Madelyn and I out at the Webster Bicycle Duathlon Race to watch "Tio Eddy" compete 

My wife, Perla, and I at the Clear Brook HS Track & Field banquet in League City.. 

Clear Brook High School Speech

Motivational Speech

I was honored to be approached to give the motivational talk at Clear Brook High School's Track & Field banquet, courtesy of Coach Dennis Brazy. So, my wife and I attended the nice ceremony and I thought I would share with everyone the talk I gave, give or take-

Administration, Coaches, Parents, and Student-Athletes of Clear Brook High School:

Thank you for this invitation to speak to you on this special night – your Cross Country and Track & Field Banquet. This is your night, your celebration of a year of sacrifice, hard work, failures, and personal successes.

All of you are unique and special – unique in that you have chosen the most primal, yet rewarding of sports. Special, because you cared to participate and make a difference in the Clear Brook family.

In the Olympic Games, Track & Field is not called “Track & Field”, it is known quite simply as “Athletics.” So, why the all-encompassing word of “athletics”? Because, to a degree, our sport is not a skill. Let me explain: in high school, I used to have this bumper sticker on my dad’s red Geo Metro, that I put on there without permission, mind you, that read “Cross Country: The sport you don’t play.” Our sport is not a game like basketball or football or soccer. No, it’s deeper than just a game. It’s a personal challenge of betterment.

Our sport is about pushing back your pain threshold. It’s about learning your mental and physical limitations, and at times exceeding those limitations. And, perhaps, some of you, at times, mastered your event in brief instances of personal glory: you nailed your approach on the long-jump; your release point on the discus was just right; you and your teammate executed the baton exchange masterfully; you timed your kick to a devastating perfection. And all to your coaches’ delight, I might add. And at that moment you must have felt fulfilled. You must have felt that sensation of a job well-done. You must have felt a clarity, like, “wow, this is why I am training so hard.” For moments like these. However…

I went on a long run a few years ago with 1996 US Olympic Marathoner, Keith Brantly, and as we ran along the streets of Miami talking about training and racing, he told me something shockingly true: he said, “Gabriel, you are going to have more bad races than good. But it’s those good races that you train for, that you live for..” and you know what? He was right.
You will or have spent hours, days, weeks, months, even years training to improve an inch, 1-tenth of a second, 1 second per mile. And that is why our sport is so personal, because we define our own successes and failures.

I am currently training for the 2008 US Olympic Trials in the Marathon, and notice I said that I am training for the Olympic Trials, and not the Olympic Games. This is a significant difference. I realized early in my career as an athlete and a coach that I was not one of the chosen few, the pristinely gifted who could hammer out a sub-50 second quarter. No one has ever said I was a beautiful runner, or a “natural”.

However, I learned that I could handle tremendous amounts of mileage. I learned that I could out-work my opponents. And I learned that the harder I worked, the faster I became. And I soon learned that my talent wasn’t in my biomechanics or my speed, but in my ability to work hard and push myself in training, day in and day out, Monday through Sunday. And it dawned on me that ultimately, if I continued working hard and stayed healthy and ran the miles, that if I played my cards right and dedicated myself to this athletic pursuit, that I could one day cover 26.2 miles, a full marathon in under 2 hours and 22 minutes- the Olympic Trials standard. And so I did what I am asking all of you to do tonight: I defined my own Olympics. My Olympic Games would be the US Olympic Marathon Trials.

Now some critics may say that this is a defeatist attitude, that I am selling myself short. I am not. I have made peace with myself by defining my own Olympics. I have chosen the path of a family man, with a beautiful wife and daughter, I have chosen to work hard in life and have invested myself at On the Run, a running store I consider my own. I could have become a hermit, a possessed madman in training, selfishly excluding everyone in pursuit of my goals, but I did not: I chose a balance to my life. I defined my own Olympics. And you will to.

And this attitude, this discipline, this perseverance that your beautiful sports of Cross Country and Track & Field teach you will carry over to your professional lives after high school, where you will find yourself spending hours, days, weeks, months studying for a one hour exam. You will work hours, days, weeks, months, even years for that promotion you have always dreamed of earning. And it will be your high school track and cross country days that will have prepared you to deal with the failures in life and allow you to stay focused on your ultimate goal – whatever it is that Olympics that you have defined for yourself because life is truly like a marathon. Over the course of 26.2 miles, there are good and bad patches. There are miles that will float by effortlessly, and you revel in that feeling. But then there are the miles that hurt, and seem to drag on forever. But you press on through those miles in search of the finish line, in search of the goal you have set for yourself when you defined your Olympics. Life will play out like a marathon, but the experiences you gained while participating in our sport at this crucial point in time will arm you with the weapons necessary to combat life’s ambushes.

