Some Borrowed Inspiration

Hi Everyone,
Whenever I need a little inspiration in my life, I re-read the following article from Sports Illustrated...it really puts things in perspective. I hope you all sit back and take ten minutes from your busy day to read the story. Be sure to watch the youtube video at the end and BE INSPIRED!

The Strongest Dad in the World
From Sports Illustrated, By Rick Reilly]

I try to be a good father. Give my kids mulligans. Work nights to payfor their text messaging. Take them to swimsuit shoots.

But compared with Dick Hoyt, I suck.

Eighty-five times he’s pushed his disabled son, Rick, 26.2 miles in marathons. Eight times he’s not only pushed him 26.2 miles in awheelchair but also towed him 2.4 miles in a dinghy while swimming and pedaled him 112 miles in a seat on the handlebars — all in the same day.

Dick’s also pulled him cross-country skiing, taken him on his back mountain climbing and once hauled him across the U.S. on a bike. Makes taking your son bowling look a little lame, right?

And what has Rick done for his father? Not much — except save his life.

This love story began in Winchester, Mass., 43 years ago, when Rick was strangled by the umbilical cord during birth, leaving him brain-damaged and unable to control his limbs.
“He’ll be a vegetable the rest of his life,” Dick says doctors told him and his wife, Judy, when Rick was nine months old. “Put him in an institution.”

But the Hoyts weren’t buying it. They noticed the way Rick’s eyes followed them around the room. When Rick was 11 they took him to the engineering department at Tufts University and asked if there was anything to help the boy communicate. “No way,” Dick says he was told. “There’s nothing going on in his brain.”

“Tell him a joke,” Dick countered. They did. Rick laughed. Turns out a lot was going on in his brain.

Rigged up with a computer that allowed him to control the cursor by touching a switch with the side of his head, Rick was finally able to communicate. First words? “Go Bruins!” And after a high school classmate was paralyzed in an accident and the school organized a charity run for him, Rick pecked out, “Dad, I want to do that.”

Yeah, right. How was Dick, a self-described “porker” who never ran more than a mile at a time, going to push his son five miles? Still,he tried. “Then it was me who was handicapped,” Dick says. “I was sore for two weeks.”

That day changed Rick’s life. “Dad,” he typed, “when we were running, it felt like I wasn’t disabled anymore!”

And that sentence changed Dick’s life. He became obsessed with giving Rick that feeling as often as he could. He got into such hard-bellyshape that he and Rick were ready to try the 1979 Boston Marathon.

“No way,” Dick was told by a race official. The Hoyts weren’t quite a single runner, and they weren’t quite a wheelchair competitor. For afew years Dick and Rick just joined the massive field and ran anyway,then they found a way to get into the race officially: In 1983 they ran another marathon so fast they made the qualifying time for Boston the following year.

Then somebody said, “Hey, Dick, why not a triathlon?”
How’s a guy who never learned to swim and hadn’t ridden a bike since he was six going to haul his 110-pound kid through a triathlon? Still, Dick tried.

Now they’ve done 212 triathlons, including four grueling 15-hourIronmans in Hawaii. It must be a buzzkill to be a 25-year-old stud getting passed by an old guy towing a grown man in a dinghy, don’t you think?

Hey, Dick, why not see how you’d do on your own? “No way,” he says.Dick does it purely for “the awesome feeling” he gets seeing Rick with a cantaloupe smile as they run, swim and ride together.

This year, at ages 65 and 43, Dick and Rick finished their 24th Boston Marathon, in 5,083rd place out of more than 20,000 starters. Their best time? Two hours, 40 minutes in 1992 — only 35 minutes off the world record, which, in case you don’t keep track of these things, happens to be held by a guy who was not pushing another man in a wheelchair at the time.

“No question about it,” Rick types. “My dad is the Father of the Century.”

And Dick got something else out of all this too. Two years ago he had a mild heart attack during a race. Doctors found that one of his arteries was 95% clogged. “If you hadn’t been in such great shape,”one doctor told him, “you probably would’ve died 15 years ago.”

So, in a way, Dick and Rick saved each other’s life.

Rick, who has his own apartment (he gets home care) and works inBoston, and Dick, retired from the military and living in Holland,Mass., always find ways to be together. They give speeches around the country and compete in some back breaking race every weekend, including this Father’s Day.

That night, Rick will buy his dad dinner, but the thing he really wants to give him is a gift he can never buy.

“The thing I’d most like,” Rick types, “is that my dad sit in thechair and I push him once.”

Issue date: June 20, 2005

And the video is below....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cxqe77-Am3w&feature=PlayList&p=A912E084690189F1&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=12

Stepping out of your Comfort Zone

It’s there. It’s lying deep inside of you…ready to break free. It’s that untapped potential…that extra gear…that one BIG race that will give you the confidence you need as we head into the last part of our season.

I was happy that most of you were on board with our 30-60-90 Challenge. You’ve been working harder in practice, and now is the time to let loose out on the course. Time to STEP OUT OF YOUR COMFORT ZONE!

For some of you, it may mean going out harder the first mile. For others it may mean really pushing through the second mile instead of settling in. There comes a time in EVERY race where you will have a decision to make…do I ease up or do I push through the pain? When you reach that point, take a chance and push a littler harder. Trust yourself and all the hard work you have put in this past month. Believe in your ability and you WILL get a second wind…you WILL run your best time of the season. And as you round that turn with the finish line in sight, I want to see nothing but guts, guts, guts…arms flailing…eyeballs bulging…pure bulldog spirit pushing you through the finish .

NO ONE PASSES YOU AT THE FINISH!!!!!!!!
Go Dogs!

