in school, the white attacked me for my Jewishness. But there was always fatness, the fat kids, the big asses, the butts of jokes, those last chosen for athletic teams, those unable to run the circle of the athletic track. I needed someone to hate, too.

I grew up in racially segregated Washington, D.C., the only son of the only white family in the midst of a black neighborhood. In the streets, the black attacked me for my whiteness, and in school, the white attacked me for my Jewishness. But there was always fatness, the fat kids, the big asses, the butts of jokes, those last chosen for athletic teams, those unable to run the circle of the athletic track. I needed someone to hate, too.

One The number ONE means so many things in every aspect of our lives. We are born to ONE woman. We are focused on being number ONE in sports, school, politics, etc. We love to be number ONE. As a Christian, we believe that there is ONE Lord, ONE Savior and ONE church. We bond with others in our cities, states, nations and all over the world that call on the name of Jesus. We can use this number to focus our efforts to improve our lives. Instead of looking at life as half-empty and the things you can’t do, try looking at how ONE can make a difference in your life. If you are battling an il ness, acute or chronic, try doing ONE more thing today. Take ONE more step, try ONE more rep in physical therapy, smile ONE more time at those who are helping you. Sometimes even though you are sick, you can make such an impact on others by how you handle your ONE issue. Maybe you are an athlete; try doing ONE more rep at the end of the set. ONE more interval on the bike, track or trail. ONE more sprint if you are in the middle of football practice. The person who has the “just ONE more” mentality will always beat the other person and be number ONE. If you are dieting and trying to get your physical body back where you want it; try eating one LESS dessert, one LESS fast food lunch, one MORE salad, one MORE veggie and one MORE lap around the block after dinner. If you want to draw closer to God, read ONE passage a day if you are out of the habit. It doesn’t matter which one, just spend time listening to the Word of the Creator. Say ONE more prayer than just the one to bless the food. ONE more good deed to help your fel ow man. ONE more smile for your spouse, child, sibling or parent. What if we all did ONE good deed this week for a lonely neighbor or a shut in from church? 2 Thessalonians 3:1 (MSG) One more thing, friends: Pray for us. Be that ONE person who makes a difference in this world by doing ONE more thing to progress the love of God!

We cannot, it seems, be winners at everything. Those who appear to be carrying off all the prizes and who are lauded as the superhuman athletes of life cannot, on closer examination, really be triumphing across the board. They are bound to be making a deep mess of some of the less familiar or prestigious races they are entered in for; in certain corners of the stadium, they’ll be falling over, tripping up, complaining loudly about track conditions and, perhaps, sourly denigrating the whole event as useless and not worth participating in.

Galen Rupp matriculated as a freshman at the University of Oregon in 2004 and was performing well. There was only one problem—Salazar didn’t have any faith that the head track-and-field coach was the right collegiate mentor for his young protégé. So Salazar and Cook helped orchestrate the firing of coach Martin Smith, a quirky leader who many of the Nike loyalists didn’t think was the right fit for Rupp. In this effort they came to loggerheads with Bill Moos, the university’s athletic director. Knight and Nike had had a long and mutually prosperous twelve-year run with Moos in which the school’s athletic budget grew from $18.5 million to $41 million. But he didn’t want to fire his head coach, who was objectively good at his job. Knight threatened to withhold funding for the construction of the school’s new basketball arena until both coach and director were gone. Less than a week after he led the team to a sixth-place finish at the NCAA indoor championships, Smith was replaced by former Stanford coach Vin Lananna, a devout “Nike guy.” Moos would retire a year later, saying, “I created the monster that ate me.” Knight then made a donation of $100 million—the largest donation in Oregon history—to the university.

Athletes also need to detach themselves mentally and emotionally from outside stressors for the duration of the training session.

The reason visual imagery works lies in the fact that when you imagine yourself performing to perfection and doing precisely what you want, you are in turn physiologically creating neural patterns in your brain, just as if you had physical performed the action. These patterns are similar to small tracks engraved in the brain cells that can ultimately enable an athlete to perform physical feats by simply mentally practicing the move. Hence, mental imagery is intended to train our minds and create the neural patterns in our brain to teach our muscles to do exactly what we want them to do.”3

Ruth suggests Richard first changed when he was thrown off the football team at the Lincoln School for his epilepsy. He was the quarterback, and Julian attended the Saturday games whenever he wasn’t away laying track. Richard was an excellent athlete and was very proud about being the quarterback. He was a fast runner and could think quickly on his feet. However, when Richard had had a grand mal seizure at the end of one game, the coach had unceremoniously and without apology thrown him off the team. There was medication Richard could have been given, but no one ever suggested it. Richard was very disappointed; it wasn’t his fault he had blackouts, and it was unfair for him to be thrown off the team. He protested to the coach, but the coach said, “If something happens to you while you’re playing, it’ll be all my fault. No, thank you.

