songs of experience

On Monday I was invited to speak to the local middle school cross-country team. When I give talks to kids, I usually try to use props … like one time when I brought an old phone book and tore out individual sheets to give to each runner. “Here,” I said, “Rip this in half.” Everone ripped with a vengence until there were 50 torn sheets of phone book paper fluttering in the air. “Okay,” I said, “That was easy, right? Try tearing this in half.” I then passed around the thick phone book. Several of the older boys gave it a good effort, grunting and turning red, trying - trrryyyyyiing - with all their 8th grade might to rip the thing. Impossible.

SO, my point was, if you run as a bunch of individuals, it’s easy for a team to beat you in cross-country (like ripping the one sheet in half)… but if you run as a pack, your strength multiplies exponentially. You can’t beat the phonebook. “Be the phonebook,” I urged. I heard, later, that the team still chants, “Be the phonebook!” (perhaps in jest?) and I gave that talk several years ago.

My most recent talk was about moving from “I love to run” … to “I love to race” … to ” I love to win.” How do you get from point A to point C? Training. I quoted Mihaly Igloi, “Every day hard training must make.” And then, to illustrate this point, I brought in a tupperware container with a pint of cream. “The cream is you as someone who, simply, loves to run,” I said as I poured the cream into the tupperware and then sealed it shut. The container had the words, “Every day hard training must make,” written on it. I passed the tupperware around and had everyone on the team shake it for all it was worth! After 5-7 minutes of vigorous, non-stop shaking ["hard training"] we opened the container to find the cream totally transformed into butter. “You, too, will be completely transformed into racers and winners if you train hard,” I concluded.

Inside the container, the solid yellow butter was separated from the skim whey milk and one of kids yelled out, “Hey, that’s our sweat!”

They GOT it.