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Mambu Baddu

The incredible Kenyan racing team, sponsored by Nike, goes by the name Mambu Baddu. In Swahili, ``Mambu Baddu'' translates to “The best is yet to come.” This attitude assures that they will keep striving for faster times. They will NOT become complacent.

We have been together six weeks now! And I say to you, Mambu Baddu! The best is yet to come. And so we offer you this challenge…call it the 30-60-90 Challenge.

We challenge you to drop 30, 60, or 90 seconds off your personal best from this season.

Dropping 30 seconds will put Nate under 16 minutes!

Sixty seconds will put Matt at 17:04!

We believe the remaining 44 Bulldoggies can step up to the 90 second challenge! By the end of the season you WILL RUN at least 90 seconds faster than your current PR. Are you up for the challenge?

We are not saying this will be easy. It will take hard work in practice. It will take guts, guts, guts out on the course. It will take an attitude makeover for some of you :) But we believe it can be done!

Six weeks down…only six weeks remain in our season!

The gauntlet has been dropped.


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Positive thinking

What I know for sure….

Nothing beats the power of positive thinking. If you put two runners of equal ability on the starting line, the one with the positive attitude will win every time. Do you know how many times I have heard the following before a big race:

I’m going to run so badly today.
She’s going to beat me.
I feel sick.
My foot hurts
I have cramps
I was up all last night.

Why do so many runners felt the need to complain right before stepping on the line? Is this some kind of coping mechanism? Does it really help you shake off the nerves? Or does it give you an excuse….something to fall back on if the race does not go your way?

Why not take the OPPOSITE approach? Fill you head with positive thoughts. Find a mantra that you can repeat over and over as you prepare to step on the line. “I am a force…out on the course.” Or like the little train who could: “I know I can, I know I can, I know I can.” Whatever works for YOU.

Think about all the reasons you run cross country. Put all that positive energy into your mind as you prepare for a race. Instead of that overwhelming feeling of dread, you’ll be filled with anticipation…an eagerness to see what accomplishments lie ahead in the next 3.1 miles.

To borrow a phrase from the McDonough Family….B+ and you will be a much happier and more successful runner.

Coach Flanagan :)

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A Hot and Muggy Season Opener!

Despite the heat, humidity, and HILLS, fifteen bulldogs lowered their times from our time trial. Maeve McCoy took first place in the freshman race, while Matt Schoch, Sophia Sawicki, and Nate Parmenter took second place honors in their respective races. Shauna Nolan dropped over two minutes off her best time to slip under 30 minutes! Way to go Shauna! Luke Anderson must have run up some mountains while in Montana because he posted the fourth fastest bulldog time of the day finishing fifth in the sophomore race.

Some of you were disappointed with your times from yesterday. I always say, don’t dwell on the past. This race is a starting point. Learn from it. Improve upon it. If you feel you slowed up at a certain point when you could have pushed on, then don’t make the same mistake at Lake! Keep working hard in practice and you will see those times drop!

On a completely different note, since Newark High XC team beat us to the punch with the t-shirt design, we need a new design for the front of our shirts. I placed our order….we have a week or so before the shirts head to the printers so send me your ideas for the front ASAP to pooh1932@comcast.net.

Coach Flanagan :)

No one is unbeatable, and the fence protecting the seemingly invincible is more fragile than it may appear. Jack Daniels (the running coach, not the whiskey guy )

Just Say Om!

In case you didn't read the News Journal this morning, there was a great article in the sports section about Yoga & Running.

http://www.delawareonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070905/SPORTS1101/709050414/1126/SPORTS11

(Be sure to read the article soon b/c the News Journal archives their articles and then makes you pay for them :))

Now I know what some of you may be thinking...."I'm too manly for yoga....Yoga is for new age hippies....I have no desire to twist my body into a pretzel formation."

Trust me, I was skeptical at first... but I started taking yoga classes and have noticed a huge difference in my flexibility. In fact, I went to yoga on Sunday morning. After chasing you guys around Banning on Saturday I was a bit sore. I felt like a new person after class.

So my advice...give it a try! You may find the peace, relaxation, and WORKOUT you were looking for (like Vicki said in her article...yoga is NOT for wimps!)

Namaste,
Coach Flanagan:)

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One hour, twenty six minutes, & six seconds!

That’s how much we improved as a TEAM from our first time trial to our second. What a difference two weeks make!

To my new cross country runners, as we come to the end of preseason, you should all be proud of your hard work! Some of you could not run a mile without stopping on our first day and now you can easily finish 3.1. Before you know it, you will be conquering the Creek with ease!

To my veteran runners, you know what lies ahead. Each week will give you a new opportunity to improve on your performance from last season. MANY of you have All Conference, All County, All State Potential! Don’t hold back this season. Continue to work toward faster times and personal records :)

Viking Classic: Friday September 7, 2007
There’s nothing like Opening Day…putting on that uniform…lacing up those shoes…the sound of the gun…..and it all begins!

I am making a bold prediction for this Friday…..EVERY bulldog will better his/her time trial time on White Clay’s course (a hillier, much more challenging course than Bellevue :0))

Believe it and make it happen!

Coach Flanagan

Decisions, Decisions, Decisions

It’s the beginning of a new cross country season and you all have decisions to make. What kind of runner will you be? What goals do you have for yourself? Are you willing to do what is necessary to reach your goals?

Now is the time to decide where you will be in November. Will you be five minutes faster than your preseason time trial? Will you be on Varsity? Will you be All Conference? All County? All State?

Most people don’t stumble across success accidentally. At some point in their careers, they make the decision to work toward a certain goal. I’ve never met a state champion who didn’t step on the line intending to win the race.

You might not always reach your goal…and you may suffer some set-backs along the way; however, you will be a better runner in the end. There’s an old saying….Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss, you'll find yourself among the stars.

So set your goals. Decide what kind of runner you will be and work hard to make it happen.