Coaches’ Blog

Coaching has made me an expert in one thing over all else…rough patches.

Every person on this planet has to weather our own personal storms at countless times in our life.  Life is hard.  It’s a test and it’s never an easy one.  Sometimes your test is overt and in your face.  At other times it’s subtle and wears at you over years.  Regardless, it is yours to carry.

As a coach, I bear witness to these rough patches every day of my life. I see athletes battle through them at every level of their lives…during an individual rep of a workout, over a full workout, a race, a season, a year, a career.  On and off the track we withstand these rough patches.

Friends, family, teammates, coaches, and significant others all help us stay positive and stand strong amidst these difficult times.  Personally, I’m not one to ask for help.  It’s not in my nature.  I’m sure there is some analysis that can be done here, but I don’t care.  It’s who I am and I’m happy with it.

For me, two thins have always helped me stand up after getting knocked down.  Music.  And the simple knowledge that there are people there to help me up should I choose to ask.  Funny how simply knowing that I have friends and family who would help if I just asked for it, makes me comfortable enough to not ask.  It gives me a silent faith that I’ll come out the other side a stronger man.

Music, on the other hand, has always been a catalyst helping me overtake that final hurdle and turn the corner.  Its funny how I have a timeline of my life based on the songs that helped me right the ship.  Honestly, I’m not proud of all the songs.

True Colors

Rooster

Glory and Consequences

Here We Go Again

Get By

Tabaco y Chanel

Hold On To What You Believe

Get By (yup, it’s supposed to be there twice)

Side note: It felt really, really odd to listen to some of these songs that I haven’t heard in almost 2 decades.  I could likely think of a bunch more, but these are the ones that I remember above all else.

I’ll start by calling BS on myself from the start here.  I’m going to use horrible statistics to debate horrible statistics.  I guess it’s a fight fire with fire type of day.  Let it be known that I hate stats.  They are way too easily warped to fit whatever theory or hypothesis you’re looking to defend.  Not all stats are this way, just the vast majority of what’s out there.  I once read that 90% of stats where invented by the author (That’s a joke people.  But it sums up this blog well.)

I had a little time after this year’s NCAA Championships to crunch the figures.  Well, it’s not that I had free time, I just didn’t feel like cleaning the basement.  I wanted to see how indexed times compared to non-indexed seeds for the national championships.   I had some assumptions, but didn’t know exactly how it would shake out.  Obviously, the sample size of 1-year and 1-division is woefully unacceptable, but it’s still fun to look at.

That being said, if the new indexing were accurate then we should have seen similar PR-rates across indexed and non-indexed time.  Let’s take a look

What we actually see is that 80% of all indexed men outdid their seeds at the National Championships compared to 43% of non-indexed men.  That seems a bit excessive.  On the women’s side, we see that 73% of indexed marks were improved on compared to 44% of flat-track marks.   Obviously there are exclusionary events to be looked at given how tactical the 5k is and that only 1 athlete qualified with a banked track 400m.  Granted that may speak more volumes than anything else.

Rather than write out all the stats, take a peak at the chart above.  There are 100 different ways to divide it up, but I only took a couple.

To me, it’s pretty obvious what these statistics show.  It proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that the indexing is 100% accurate.  It’s just that athletes who qualify on banked tracks are highly competitive and able to raise their competition level when it counts.  To me, that is the only statistically viable option.

Because he’s more eloquent than I am, I’ll be paraphrasing much of Paulo Coelho’s words for some of this entry…

A certain shopkeeper sent hi son to learn about the secret of happiness from the wisest man in the world. The lad wandered through the desert for forty days, and finally came upon a beautiful castle, high atop a mountain. It was there that the wise man lived.

Rather than finding a saintly man, though, our hero, on entering the main room of the castle, saw a hive of activity: tradesmen came and went, people were conversing in the corners, a small orchestra was playing soft music, and there was a table covered with platters of the most delicious food in that part of the world. The wise man conversed with everyone, and the boy had to wait for two hours before it was his turn to be given the man’s attention.

The wise man listened attentively to the boy’s explanation of why he had come, but told him that he didn’t have time just then to explain the secret of happiness. He suggested that the boy look around the palace and return in two hours.