A tougher runner isn’t one who is blind with ambition or confidence, but one who can accurately assess the demands and the situation. The magic is in aligning actual and expected demands. When our assessment of our capabilities is out of sync with the demands, we get the schoolchildren version of performance. Starting a project with reckless confidence, only to look up and realize the work it entails. When such a mismatch exists, we’re more likely to spiral toward doubts and insecurities, and to ultimately abandon our pursuit. When actual and expected demands align, we’re able to pace to perfection, or outside of the athletic realm, perform up to our current capabilities. It’s why experienced writers don’t go into their first draft expecting perfection. They understand it’s going to be messy, and often not that good. Contrary to old-school toughness wisdom, a touch of realistic doubt keeps us on track and makes it more likely that we will persist. Toughness is about embracing the reality of where we are and what we have to do. Not deluding ourselves, filling ourselves with a false confidence, or living in denial. All of that simply sends us sprinting off the line, only to slow to a walk once reality hits. Being tough begins long before we enter the arena or walk on stage. It starts with our expectations.

When researchers at Eastern Washington University compared coaches utilizing either servant (supportive) or power (thwarting) styles in sixty-four NCAA track teams, the athletes under the servant leader scored higher on measures of mental toughness and ran faster on the track.

BEFORE STOPWATCHES, cinder tracks, and perfect records, man ran for the purest of reasons: to survive. The saying goes that “every morning in Africa, an antelope wakes up. It knows it must outrun the fastest lion, or it will be killed. Every morning in Africa, a lion wakes up. It knows it must run faster than the fastest antelope, or it will starve. It doesn’t matter whether you’re a lion or an antelope—when the sun comes up, you’d better be running.” There are few instincts more natural than the body in full motion as it races across a field or through the trees. From the beginning, we were all made to run. In days past, when “survival of the fittest” meant exactly this, the only measure of the race was whether the hunted reached safety before being overtaken. Seconds and tenths of seconds had no meaning.

(I would tell my athletes) you're here; your parents are sacrificing to send you to school. Don't let them down. Work a little harder. Be accountable. Be an impact person for your team. Help your teammates out. You know, they're not machines; they're going to have a bad every now and then. -- Joe I. Vigil

Two young mothers were standing in the aisle and they turned when they heard him, and one of them lifted a finger to her lips to shush him. She was wearing a track suit and her blond hair was pulled back in a ponytail. She was vaguely attractive but already angry with him, so he looked to the other one. She was tall and slim with auburn hair and kind brown eyes and a nice mouth. Her face was wide open. She was pretty in a natural, athletic way.

I was fortunate to grow up in a place where snowfall was abundant, exclusion from private property was frowned upon, and outside my door were thousands of acres of forested hills to explore. By the time I was ten my feet were as big as my mother's, and I pinched her leather cross-country ski boots and a set of wooden skis and poles from Finland that had stood neglected in the cellar for years. I never had any instruction in Nordic skiing technique, but as soon as I pushed off it was obvious that this was an easier way to move about in the winter woods. To this day I have a hard time thinking of skiing as a sport and have felt self-conscious the few times I've skied in prepared tracks among the athletic and sleek-suited crowd that frequents Nordic centers. For me skiing is just the way you walk when there's snow on the ground. It's walking in cursive, and I love to walk.

The Lost Boys had hardly unpacked by the time they started appearing in local newspaper headlines for their exploits on high school track teams. “Only months after settling in Michigan, two Sudanese refugees are finding that they are among the fastest high school runners in the state,” went the lead of one AP article. Another, in the Lansing State Journal, noted that Abraham Mach, a Lost Boy who had no competitive running experience before arriving at East Lansing High, was the most outstanding performer in the thirteen-to-fourteen age group at the 2001 National AAU Junior Olympic Games, medaling in three events. Mach, who had been living in a Kenyan refugee camp just one year earlier, went on to become an NCAA All-American at Central Michigan in the 800-meters.

