I’ve been feeling inspired today. I
would say I give 66% credit to the leadership class I just came from, 14% to
the three cups of coffee I had today, 10% to the epiphany I had a few minutes
ago, 7% to Michael Strahan talking about his new documentary this morning, and
3% to some Kanye I am listening to. Now, I realize I’m not biking across the
country anymore, so this blog post might not interest anyone at all, but I do
hope to motivate or inspire at least one person to face obstacles with
confidence and faith in the fact that when one door closes, more doors
definitely do open.
I think I was walking to my car in
the parking garage tonight when the thought came to my mind that I am finally
and truly happy at where I am in life currently. I would have told you the
opposite this time exactly two years ago. Long story short, and I’m sure many
of you that are reading this do in fact know the long story, I was cut from the
varsity cross country team during the season my junior year at Virginia Tech. I
don’t need to go into detail, point fingers, or bad mouth anything for you to
understand that it was an absurdly difficult point in my life. After finding
out that information by email, sitting on my friends couch and proceeding to
cry my eyes out, I thought I had nothing else to pursue. I admit, at that point
in my life I had mainly come to college for running, of course I picked a major
that I was interested in, but the main thought in my head when choosing a place
to spend my life for four years was absolutely track and field. So as you could
imagine, I was thinking “what now?”
I called my parents, I even
actually went home that weekend (clearly I was upset at the time). They knew
how distraught I was, but at the same time – they were supposed to be parents
and parents give you good advice whether or not you believe them at the time.
And looking back, they gave me some of the most important advice I could ever
carry with me throughout my life. They both definitely supported me of course,
but I specifically remember it was my dad that said “you know, this was an
important part of your life, but you just have to realize that it’s time to put
it behind you and look at all the new opportunities that will come about.” As
he was saying that, I didn’t even think I was listening enough to be able to
remember that two years later. I just responded with something like “yeah,
whatever.”
Michael Strahan said this morning
that a lot of these athletes, no matter what level – high school, college,
semi-pro, professional – all seem to be defined by their sport. That’s also how
most of us feel. Now, I will say there are some athletes who make it a point to
balance themselves out completely and be defined by other aspects of their
lives, but the higher up you get in your sport, the more clearly it defines
you. I haven’t watched it yet, but Strahan was saying the premise of his
documentary is finding happiness outside of this sport and redefining your
life. I think this is such an important thing to teach even the young athletes
in our society because more often than not when you’re good at a sport,
academics take a back seat and this should definitely change.
Taking what my dad said two years
ago and looking at where I am right now, he was absolutely correct. Yes, I was
upset for a long period of time that fall semester – not to mention topping it
all off with mono over winter break – but once I finally became myself again
and tried to find a new direction that was not collegiate cross country &
track, I realized all of the things that were out there for me. I started doing
triathlons that summer, I joined VT’s club triathlon team, and it was on the
way to one of our final season races when I signed up to ride across the
country with 4k For Cancer. When I look back at all of the things that happened
in my life because I got cut from that cross country team, 4k is the most
amazing thing. I simply would not have had that experience if I had still been
running, and I wouldn’t trade this summer for anything, not even continuing my
running career – which at the time I would have traded anything for that. 4k
was way after that devastating junior year fall semester, but it still helped
me to continue to grow and see the amazing opportunities life has to offer.
After signing up for 4k, I started
fundraising for that and also decided to start applying to grad schools. That
in itself is another big thing I probably wouldn’t have done had I still been
running. I probably would have redshirted, competed a 5th year doing
God knows what fill-in major, and then stood at graduation saying “oh shit.”
Walking away from running immediately had me focus on school and what I would
do after college. I truly believe that would not have been the case if I ran up
until graduation. I am now at James Madison University, on a triathlon team I
love, in a program I’m passionate about, and about to begin volunteer coaching
at a local college to begin my career path. Along with that volunteer coaching, I
have set out a goal to get back into decent track shape so I can potentially do
workouts with the girl’s team. I have finally found my love for running again.
Life is going to throw us
obstacles, we’re going to be upset, we’re going to cry at times, but there will
always be more opportunities. It’s about what type of person we are in the face
of adversity and how we grow from it, because adversity is inevitable.
References:
Michael Strahan Documentary – End Game
Kanye West – Everything I Am