“Meanwhile, I want to ask you to do something,” said the wise man handing the boy a teaspoon that held two drops of oil. “As you wander around, carry this spoon with you without allowing the oil to spill.” The boy began climbing and descending the many stairways of the palace, keeping his eyes fixed on the spoon. After two hours, he returned to the room where the wise man was.

“Well,” asked the wise man, “did you see the Persian tapestries that are hanging in my dining hall” Did you see the garden that it took a master gardener ten years to create? Did you notice the beautiful parchments in my library?”

The boy was embarrassed, and confessed that he had observed nothing. His only concern had been not to spill the oil that the wise man had entrusted to him.

“Then go back and observe the marvels of my world,” said the wise man. “You cannot trust a man if you don’t know his house.”

Relieved the boy picked up the spoon and returned to his exploration of the palace, this time observing all of the works of art on the ceilings and the walls. He saw the gardens, the mountains all around him, the beauty of the flowers, and the taste with which everything had been selected. Upon returning to the wise man, he related in detail everything that he had seen.

“But where are the drops of oil I entrusted to you?” asked the wise man.

Looking down at the spoon he held, the boy saw that the oil was gone.

“Well, there is only one piece of advice I can give you,” said the wisest of wise men. “The secret of happiness is to see all the marvels of the world, and never to forget the drops of oil on the spoon.”

That might be a bit long for a quote, but it was something I felt the need to do. I was reminded of this while playing with Echo this past weekend. Here he was struggling to carry his Cheerios around the house and play at the same time. It was a constant battle. One that Echo was losing and my dog Luka was happy to clean up afterwards.

This story always rang true with me. It still does. Personally, it tells me to balance my work-life as a coach with my home-life as a husband and father. If I focus too much on one, then I lose the other. There needs to be balance.

As a coach, I wish every athlete I coach could somehow internalize this balance. College is full of it’s tapestries and is definitely a ‘hive of activity.’ It’s easy to get caught up in that activity and lose site on your responsibilities to yourself, your parents, and your teammates. On the other hand, no one should myopically focus on their ‘spoon.’ Life, and college have far more to offer than just responsibilities and duty. We all have to take a step back, enjoy the process, and enjoy life.

One of the things that I’m sure my athletes are tired of hearing me say is that “life is all about minimizing regrets.” We can never eliminate them, but we have to work to minimize them. I don’t know if I’d want to eliminate them if I could. It’s the regrets that teach us. We learn from them in a unique way that nothing else can give us.

That being said, it’s an odd profession that I’ve chosen. It constantly puts me in a bitter-sweet place of both joy and regret. Would I love to have 100% of the athletes that I bring to Nationals come home an All American…no doubt. Is that unrealistic…no doubt. Are we still going to fight for that…no doubt.

This was a great weekend for me. I had a blast with the 7 athletes that joined me on our trip to IL for Nationals. The weekend was a microcosm for so much of what I love about my job.

It showed me the hunger and determination of our team. We’re going to push ourselves to the limit. Battle out of boxes, push ahead, and put our teammates in the best possible position.

It showed me that we have a grit and fortitude to overcome injury. To focus and rise above.

It showed me that we never quit. We have class even when we miss on our goal. We’ll still push ourselves because we’re the only arbiters of our own success.  We’re our own judge and jury.

But most importantly, it showed me the balance and versatility of our team. My proudest moment of the weekend didn’t come at the track this weekend. It didn’t come on the runway or in the circle. It was in the lobby of the hotel when an athlete told me that he got into his top choice for grad school, one of the best programs in the country.

There will be so much in this life long after we put down the shot puts and poles. Long after we put our spikes on the shelf and move on. There is so much more. More joy, more sorrow, more passion, more pain…more life.

I’m glad that my athletes have the power to give me that perspective. It’s far to easy in this profession to start thinking that the world starts and stops at the edge of lane 8.

I have such a love/hate relationship with the Multi Events.  Some of my most enjoyable moments as a coach comes from the pent, hept, or dec.  They are those days when there are only 12 athletes and 12 coaches and people are competing in complete silence with now spectators or teammates around.  Granted these past few years, there are haven’t been close to 12 coaches because Bates and Tufts have had 6 of the 12 athletes competing.  So I guess there have only been 6-7 coaches kicking around.

