Goal 2

June 6, 2016

PICKING UP WHERE I LEFT OFF = Goal 2

I hit Pre's trails and so it began.  I knew what I wanted.  I knew what was meaningful to me.  I came up with my four goals.  In the summer of 2008 they were far off and seemed lofty, yet I was sure of them.

1) acquire athletic sponsorship

2) make the PanAm team

3) compete in Europe

4) automatically qualify for the Trials finals and have an Olympic mark

Over the next few weeks I will touch on these goals and the process of getting to them and what I learned.

Making the PanAm team quietly became a secret and annoying goal in 2007.  At the time, I was coaching at Duke and working with a girl named Liz.  I thought I was very much like Liz as a person and athlete, just a couple years older.   I traveled with Liz after the NCAA season to Indianapolis for the USA Track & Field championships.  I watched her compete in the finals of the steeplechase and finish high enough to fill-out her application for making the PanAmerican team.  She finished 6th.  Depending on who in the top-5 chose to accept the offer to compete at the PanAm Games, she had a chance of representing the USA in international competition.  What an honor!  I hadn't done every tempo, long run, regular run, or workout alongside her, but I had run alongside enough to know what she was doing and if I could hang.  I could hang for parts of it.  I could do the long run and stick with the team up the final hill of the Al Buehler trail along the golf course. I could go on a run, and I could do the strides over hurdles and barriers right in-step with her.  At that point though, I didn't have the training to be able to handle the work day-in and day-out.  I realized that I truly had the talent, but hadn't done the consistent work.  I was inspired.  Although I don't consider myself a jealous person in the least, I was a little jealous that she had been in an environment that encouraged the work and also that she had done it all. 

Liz in purple coaching for TCU - we reunite.

I tried to shelve the goal, but it didn't work.  When I get inspired, I get adamant.  I can't convince myself I'm ok if I've got this burning desire. 

My dad was in the Navy for 29 years.  He was a fighter pilot in the F/A-18 Hornet.  Bad ass hero.  (He was the oldest active fighter pilot in the world when I was growing up.)  He fought for our country and I realized that I wanted to wear the USA proudly on my chest, too, and fight.  As he reminded me, "Go fast and turn left."  It's not only how you run a track race, it's how he took off from and landed back on the aircraft carrier.  

Thanks, dad!

I shelved the goal.  Until 2008. Then I started getting ready.