I wasn’t one of those socially withdrawn fat kids, though. I was the girl who always wanted to get in the game, even if I played it really, really poorly. I was more than happy to sweat my life away on athletic teams: volleyball, track, if that meant having lots of friends. I was even willing to brave the swim team in a Speedo. I wish I had that kind of body confidence now.

What makes me lose track of time? Flow is the mental state you enter when you are so focused on the task at hand that the rest of the world fades away. This blend of happiness and peak performance is what athletes and performers experience when they are “in the zone.” It is nearly impossible to experience a flow state and not find the task satisfying at least to some degree.

What i quickly discovered is that high school running was divided into two camps: those who ran cross-country and those who ran track. There was a clear distinction. The kind of runner you were largely mirrored your approach to life. The cross-country guys thought the track runners were high-strung and prissy, while the track guys viewed the cross-country guys as a bunch of athletic misfits. It's true that the guys on the cross-country team were a motley bunch. solidly built with long, unkempt hair and rarely shaven faces, they looked more like a bunch of lumberjacks than runners. They wore baggy shorts, bushy wool socks, and furry beanie caps, even when it was roasting hot outside. Clothing rarely matched. Track runners were tall and lanky; they were sprinters with skinny long legs and narrow shoulders. They wore long white socks, matching jerseys, and shorts that were so high their butt-cheeks were exposed. They always appeared neatly groomed, even after running. The cross-country guys hung out in late-night coffee shops and read books by Kafka and Kerouac. They rarely talked about running; its was just something they did. The track guys, on the other hand, were obsessed. Speed was all they ever talked about....They spent an inordinate amount of time shaking their limbs and loosening up. They stretched before, during, and after practice, not to mention during lunch break and assembly, and before and after using the head. The cross-country guys, on the the other hand, never stretched at all. The track guys ran intervals and kept logbooks detailing their mileage. They wore fancy watched that counted laps and recorded each lap-time....Everything was measured, dissected, and evaluated. Cross-country guys didn't take notes. They just found a trail and went running....I gravitated toward the cross-country team because the culture suited me

He wasn't wearing a shirt. Alert, alert! August Hodges was not wearing a shirt. Her greedy eyes inhaled the wall of delicious flesh that defined his magnificent back. Muscles rippled in perfect synchronized motions as he lifted his arm. Scrumptious, delicious brown skin her lips and tongue longed to taste. Dampness instantly settled between her legs. She must have made a whimper full of intense hunger, or maybe he just sensed he was no longer alone--- and she was going to go with the second, less embarrassing option--- because he turned. Holy fuck! The front was better than the back. He was a professional athlete who took his fitness seriously (even though he owned a cupcake shop franchise), so she shouldn't be shocked by how fucking good he looked. But it was one thing to be intellectually aware of something and another to be confronted with it up close and personal. A quick perusal registered an eight-pack. A trail of hair bisected his abs and led to... She jerked her eyes upward. His eyebrows lifted. "Sloane?" His tone was amused. No doubt her tongue was hanging out her mouth like a dog eagerly tracking the bowl of water its parent carried. Dignity. She needed to find it, and soon. She lifted a hand as he reached for the teal Sugar Blitz polo on his desk. Let a mocking, flirty smile spread across her lips. "Please stop on my behalf." He shot her a look. "I do so appreciate being treated like a piece of meat." The finest, rarest cut of beef. Filet mignon.

Unanticipated rewards in the future, such as a paycheck bonus in two weeks or an athletic trophy you get at the end of a season, will not change neural connections in the same way. Rewards have to be experienced right after we do something in order to build habit associations (context-response) in memory. Given this timing, the most effective habit-building rewards are often intrinsic to a behavior, or a part of the action itself. This could be the feeling of pleasure you get when you read an engaging story to your kids and see their enjoyment; or maybe the warm glow of generosity you experience when doing a good deed, like volunteering at the soup kitchen. You aren’t a rat. If you volunteer, don’t then go and buy yourself a big chocolate bar and expect the habit to start forming. Let the warmth intrinsic to the activity be the reward. Take advantage of your built-in humanity. As you’d expect, those who liked to exercise—who rated it a fun activity that made them feel good—exercised more often and reported that it was more habitual and automatic. They didn’t have to think much before heading out to the track or gym. Most interesting is that students who exercised just as often, but who indicated that they went mostly out of guilt or to please others, failed to form a robust habit.