‘The finish line will surrender’

Right before the start of cross country races, the nervous energy on and around the starting line is palpable. At a huge meet like Paul Short, it’s purely electric. Most teams huddle up a few minutes before the race to get themselves fired up. Coaches are often (but not always) involved. Women’s head coach Chuck Williams is a master motivator of the team, and that is always evident in the pre-race huddle. Before Friday’s race, his “huddle speech” was especially eloquent and he shared it with me, so now I can share it with you here!

Here’s what he SAID:

It’s important to realize that you will be the one controlling the dialogue in your head throughout the race, so let’s start scripting a positive result. Find your mantra to use when times get tough to remind you that you are more than tough enough to handle the challenge. Mine is always, “If it’s to be, it’s up to me!” When I say this, I simply put my head down and get the job done, realizing no one else is going to do it for me. Will you get tired? You bet! Your legs will ache. Your mind will get fuzzy and you’ll just want the race to be over. But, you must fight. You must keep going just like you do in workouts. Just get to the next mile marker and then the next and so on. I guarantee you that if you can just keep fighting, the finish line will surrender. It will acknowledge your bravery and toughness and appear before your eyes. And, the more you can be engaged while in the latter miles of the race, the sooner the finish will come.

As soon as you start having doubts, you will lose time. My advice is to accept that you are going to hurt, but know that everyone else is hurting too so don’t worry about it. You’re going to have to dig deep late in the race and if you’ve learned nothing else through training is that you can dig deep, that there is a strength in you that you never knew existed. We all remember that run you gutted out and learned something about yourself. That toughness is still in you and probably even to a greater extent than before. As fatigue sets in, dig deep. You have it in you and the more determined you are in the last part of the race, the better your finishing time will be and the more proud you will be of yourself – not just at the finish line but for weeks to come.