Even with all that joy and excitement that comes from the 3^rd attempt at a height in the HJ or PV, there have been all those heart-wrenching moments of the 3^rd attempt at an opening height in the HJ or PV.  All the hurdle starts and 1^st attempt fouls in the LJ and DT.  The windy days where the nose of the javelin just won’t turn over.

The Mutlis are just a bit extreme in both directions.  My stomach knots up a bit more and I grit my teeth a bit tighter trying to stay relaxed.  (Yes. I understand that gritting my teeth really hurts my trying to stay relaxed.)  But then the 400m or the 1k or 1500 come around and it’s nothing but pure energy (pain faced energy) as the exclamation point gets put on a great two days.

I’ve enjoyed all the decathlon calculus that gets done as you plan out your average, good, great, and epic days in an event.  I love having lifetime PRs, decathlon PRs, heptathlon PRs, etc.  The more PRs that exist, the more you can break.

If you’re never been invested in a Multi event before, then you don’t know what you’re missing.  Go check one out if you have a free 2 days lying around.

Why re my palms sweating? Because of this flight? Is it the air in this airplane cabin? It’s Thursday, why are my palms sweating? Wow, I’m so addicted to this. Deep breath. Inhale. Exhale.

Be the rock. The calm above the fray. The logic amidst the emotion. Just be what’s needed of me.

Seems like my evolution fails me. My fight-or-flight reflex is inevitable. My heart quickens, pupils dilate, palms sweat. Can’t do much about this. Just have to cover the generations of these inborn, involuntary reactions. I have to bury them deep. Shroud the swirling thoughts with a veil of serenity. To be the immovable foundation.

I have to be the experience. The dreamer. To see them for what they can be. To be the mirror. So they can see what they can be.

I just need to be the man I need to be so they can be the men they want to be.

25th time. Sitting on this bus right now, heading to Bowdoin. Just realized this is my 25th time driving to a NESCAC Championship meet. Things have changed quite a bit over that time Let’s see what I’ve learned over the years…

#1 – Didn’t have a clue what I was heading into. A track meet at Hamilton College. I was just a cocky, freshman hurdler with no concept for what NESCACs was. I would have a much different perspective after that meet. I had set a goal for myself that I would never let my rival hurdlers in front of me. In four years, this would be the one day that I let one of them beat me…and it was three of them. Tough first go at it.

#3 – Realized I could do more. Finally got the TEAM aspect of track and field. Decided to be more than a hurdler. Tacked the 100m and TJ onto my hurdles and relays. Squeaked out some extra points, but had a teammate beat me out for a 1-2 punch in the hurdles. Felt odd, but glad that it w as a teammate in front of me.

#4 – Really got it. Vowed not to run out of steam like I did the previous year. 8 races and 2 jumps later, I knew that I left it all on the track. Probably the first and last time I could really say that.

#5 & 6 – Went from being a cocky, young athlete to a cocky, young coach. It was my first real experience with the powerlessness of coaching. I can’t even express how much I just wanted to be on the track getting the baton as the anchor leg. Then you’re in control. You decide what happens. As a coach on meet-day, you’re a glorified spectator. It was a shock to my system.

#13 – First one as a head coach. This one was a real wake up call. I had to go from being the high energy assistant coach to the stoic rock of a head coach. Thought we brought it well, but as with everything in this world…I wish I knew then what I know now.

#15 – A hurricane. Found out that truly anything can happen in a cross country meet. Anything.

#16 – A metaphorical hurricane. Found out that anything can happen in a track meet. After a tough indoor season, everything clicked. Guys started doing things they had no business doing. Momentum took over and the team just rolled. High energy, electric feeling. I felt like it was everything I wanted to experience in #4. Felt like a kid again. Lost that stoic rock demeanor for a second to jump around during the DMR.

#24 – Finally got the NESCAC track meet that I always thought our conference was capable of. Instead of 1-2 teams looking at the top spot, we had 4-5 making a solid bid. Nothing is better than parity in an XC/Track meet. Every cm counts. Every ½ point counts. Every kick matters.

#25 – Should be a lot like #24. Every inch counts. I’ll let you know what I learn from #25.

Well, it’s official. I’m a horrible blogger. Honestly, I’m not too upset about it. I do enjoy this blog quite a bit, but on my list of priorities, it is far from the top. Apologies to any avid followers out there (in other words, “Sorry Mom.”) Between trying to be a good father, husband, and coach, being a good blogger really is not up there.

