Thought for the week: “God doesn't require us to succeed; he only
requires that you try.”
by Mother
Theresa
We all know the story of
Mother Theresa, a woman who not only devoted herself to helping the least
amongst us, but someone who was willing to do so in obscurity. In many respects, we could wonder whether her
efforts were successful. After all, she
didn’t “solve” the problem of poverty or find a cure to any of the diseases she
encountered on a daily basis. Of course,
this is where our thought for the week sets us straight. The point is not that we need a certain
outcome to consider ourselves successful, the value of
anything we do derives from the effort we put forth in trying to do that
something. The value associated with any
race you’ll ever run is best determined by first considering the effort you put
into that race, not just by your place or time.
Only one person wins, but everyone has the ability to run a great race.
Last Wednesday, we had girls
running their first race of the season, and many of them were running in either
their first Cross Country race ever or their first high school Cross Country
race. We had a fairly broad mixture of results.
Some girls finished with smiles on their face, obviously quite happy
they survived, while others did not look as happy. A few girls barfed in the finishing chute,
apparently marking their territory, most walked very deliberately but some
girls still had a little life in their step.
No matter how anyone finished, the inevitable self-analysis would begin
shortly after emerging from the finishing area.
As you consider your performance last Wednesday, my message to each of
you is that you remember what I said above.
Anyone can get a bad impression of their race if they use the wrong
measuring stick. The easiest thing in
the world is to consider your race in terms of where you finished or how fast
you think you should have run, but again, this is absolutely not the proper
measure for a race like this one. To
properly evaluate your performance, you must ask the following, “Did I try?
Did I care enough to put sufficient effort into my race?” If the answer is “No, I didn’t try and I
don’t care to try”, then you have every reason to be disappointed, but if the
answer is “Yes, I did try”, then your performance has great value no matter
where you finished in that race.
Remember, the whole point of this sport is to learn how to translate
your desire into doing the best you can, and to realize that success is
measured by what you put into something, not what you get out of it.
We had some great efforts across the board, and I’ve
noted them in an email, but let’s repeat a few things. Nichole Silverstein and Caroline Cappy were our top finishers in the Frosh-Soph and JV races (respectively). They each ran quite well, leading their
respective team early out, and both deserve much credit for their
performances. A strong supporting cast of
girls followed both Nichole and Caroline.
In the Frosh-Soph race, Emily Bryan, Olivia Boughey and Abby McDonogh ran
very well. In the JV race, I was quite
happy with how Elise Gibson, Madi Adams, Erin Wiedmar and Shelby Holzknecht
hung together. We had great success
throughout both races though and a number of girls had to overcome recent
injuries or other difficulties in finishing last Wednesday. Each of them deserves some recognition for
their efforts as well. It takes a lot to
hang in there when everything hurts, and we appeared to get that kind of effort
from all of our girls.
As we look ahead, the next race for many of you will
be on Wednesday, September 30. The
distance will be 4000 meters (2.5 miles) and we’ll be running at
Meet MVPs
Frosh-Soph race: Nichole Silverstein, Emily Bryan, Olivia Boughey, Abby McDonogh
JV race: Caroline Cappy, Elise Gibson, Madi Adams,
Erin Wiedmar, Shelby Holzknecht