Sabercats,
I hope everyone is doing well. This week I wanted to share with you a quote from an all-time running great Peter Snell:
“When it's pouring rain and you're bowling along through the wet, there's satisfaction in knowing you're out there and the others aren't.”
Snell is the only runner in the modern era to win the 800m and 1500m gold in the same olympic games, and he is famous for being outspoken in his love for harsh training conditions. He felt that while his competitors were inside taking a day off, he was out there grinding away, getting a tenth of a second better every day that they weren't training.
When I was reminded of this quote earlier this week, I felt it was something that could be important to share with all of you still training. This past month has been, in a way, an extended period of rain. Without the things like races, and teammates, and fun-shirt Fridays, I know that it can be extremely difficult to find the motivation to get out and train. But I promise you there will be a day when the races resume and we can all train together again. And when that day comes, the athletes who "ran through the rain", and pushed through while others didn't, will find great success.
For a little bit of extra motivation, I attached a few links to a few of the most inspirational races out there.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5LHid-nC45k
In this one ^^, relatively unknown David Wottle, an American 800m runner, took on world's best in the 1972 Olympics, with a very unusual strategy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0KZCvX40-MQ&t=1s
In this video, American legend Jenny Simpson runs in her first ever world championships. It should be noted that this is from a time when it was very rare to see an American runner even making the final in the World Championship, let alone putting themselves in contention for the win.
https://www.on-running.com/en-us/athletes/on-zap-endurance
Finally, for those looking to kill about an hour, this is a new video series that was posted by a professional running group called Zap Fitness. They are based out of North Carolina, and the series follows them as their runners train to qualify for the Marathon in the 2020 (now 2021) olympics. One cool fact about this group is that their best runner (Tyler Pennel) compete for Western State University here in Colorado, which is where Aidan Scott will be attending this fall!
That's all for now.
-Coach Marshall