On Motivation

     I'm sitting in front of the TV alternatively attempting to splice coherent sentences together for this blog during commercials while watching the final day of the NCAA meet on CBS at the moment. While I missed the men's 10,000m yesterday due to being out combining boating, alcohol, boiled peanuts, and 7 foot ocean predators about 5 miles off the Gulf Coast, I'm determined to watch the closing stages of the meet come hell or high-water (as I managed to not lose a hand or get pulled off the boat yesterday, I think I can pull that off). More importantly, however, I'm interested in seeing how Ciaran closes out what has, truthfully, been one of the most inspiring years I've ever seen an athlete put together. No matter what happens today Ciaran (or Cir ['keer'], or, as Braman's shortened it to lately, Key) has run a season to be proud of and there's nothing that could make the day better than getting to sip on my tea, eat my fried chicken, and watch him destroy 5,000m and help the rest of the team win a 4th (that's right, I still say 4!!) NCAA title.

Wow! Just watched the 4x100m...someone call the NCAA Baseball council and have them give Hyman an honorary Golden Glove for that catch. Sicksauce.

     Okay, whoops, back to working into the main point of the blog today... Ciaran is a monster this year and the guy has got some serious momentum behind his Irish ass. Seriously--I spoke last time about how my 5,000m has dropped over the past 18 months, but I just thought about how much he kicks my ass with progress, too. (Damn...even lose in that too! Getting destroyed in straight races and stat battles...EFF!)
The guy had a 14:10 PR coming in and split just off of that closing a massive PR 28:32 10,000m at Stanford. Damn. Same with The Man, The Legend, The Pudding Fart-est...Michael Fout. The guy gets a set of training without injury and crushes out huge PR's and lays down a 28:34 10,000m debut; Huge year and even bigger things on the horizon for a guy I'm happy to call my friend, teammate, and [future] neighbor.

     So what was the point of all that? To hype a couple guys looking to go pro in the future on a blog that has almost zero traffic? Or to hope they read it and like me more for it? Meh... hair of both, maybe? I don't really know, actually--but what I do know is that it segues perfectly into the main point for this:
Big things can happen if you just believe in yourself and get some good work in.

     I really started thinking on this idea of being able to make huge jumps and reach new levels the other night sitting around watching some South Park with the Three Roommates. (Well, actually, I only I have one roommate officially as I live in a 2 bed 2.5 bath condo...but Smyth (Smithers, Shmee, Shmitty) lives in my garage (kinda), and my girlfriend is here enough to count as a semi-housemate. So yeah, the Three Roommates and were watching South Park on Wednesday and started talking about what went down in the Pre 10,000m.
     As one could surmise, I'm a big believer in the Hard Work and Belief school of thought on sports (provided one has SOME genetic ability...). I thought EVERYONE was this way, too. Well, this is why it was interesting to me: One roommate's sentiment revolved around the statement of "Why do we even try dude...no matter what we do someone is just going to dust us. We'd be getting double-lapped out there, man." While the other thought "Well, I just want to get some of the barriers out of the way so I can say I did it. I just wanna walk away as a sub-4, sub-14 athlete--I can live with that." The Girlfriend #1 (Erika), is injured and is mainly just concerned with the desire to get out the door and jog down the road again. Myself, of course, had to counter with "I just wanna see where I can get...I mean, sure, I'll get my ass kicked by quite a bit by a LOT of guys--but, man, I just can't walk away from this without knowing I gave 'er and at least came close to what I'm capable of."
     I can completely understand where the others are at, though. Honestly, (prepare for cliche sentiment) we are in a country and culture where, mostly likely, athletics is not going to be our ticket. Most of us aren't in anything near a state of poverty and our best chance at achieving fiscal gains as an adult is to jump out of the University setting running (haha..) and be searching for "Real" careers to chase and set ourselves up for an "Adult Life." Well balls to that! I don't mean to sound like Arciniaga (I think), but the guy was damn near dead on about keeping at it! I can't say it enough, I just want to see where I'm at--if that 14:07 was the best 5,000m I'll ever run, then so be it. However, I'm not going to call it a day until I can say I've given everything a shot and that X time IS what I was capable of.
     Now, does this mean that I forever will define my life by a set of arbitrary numbers? No, but what I will, and DO, define myself by is a deep-burning desire to never quit without knowing I gave it a true go. No matter what "it" is in my life. So here's to not quitting on oneself--ever. And here's to the teammates who've shown that desire this year and the possibilities such an outlook provides: Mike Fout and Ciaran O'Lionard. It may sound lame, but thanks guys.