Sustainability

Like most things in our daily meanderings, it started out as a joke. Being the Idiot Who Holds The Stopwatch, it took me the better part of 29 years to come up with this idea (although, if I recall, Marthy suggested it several years ago). And that is this: A garbage bag in the back of the van with the Gatorade coolers, so that the van is not littered with plastic cups. Let's stop for a second there. Plastic cups. Eeeew, right? Paper cups would be better. Yes, they would, but plastic cups is what we have in the athletic department and so we use them. Anyway, either way, while a messy and smelly van is inevitable, throwing away used cups -- you know, in an actual garbage bag -- is not exactly high tech. And so, after all these years, I finally remembered to get a plastic (eew?) garbage bag for the plastic cups. And, to be honest, I've gotten a bit righteous about it. When I see an athlete randomly throw a used cup carelessly in the back of the van -- you know, like we've ALWAYS done -- I stop them and say, hey, use the garbage bag. One day, randomly, I blurted out: "Hey! Sustainability! Use the garbage bag!" This got some laughs. "Sustainability" is one of those 21st century buzzwords. It's a great concept, so it should not be joked about. Tripi took a picture of this "sustainability" slide (below) and sent it to me, remembering my random rant.

But yesterday, while the guys were out running and I was getting the coolers ready for them at Vassar Farm, I thought about the word "sustainability" a bit more, and not as to how it relates to throwing out used plastic cups. It was September 19. We've been training hard together now for five weeks. The team "vibe" is good, and we are trending in a positive direction -- not surprising for early season, but still nothing to take for granted. However! Fast forward two months from now. We'll still be in cross country season; for our hard-working sprint group, we'll be that much closer to track season. "Sustainability" takes on a new definition. We've built momentum and we are trending positively. Now, we have to sustain that. For the next two months and beyond. I gave this "sustainability" lecture on a picture-perfect day (we've had a lot of them lately). Two months from now, we need to be just as fresh and strong and positive -- even if it's freezing cold, spitting rain or snow flurries, wind whipping. Sustainability. It's not just about throwing out plastic cups.