Your challenge - should you choose to accept it - is to blog about your own advice for "record-breaking" in whatever capacity that phrase is relevant to your athletic pursuits. Each one of you [of the In The Arena roster] is involved in pushing the boundaries of our physical and psychological limits, talents, and expertise. In essence, you're chasing records everyday...
As an athlete it is your job every single day to get better. You wake every single morning (and go to bed every single night) with the sole intent of improving yourself in some facet. Will you get stronger, will you get faster, will you get wiser?
Taking the job as a coach at Harvard, i'll be the first to admit a total lack in confidence in my ability to "coach" college athletes. I had so much to learn as an athlete and was myself only 1 full year out of college - how was I anywhere near qualified for such a job? Alas, I was somewhat bullied into the job (thanks PT (RIP)), but I have not regretted the decision since. Where am I going with this, you ask? I didn't think I was ready to coach because I felt that I lacked the technical knowledge to coach. Because I was far from a perfect hurdler, I didn't feel that I could teach a kid to become a perfect hurdler - then I quickly learned that the technical side is only one small part of coaching. The biggest part is my answer to Amory's prompt.
How do you get better everyday, how do you win, how do you break records? Yes you have to work everyday, you have to show up to the track (the gym, the field, etc) everyday and improve in some facet to slow build upon your ability, but come game day, come meet day or the time to perform you have to do what is many times the absolute most difficult and unnatural feeling thing to do: Let It Happen.
True, in order to PR (personal record), or do better than you've ever done before, you do have to do something you've never done before, you have to be at least slightly better then you've ever been before, but what is so difficult to grasp for most athletes is that if you only need to let happen what's never happened before. Overanalyzing, over-stressing, over-thinking, it's so often the case that the biggest obstacle to you doing better than you've ever done before is yourself. If my college coaches are reading this they're laughing their butts off right now because this is exactly what stood in my way for so long. If you step into a hurdle race thinking:
okay, stay loose and make sure you get good pressure on the blocks. When the gun goes off, drive the arms, but stay low, don't pop your head up. BANG! keep my heels low, push hard, keep driving the arms, be patient with my acceleration (did they get a better start than me), here comes the first hurdle, stay fast, drive the knee, keep the arms moving, stay forward, sprint through the first hurdle (are they ahead of me?), quick arms, but don't let them get too big...
Not only are you definitely not going to stay loose, but you're almost certainly not going to break any records. Practice is the time for learning, for thinking, competition is the time for performing, for letting all that you've built come out. As I type, Sportscenter is on and in just the last 10 minutes of reporting the show is rife with this theme. Kyle Busch just won a NASCAR race in Vegas thereby setting numerous records for early season driving performance. In his words:
"It was a methodical day....the car was there in the beginning, we just had to ride and get what it would give us"Simple words but so important - and surprising difficult to follow: drive the car you came in. The Detroit Pistons just knocked off the Celtics in Boston. Having recently traded for superstar Allen Iverson, the Pistons have been sputtering despite a very strong team. Today they knock off the Celts with Rip Hamilton starting in place of injured superstar Allen Iverson, why? They know Rip. With him they are able to "just do what they do." With AI they're just pieces "trying to figure out how to fit." With Rip, a player they've all been playing with (and winning with) for years they can simply relax and play basketball, play their game without much thought. It's all reaction and performance. Will they eventually be a stronger team with Iverson at the helm, maybe once they figure it all out, but for now, they're trying to do to much. You can't learn how to be a team and win.
I feel i'm digressing here a bit, so to bring it back I have to brag a little big. I coached my first conference champion in the hurdles today*. Over the past 2 days we've hosted the Ivy League Championships at Harvard (The Crimson recap video here) and one of my hurdlers, Dara Wilson, won the 60m Hurdles.
I'm super proud of her winning her first conference title, but above all it was the circumstances in which she did it that makes me most proud. Coming in as one of the top couple seeds, she had a rough run in the semi-finals thanks to nearly false-starting, but kept her cool and qualified for the finals. The less than stellar qualifying heat left her in lane 8 and despite huge commotion over girls hitting hurdles and almost going down around her on top of a slow start, Dara kept her cool, kept her confidence and battled back to take her title. A title deserved through hard work day in and day out at practice, but a title earned through performing when it counted. It was far from a perfect race technically but once you get to meet day it matters not how you get there as long as you get there before everyone else.
Afterwards, Dara gives a great interview talking about her transition from the qualifying race to the finals:
She didn't freak out and try to figure out "how to fix" everything, she knew that all she had to do was drive the car she came in.
It's late, it's been a long weekend, and I have to get to bed (5 days to go under USATF Combined Event Champs) so I think i'm dragging a bit so i'll wrap it up. Paul Turner (RIP), as I mentioned above, one of the primary reasons I am coaching at Harvard, passed along his simple key to coaching success:
Get good athletes, don't screw em up.
Whether coaching, whether competing, my advice for breaking records and winning: Make it happen during the week, but when it comes time to perform, Let It Happen.
*Shannon Flahive, another our athletes I help coach at Harvard won the pentathlon on Saturday night as well. Her hurdle time combined with Dara's actually makes it wins for Harvard Hurdlers in both hurdle events of the meet - the open and the pentathlon 60m Hurdles (while we're on the subject of bragging...). Congrats ladies.
1 comment:
It is all because you are a great coach!
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