Now It All Makes Sense...

“The chances are great that the best potential athlete in the world is an overweight, sedentary smoker. Right now sitting in front of the television somewhere is this person born to be the world champion in cycling and to dominate the sport as no one else ever has…

The problem is that he never had the opportunity to discover his ability.”

-          Joe Friel, author of the “Cyclists Training Bible”.

Wow, as we used to say back in the 70’s when I was a kid… “That’s heavy man”.  A scary thought, but I have no doubt it’s completely true.  And it makes me that much more grateful and appreciative of the fact that I had the honor to be coached by people like Jackson Horner (State College Area HS), and in later years Harry Groves (Penn State) throughout my “career” as a middle-distance runner.

Now even though I was actually a pretty decent runner it was clear I was never going to the Olympics… or even going to consistently win all the “Big Races” in my own backyard.  Yet these guys both spent countless hours and expended considerable energy working with me and my team-mates to bring out the best in us.  To allow us to “Be all we could be”.

And no doubt inspired by Jack and Harry a few of my former teammates have gone on to become coaches themselves.  Bill Kvashay and Dave Felice both work with high school kids in northeastern and central Pennsylvania.  Bill has produced some very respectable runners at Lake Lehman HS and Dave continues to work in his hometown with many promising kids at State College.

However, despite all I owe my coaches and teammates… even more instrumental to my (modest) success was the constant and unwavering support of my parents and family.  At the time, I’m sure I didn’t really realize, understand or fully appreciate the amount of time, energy and resources they put into supporting my running.  But without them I couldn't have taken that first step onto the track.  I can only hope all the late night pick-ups at practice; weekends given-up to attend meets and occasional “breaks-in-stride” both on and off the track were worth it for them.  It was (and still is) to me.

And now circling back to coach Friel’s observation…

Pardon the pun… but a few years ago I “shifted gears” from running about 1000 miles a year to cycling 7000.  On more than one occasion various people have accused me of being crazy, OCD or even worse to ride as many miles, spend as many hours in the saddle and push myself as hard as I do each year.  And to some extent they might even be the tiniest bit right. But I’d rather think it as my way of honoring the family and coaches that showed an interest in allowing me to discover my abilities early on so I didn’t have to wonder if I was “That guy on the couch”.