Coaches’ Blog

No regrets. That’s what it’s all about for me.  I realized this very early on.  My greatest regrets are things I never attempted, not my failed attempts. I probably realized this in 6^th grade when I never asked out my crush, Jessie. Then Jason beat me to the punch. Who would have ever thought that they’d stay together all through all of junior high and high school and then get married. That taught me my second lesson, everything happens for a reason. (But that’s a whole other blog entry, this one’s about regrets.)

I’ve been coaching now for 8 years and I’ve always brought my meets home with me. Saturday night and Sunday are spent figuring out what went wrong, what adjustments can be made, how can we make them. How can we make a big step forward with the least amount of change? Eight years of this same routine. Not that this is a bad thing. I think it’s healthy to always want more.  Sometimes it’s as small as thinking I should have adjusted a HJ or LJ approach. Maybe I should have bought a different trail mix for the decathletes. Maybe we need to add a step to a 4×1 exchange. Or maybe we need to transition a 200 runner to the 800. I’ve always woken up on Sunday with some of my first thoughts being geared towards how Saturday’s meet could have been better. Until this Sunday.

Sure we could have done better. Sure, we can do better. Yes, we will do better. We can go faster, higher, stronger, but that isn’t what I’m trying to say. Regrets are about knowing that you left everything at the track on that day and couldn’t have done anything more on that Saturday. I fully felt that way about our effort on Saturday. From the cheering fans, teammates, and friends to the coaches and athletes. I couldn’t have asked for more from this team. They gave everything they had in every aspect of the meet.

Was I worried at some points that we’d lose our energy? Definitely. A track meet is more like a marathon than anything else. We definitely got out of the blocks well thanks to the 10k and long jumpers.   Then we held pace in the middle in every event. But still, just as in the marathon, you can run 20 great miles just to see it blow up in the last 6. Not this team. Not this Saturday. The focus was intent. Each athlete saw their role in keeping the momentum rolling. The energy was palpable.  And they kept it all the way through to the finish.

Thanks for everything this weekend guys. Now let’s run it back and do it again next week, next season, next year.

But, now to the most important part of this blog post. And that’s Jessie from 6^th grade. Is that the most important part? Yeah, but it really has nothing to do with Jessie per se. It’s the fact that I learned from that mistake and I didn’t make it again. When the most amazing woman in the world walked across my path 7 years ago, I didn’t let her go. I married her. I don’t think I’d be half the man I am without her. And I definitely wouldn’t enjoy my life half as much. Thanks for everything Marion.

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