While I was in the Grand Canyon, there was a 3k at my daughter’s middle school. Apparently Alan Culpepper and Steve Slattery came and spoke to the kids about running, goals, etc. Pretty cool. Olympians show up your middle school 2 mile. Nice.
Today KZ was invited to an awards breakfast for doing well academically. Nice. We got the program flyer as we walked in and I saw that the guest speaker was Pat Manson. I am pretty sure none of the middle schoolers knew who he was, and I bet 90 percent of the parents there did not know either. In any case, he gave a great talk (10 minutes, perfect for this age – and with a 16’ pole). He showed a short video that included him vaulting at the Olympic trials. He talked about how went to the trials that year and he was warming up … and his pole breaks. He looks at his pole bag, notices tire tracks over it. All his poles are shot. He borrows poles from a friend. The vide shows him 18’8”. He clears that. The bar moves to 19’0.25” (I think). His first attempt he hits the bar and it does not clear. His second attempt, he barely brushes the bar … he hits the pit and the bar is wobbling, wobbling, and it falls (he he mentions that every time he watches this he hopes the bar will actually stay up there). He gets up for his third and final attempt. I knew already how this ended, but I could sense the audience expecting to see him clear the bar on that third attempt, he goes to the Olympics, yada, yada, yada … but no, he does not clear it.
Anyway, he then spoke about how that failure was a huge stepping stone for him. And how it brought him right to making the World Championship team the next year. And that folks don’t dream big because of fear of failure … but failures are part of the big dream if you learn from them.
Yeah, I dug that.
Run today … headed out with Jayson. He has Colfax coming up so he is pretty excited about that and that is very motivating. Added on a bit post finishing up with him. Finished it all out with a Pliska mile for fun. Not zippy. My stomach decided to let me know at about a half mile in that it wanted to eliminate some contents from breakfast. Slowed to a jog for about 200 yards, got it under control and then finished it out. I might throw this in there for giggles every once in a while. 12 miles.
Some competitive entries up at Pikes.
PM – easy dog jog. 3 miles.
Cool anecdote. I definitely needed to hear that.
ReplyDeleteCongrats on the smart kid.
Wilson Chemweno looks like the real deal: beat Jonathan Wyatt last year. Hope he's running the Ascent.
ReplyDeleteWhen I lived in Lawrence Kansas I worked in a bike shop... I sold a Scwinn Airdyne to Pat and when he walked in I was like 'Holy sh!t! That's Pat Manson!' and no one else knew who he was. Super nice guy. When I ran track in college (in Kansas) I saw him vault a ton. I didn't know he lived in Boulder.
ReplyDeleteGreat too for JZ to get recognized like that!
The kids get their school work ethics from their Mom. Thankfully.
ReplyDeleteWilson does appear to be in the Ascent. There is probably a (relatively) long list of Kenyans that have registered for this race that have not made muster. Beating Wyatt gives him a nod that he may not be in that camp. Could give Parr that tough push in the PPA though? Hmmm.
Pat is great. I took liberty before the assembly started to sneak over and thank him for showing up. I use to run (occasionally) with Amy in some workouts a long time ago. She is about as nice as they come.