Tag: Distance Running

33. Setting Your Goals

33. Setting Your Goals

by scruffyrube ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

Dear Boys,

I write a lot about sports. This despite the fact that I’m about as athletically gifted as a stalk of wheat. I’ve never been athletic. I was frequently the last one picked in just about any sport you can name. Even “Red Rover” didn’t bother calling me over.

Still, I love the thrill of competition, and when I found distance running, I found a sport that I could excel at and enjoy. I mentioned this briefly to a colleague during a pre-school-year training. 5 minutes later, I was officially a school’s track and cross country coach.

My students aren’t in this picture
They’d be behind the farthest back
(Runners Space)

While my new side-gig was absolutely accidental, it was also one of the most enjoyable parts of my work day. For 60+ minutes each day I could run, share the fun of running with students, and learn about them beyond the context of the classroom.

The biggest thing I learned was that my students always wanted to win. Their goals were to win. To be the best.

Those goals were stupid.

Wanting to be the best isn’t stupid, but setting your goal as something that you don’t control is absolutely ridiculous. So I worked with students, athletes, and some day I’ll work with you too on one simple idea. Keep your goals within your control.

Romain “The Machine” Metanire
(Particle News)

This all came to mind watching Minnesota United fall to defeat in the MLS is Back tournament. Again and again you can hear fans or coaches saying that the team has to set a goal around winning, winning, winning. But they can’t control winning. They can’t control if one of their best defenders (Romain Metanire) gets an injury. Or if they can only replace him with an out of position midfielder (Hasani Dotson). Or if their opponent fields a former Portugese international who happens to have one of his best games in America (Nani).

Winning isn’t in the Loons’ control. Trophies aren’t in their control. Nani isn’t in their control…I mean…unless they hypnotize him. (Note to self: learn hypnotism, then offer services to MNUFC, if turned down, hypnotize MNUFC into offering job.)

But the team can control how they position and react on set pieces. They can control how they track and mark in defense to start counter-attacks. They can control how they act on scouting information that helps you identify dynamic talents like Metanire and Dotson.

As I like distance running, I could set a goal to win the Twin Cities Marathon. That’s an admirable goal, but it also isn’t in my control. I can control how I run sure, but I can’t control how the other thousands of runners train, or run, or hydrate, or don’t. I might attain the goal of first place (if I had start training about 30 years ago), but I don’t really have control over it.

Marathon Finish
(Star Tribune)

But when I set my goal of maintaining steady 8 minute splits, that’s something that would mark improvement for me. It would put me in the top 10% of runners, and it was something that I could control, regardless of the other runners around me. (Humble Brag: I actually kept them closer to 7:30)

In the same way the Loons can control aspects of the game rather than the final outcome, I could control my pace times, and my cross country team could control saving their energy for final kicks.

Set your goals around what you can control and good things happen. Metanire and Dotson and Jan Gregus led a team that few talked about before the season to a final four finish. I am in the 90th percentile for marathoners. My team of runners loved the ends of races and were proud when they broke the tape.

So whatever you boys choose to do (be it sports or 100% not sports), set your goal around things you can control. You’ll be proud of what you do, whether there’s a trophy in the end or not.

18. Distracting GOATS

18. Distracting GOATS

by scruffyrube ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

Dear Boys,

Cooped up as we are these days, it’s tempting to chase after distractions with an almost reckless zeal.

Ooh an oral history of the making of a movie I haven’t seen, better read that!!

Twitter tells me to choose three of nine Disney villains to keep: allow me to carefully analyze my options for the next two hours!

Hmm what was the name of that guy in that thing with that hat I liked? Let’s start the googling!!

In this unplanned off=season for sports, those kind of distractions are even more inviting and attention grabbing. Without the steady stream of results and data points to analyze, fans around the world have begun to fixate on debates over who was the Greatest of All Time (or GOAT).

Which triple crown winning horse would beat the others? Which World Cup winners from 2019 would make the legendary 1999 squad (and vice versa)? And, of course, Messi or Ronaldo? Jordan or Kobe or Lebron? Gibson or Maddux? Messi or Kobe or Maddux?

Let’s be clear: GOAT debates are fun, but they are also pointless.

I’m not saying that you should never indulge in a little thought experiment. If you love a sport and it’s history, It’s quite amusing to wonder whether Ruth & Gherig’s Murderer’s Row of the ’27 Yankees could beat Jeter, Clemens, and the ’98 Yankees.

Easy Content Creation

I’m also not saying that you have to eschew these questions in favor of weightier debates over say: universal healthcare, or whether the role of the state can ever be expanded (even temporarily) without impinging on civil liberties.

I’m saying that GOAT debates aren’t the ultimate arbiter of athletic excellence.

I’m saying that fixating on these questions or righteously defending our answers to them is not the fans equivalent of a championship game.

I’m saying subjective evaluations distract us from appreciating accomplishments in and of themselves.

Which was the more monumental accomplishment: Roger Bannister’s 4 Minute Mile, or Nadia Comaneci’s Perfect 10 at the Olympics? Here’s a better question: have you SEEN THESE!?!?

Bannister’s Four Minute Mile
Comaneci’s Uneven Bars Routine

I mean…who cares which I think is better. No offense, but, I don’t care which you think is better. Let’s not compare, let’s just enjoy. Enjoy watching Bannister churn his legs into a sudden burst in the last 300 meters. Enjoy watching his form wobble as he realizes what he’s about to do. Enjoy watching Comaneci’s hands slap and swing and swiftly switch between bars. Enjoy watching her speed and grace and strength beyond what any one else could do.

Sure, it’s fun to debate these things. It is a great distraction. But it doesn’t change the fact that both accomplished incredible things. Nor does it stop us from admiring the athletic skill in each case. Watching those accomplishments its much more fun to relish the moment rather than rehash infinitesimal differences to support an irrelevant argument.

The same is true for all those other questions: which all-time great line up would win a game? Pfft. How much fun would it be watching Gherig stretch at first to get Jeter by a whisker?

Megan Rapinoe needs a trophy case
THIS BIG

Which 2019 star could keep up with the ’99-ers? I have no clue, but man, imagine Rapinoe and Hamm running roughshod over every field between here and the Moon.

We don’t have to live in an either or world: you get to watch Messi ping-pong, and Ronaldo lash thunderous free kicks; you can tremble at Gibson’s fast ball and gawk at Maddux’s control; you can swoon at a Jordan scoop, a Kobe step-back, and a LeBron stuff; and when that’s all done you can also thrill at a triple in Kickball, or shout about a saved slap-shot, or stare in disbelief at any number of lesser-knowns far from the GOAT debate.

You’re going to be pushed in life to pick sides or argue for one thing over another. Sometimes you should, but when it comes to debating “Greatness” remember, everything has a touch of greatness.