Two of the biggest passions in my life are running and music. I still remember the first time I ever heard the song "Under the Bridge" by the Red Hot Chili Peppers; not only is it incredible musically, the lyrics tell a very heartfelt story of the lead singer, Anthony Kiedis, and some of the adversity he went through. In the band's early days, Kiedis got addicted to heroin and cocaine and would leave practice early to, in his words, "hang-out with f---ing gangsters to shoot speed balls under a bridge."
"I don't ever want to feel / Like I did that day / Take me to the place I love", the place he loves being his band mates, friends, and family. Spending time in the city he was so passionate about with his best friends saved his life. Kiedis said in an interview with Rolling Stone "When it's all said and done, I'll look back and realize some of the best times in my life were spent after 12 hour days of practice with my band just doing what we loved; perfecting our craft."
In the endurance world, summer is one of the best times of year as high school, college or post college teams get ready for their fall A races. Members come from different backgrounds and have had different hurdles to overcome in their athletic and personal lives. Whatever stresses we encounter at school, work, with family or friends; people always have their teammates through good times and bad. Many of our greatest memories from this sport have nothing to do with times but everything to do with the friends we make and experiences we share.
One of the best parts of my job is watching the amazing things that happen when you put a bunch of people with extremely high character together who are passionate about this sport. A few years ago at the Shamrock Shuffle; two of our athletes Kristen Heckert and Karen Lesiewicz had great races running 26:30 and 29:30 respectively. A few weeks later they had a really tough workout; 10 x 30 sec hills, 5 minute jog, 10 x 60 sec hills. I could tell Karen was less than excited to do this (after seeing the hill) and Kristen, having done this several times, knows how tough of a workout it is. So off they went and something incredible happened; the two, who were 3 minutes apart at Shamrock, ran together the whole time. There were times I could tell Karen wanted to drop off but Kristen would not allow this to happen sticking out a hand behind her for Karen to slap or just have Karen take the lead, and as the workout went on, Karen's body language went from "eh do I have to do this" to "I GOT THIS". I would venture to guess that the mental training Karen got from this workout will far surpass any physical gains she made and this workout would never have been possible without her teammate. Fast forward to this past Shamrock, Kristen was having a great one running in 2nd place behind 1:10 half marathoner Laura Thweatt most of the race. Running into 400 to go, she began to tie up and was past by two athletes from the Brooks/Hanson's team. Her teammate Alyssa Schneider then came up on her; instead of trying to out kick her Schneider encouraged her teammate and they finished together leading our team to a 3rd place finish.
The power of teamwork is an incredible thing and I would say it is one of the biggest reasons why we have been successful over the past few years. Our team will never have a fancy weight room, perfect weather to train in, an alter G treadmill or altitude; but what we do have is our hearts, minds and each other. I'll take that over the "perfect" atmosphere anytime.
This time of year always reminds me of my favorite chapter from the book "Again to Carthage" were Cassidy's coach is looking back on his own running: "What you miss is the ten-milers laughing the whole way with guys who are your brothers beyond genetics...the thousand quarter-mile intervals in the hot sun, grabbing your knees for balance afterward and rasping for air...knowing nothing in your life will ever be that wild and alive again, no quest ever as honorable or as noble...at the time it's happening you think you could never lose such a thing, but you can....still, it's just the best of times."