This will be a short post. Promise.
I could't sleep and I looked at my wall at those running tags I hung up when I moved into my apartment. I remember having a convo with Ayesha at 1412 about how track played a major part in our lives. And I thought to myself. It did. I owe my track coach my success. If there wasn't anyone to believe in me or my track team, our track coaches especially Vinny did.
People came from everywhere to run with us: college alumni, Bronx, Harlem, Queens, Long Island, Brooklyn, Staten Island. We made up the TTC/Starlets/ SPHS "camp". Track wasn't just our sport. It was our life. He knew what it took to make great runners, motivated individuals, and all-around successful people despite what you were dealing with internally and externally. We spent 7 days a week together as a team. Workouts, time trials, weight room, Sunday 10 mile runs, races. Rain, sleet, snow, hail, thunderstorm, sun, helicopters flying around the projects, whatever. We were there. And I miss it.
(Don't mind this picture its old and I look bad grrr)
Practice not only prepared me to be on a team. Our coaches built us to have heart. Whatever it is we pursue in life. I'll never forget how many times he recited Theodore Roosevelt's speech excerpt, "Man In The Arena". One of the reasons I can never forget the excerpt lol:
It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.
Below is a glimpse of one of the weekly talks we used to get from Vinny Giles (our coach) posted by one of my track sisters Whitney. (This is an amazing video by the way Whit)
I can never forget to Keep Striving.
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