the pencil runs

On Monday I was invited to speak to the local middle school cross-country team. When I give talks to kids, I usually try to use props … like one time when I brought an old phone book and tore out individual sheets to give to each runner. “Here,” I said, “Rip this in half.” Everone ripped with a vengence until there were 50 torn sheets of phone book paper fluttering in the air. “Okay,” I said, “That was easy, right? Try tearing this in half.” I then passed around the thick phone book. Several of the older boys gave it a good effort, grunting and turning red, trying - trrryyyyyiing - with all their 8th grade might to rip the thing. Impossible.

SO, my point was, if you run as a bunch of individuals, it’s easy for a team to beat you in cross-country (like ripping the one sheet in half)… but if you run as a pack, your strength multiplies exponentially. You can’t beat the phonebook. “Be the phonebook,” I urged. I heard, later, that the team still chants, “Be the phonebook!” (perhaps in jest?) and I gave that talk several years ago.

My most recent talk was about moving from “I love to run” … to “I love to race” … to ” I love to win.” How do you get from point A to point C? Training. I quoted Mihaly Igloi, “Every day hard training must make.” And then, to illustrate this point, I brought in a tupperware container with a pint of cream. “The cream is you as someone who, simply, loves to run,” I said as I poured the cream into the tupperware and then sealed it shut. The container had the words, “Every day hard training must make,” written on it. I passed the tupperware around and had everyone on the team shake it for all it was worth! After 5-7 minutes of vigorous, non-stop shaking [”hard training”] we opened the container to find the cream totally transformed into butter. “You, too, will be completely transformed into racers and winners if you train hard,” I concluded.

Inside the container, the solid yellow butter was separated from the skim whey milk and one of kids yelled out, “Hey, that’s our sweat!”

They GOT it.

by Joan Nesbit Mabe