Pretty regularly, I pen a post in my head, but get side-tracked by writing workouts, talking with athletes, or playing with legos. Usually, my son is with me when I’m playing with the legos…usually.

Oddly, this isn’t even a post. It’s merely my rambling about how I’ve lost regularity in this blog. I do want to resurrect it and will be trying to find the means to do so. You’ll know if I succeed because there will be more nonsensical posts put up. Good day.

There are many versions of this story.  As this is a blog, I’ll go with the Cliff’s Notes version.

Three blind men were shown an elephant.  They touched it with their hands to determine what the creature was.  The first man felt the trunk, and claimed that an elephant was like a snake. The second man touched its leg and claimed that an elephant was like a tree.  The third man touched its tail, and claimed that the elephant was like a slender rope.

They fight, and fight, and fight, yadda, yadda, yadda. Each man truly, to his core, believes his perspective is 100% accurate and completely informed.

I like this story for many reasons.  1) It’s about an elephant, good start, right?  2) It reminds me that we are all blind men.  Myself included.  Not one of us is ever capable of seeing the whole picture.

It is the fool who thinks himself wise.  No one ever truly knows everything about any situation.  Personally, when I come across someone with all the answers, it’s a red flag for me that they’re misinformed and out possibly out for personal gain.  I believe in trusting those who admit their ideas can evolve and grow.

In the modern world of Facebook, the internet, and, yes, blogs, people are quick to judge, quick to speak, and quick to act.  Sadly, we shout when we should listen, we run forward when we should hold back and, as a result, this puts many people on unsupported grounds.  It puts people out on a limb with limited facts and emotionally-based opinions.  I strive to keep those rushed judgments from this blog and hope that I am able to continue to do so.

As a coach, I have many goals.  I want nothing more than to see the success of TUXC/TUTF continue to grow and help make Tufts a better corner of the world.  I don’t plan on coaching at Tufts forever.  In the time that I’m given, I hope to make TUXC/TUTF (and her traditions) bigger and stronger than one man.  After I’m dead and buried, I hope that TUXC, Alumni Run, our course, and our annual podium finishes are so institutionalized that they are synonymous with Tufts athletics.

On top of my goals as a coach, I strive for many personal challenges.  In my office hang two quotes.  One a constant warning to never think I know more than someone else.  The other, a constant reminder to be the rock that I want to be.  I struggle with both of these daily and will continue to do so.

You take what you know of The Way and you wave it in the face of others.  This is why men can see right through you.

Men only mirror themselves in that which is still.  Running water cannot still the stillness in others.

I am a man who gets paid to play games.  My work is to give others the strength to achieve their own goals.  I believe wholeheartedly in transparency.  Should anyone, at any time, have questions or comments about choices that I’ve made throughout the playing of these games or crossing off of goals, I will happily open my doors to you.

As for right now, I have championship cross country and track teams to build.

Wow, February 17th, 2012 – that’s sad. Have I really not put anything up here in that long. That’s just irresponsible and unacceptable. Honestly, it got the point of “what’s one more day.” We’ve all been there with different things. And not to be mean about it, but we all probably had no excuses either.

The only place that I really don’t accept this train of thought is with training. Sure we’ve all experienced little lapses in our training. Whether it’s from injury, vacation, school, or just burnt out, many of us have taken hiatii (is that the plural of hiatus, doesn’t seem right) from our work.

I can remember it like it’s yesterday, Christmas day in college (pick a year, any year) and I’m sitting with the family enjoying the day. Nice picture, huh. Well I had just taken xmas eve off because that’s the way the Barron family did things and the seed was planted.

Dec 26th would roll around and I’d be sitting there looking at a shredded tree with below zero temps outside. It wasn’t hard to convince myself that I needed one more day of rest instead of that hill workout that I had planned on doing when I was lying in bed the night before. What’s one more day, right?

We always reach our breaking point…this is mine. Let’s get this blog started up again. For real. Maybe I’ll pass along some thoughts on Echo, maybe some on our new house, or maybe, if you’re really lucky, we’ll actually talk about the upcoming XC season. That would be nice, wouldn’t it.