I hope many of you stay with your sport. Our sport needs continuance at the NCAA level. It needs continuance at the post-collegiate level. Sitting in this room are several potential difference makers on an NCAA squad. Sitting in this room is a pole vaulter or a sprinter, or a thrower, or a distance runner that may never win an NCAA national championship, but with years of hard work may end up earning that single point in your obscure event that captures your team a dual-meet win, a conference championship, and perhaps even a national championship.

Do not be afraid to walk-on to your school of choice if you were not awarded a scholarship. Trust me, college coaches love walk-ons, and do you know why? Because walk-ons have a passion that you cannot teach, nor instill in an athlete. The walk-on is practicing on your team because he or she wants to be there, not because a scholarship demands it.

And while some of you may wander away from the sport, many of you will return, once life has slowed, and there will always be that “Must run a marathon” on your life’s checklist of things to do. I see it everyday in my profession. I can’t tell you how many times a customer will walk into my store, grinning, looking for new running shoes because he or she ran in high school and remembered those great days and now wants to get in shape again and train for the Houston Half Marathon or even the Full Marathon. Hey, once a runner… always a runner.

And I’m sure I’ll meet up with most of you again in the future to share the stories of your District or Regional meets years past and you will look back on the fun you had, that were probably at the expense of your coaches. But take some time, before you are done with this sport, to define your own Olympics in life and set off that torch towards its final destination.

Before I leave you tonight, I want to share with you a short story that my wife shared with me. It’s a simple Dr. Seuss book, but it makes me think if Dr. Seuss was ever part of a high school Cross Country or Track team like here at Clear Brook. Thank you:

BOOK- THE PLACES YOU'LL GO BY DR. SEUSS

Thank you, everyone, for your time, and congratulations on a season well-run. Enjoy the night and the food and the festivities and enjoy this moment because you deserve it. Thank you.

Track & Field News

Marathon

Might as well post this while it lasts, but at one point my paltry 2:31:18 was 11th in the US. It will probably be updated soon, but I'll take it while it's in print. Thanks Track & Field News. Nice to be listed along with the Alan Culpeppers and Ryan Shays of the marathon world. Now I just need to get healthy and drop a sub-2:20 to re-establish myself on the list-

http://www.trackandfieldnews.com/lists/2005/us_out_m.html

26 & 2 USA Marathon List

Top 28 American Marathon Times
Updated May 30, 2005

2:13:39, Alan Culpepper (Boston)
2:16:57, Chad Johnson (Rock ‘n’ Roll)
2:17:14, Clint Verran (Austin)
2:17:32, Peter Gilmore (Boston)
2:18:13, Wynston Alberts (Rome)
2:18:17, Ryan Shay (Boston)
2:18:23, Mark Pilja (Austin)
2:21:24, Todd Witzleben (Austin)
2:22:00, Fred Kieser (Cleveland)
2:22:33, Paul Aufdemberge (Austin)
2:22:36, Dennis Simonaitis (Hops by the Bay)
2:22:50, Matt Marcini (Country Music)
2:23:05, Nathan Usher (Bayshore)
2:23:43, Chris Lundstrom (Napa Valley)
2:23:47, Gene Mitchell (Kentucky Derby Festival)
2:23:50, Lundstrom (Boston)
2:24:55, Matt Pelletier (Boston)
2:24:59, Carl Rundell (Boston)
2:25:13, Michael Wardian (Inaugural Knoxville)
2:25:22, Eric Post (Boston)
2:25:27, Chris Juarez (Vermont City)
2:25:43, Wardian (Boston)
2:25:54, Pete Gilman (Med-City)
2:25:55, Matt Dressel (Austin)
2:26:28, Jacob Frey (Boston)
2:26:32, Byrne Decker (Napa Valley)
2:27:13, Wardian (Little Rock)
2:27:15, Wardian (Vermont City)
2:27:20, Terrance Shea (Boston)
2:27:26, Scott Strand (Mercedes)
2:27:49, Wardian (Delaware)
2:28:12, Hector Hernandez-Salazar (City of Los Angeles)
2:28:30, Joseph Wilson (Salt Lake City)