Latest / The Gill Athletics Track and Field Connections Podcast / BONUS: The Emotional Water Bottle Theory from the Hey dude! What's up man? Podcast

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BONUS: The Emotional Water Bottle Theory from the Hey dude! What's up man? Podcast · The Gill Athletics Track and Field Connections Podcast

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Hey gang, from time to time we'd like to bring you bonus material
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that's value added for you. This week we've got our friends,
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Coach Julie Abel and Coach Wendell Mcraven from Texas and
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University. They host a podcast called Hey
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Dude, What's Up man? Today we're replaying one of
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their episodes about the emotional water bottle.
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Coach Mcraven learn this as an athlete at North Central College
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under the great Al Carious and they're going to touch on it
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about for an athlete and they touch real shortly on a for
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about a coach. But I thought this was amazing
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for a coach and you and your career, career development and
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your day-to-day, just the way you go about doing your craft of
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coaching. So I thought it was super
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important. So pay attention for the next
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roughly 45 minutes and find out what the emotional water bottle
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is and how it can help you become a better coach.
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Let's cue the music and let's get to it.
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Track and field world juvenile tuned in to our humble servant
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Mike Cunningham for another extraordinary message or kill
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athletic connections. Hey dude, what's up man?
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Hey, Coach. Hi, everyone.
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Welcome back to another episode on the Hey Dude, What's Up Man
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podcast with your host Julia Abel and Wendell Mcgraven.
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If you're new, thanks for joining us.
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We hope you like it. If you're returning, welcome
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back. Today we are going to talk about
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the emotional water bottle theory.
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And if you're thinking what in the world is the emotional water
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bottle theory? That sounds crazy, stick around.
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You've come to the right place. We're about to dive in.
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So Coach Mcraven, kick it off. This is your this is your
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mantra. I feel like at some points.
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Yeah, so last week we talked a little bit.
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I mentioned, I mentioned a couple alkarious isms in our on
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our podcast, one of which is the emotional water bottle theory,
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which that's not what he calls it.
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It's actually the emotional container theory.
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And I had some people ask me about that that aren't related
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to our program. And I think sweet, some of our
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freshmen are still kind of figuring out what I'm talking
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about a little bit. Some of them will figure out,
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unfortunately might figure out by the end of the year what I'm
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talking about. But so first of all, just real
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quickly, Al Carious and this is, this is very on very most of
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our, all of our episodes are unscripted, but this is very
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unscripted. So if we, you know, hopefully
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this will be, we'll get to a point eventually, but you know,
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Al Carious is a huge influence on my life.
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Al Carious is the retired long time, long time head tracking
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cross country coach at North Central College in Naperville,
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IL A little small, tiny liberal arts college Division Three
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school. I should have looked up because
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I you know how many Division Three national championships
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they've won under under Alkarius and but I did not.
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But it's been it's a lot. I was fortunate to be a part of
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three Division Three national championship teams while I was
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there. Cross country once indoor track
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once outdoor track once not all the same year.
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Unfortunately wasn't, wasn't the the, the wasn't the Triple Crown
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but that year but but North Central has won the Division
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Three Triple Crown, I believe a couple Times Now.
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But Al Karius and Frank Grammaroso, who was his long
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time cohort and eventually Grammy, as we call out, Frank
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Grammaroso became the head track coach and Al remained the the
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head cross country coach. One point Al was the athletic
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director at North Central College.
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What do you show me there? How many 20?
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Five the OK The college is best known for its men's in men's
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track and field and cross country teams, which have won 25
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national championships under the leadership of Al Karius.
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Yep, it says Coach Al Karius. I can see there, but nobody
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calls him coach. That's the great thing about Al.
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He grew up in a generation of, of where, you know, a very, you
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know, yes, Sir, no, Sir, and came about coaching in the late
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60s and just wanted his athletes to kind of I, I, I'd have to
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look it up, but it's something more along life.
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He's one of his athletes that kind of see him as not an
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authority figure, but somebody that was trying to help them
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just be the best versions of themselves.
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And so, you know, starting the late 60s when he was probably
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about 25 years old when he started as the head coach at
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North Central College, they called him out.
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And so that was kind of when I was in college, I called Al Al,
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I called Grammy, Grammy Ken Popejoy, who was one of our
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volunteer assistants was just Pope.
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And then it was just a different way of doing things because I,
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you know, grew up with a, with a, with a high and high school
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where where obviously high school is a little different
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setting. You need to demand more respect
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and all that kind of stuff. But so kind of meandering here.
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But Al has been a huge influence on my life, my coaching,
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obviously my coaching career. I wouldn't be a coach who wasn't
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for out care. It's there's lots of coaches out
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there that can say the same thing.
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You know, Jim Vanagen, who is the head coach at at University
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of Oklahoma for a while, who's here at A&M.
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That was that currently an assistant at South Plains
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College was one of my teammates. Several of my teammates went on
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to be high school coaches. Dan Iverson at wheat at
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Naperville North High School in Illinois, multiple time national
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champions. I mean, sorry, multiple time
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state champions in Illinois, Rob Harvey at wheat Warrenville
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South high school, Kurt Haas inside Glenbrook South High
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School. All those guys were so my,
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those, those just a handful of my, my, my college teammates and
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then currently younger coaches like like Sean Carlson, who's at
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Colorado now. John Oliver, who's an assistant
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in Oklahoma State, joined Oklahoma State from Purdue.
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Travis Harky I believe is at Boise State, etcetera, etcetera.
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A lot of young coaches out there that are North Central College
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alums. We kind of try to connect
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whenever we're at big meets and stuff like that.
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But else, well, obviously all care is has had a huge influence
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on my coaching career. But it, one of the things that
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he's always, AL's always a guy that every, every practice
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started off with a meeting like a very impromptu, I mean, a
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couple days a week we had formal meetings, but most of the time
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they're very impromptu meetings where he just had something on
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his mind. And usually it ended up being
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something that's fairly motivational or, or fairly, it
6:33
was always appropriate apropos for the, for the time of year or
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whatever. But one of the things he talked
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about was the emotional container theory and that, and,
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and so I've turned it into emotional water bottle theory
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because I use the water bottle as my prop when I, when I talk
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about it. But what he talks about is that,
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you know, as a student athlete, especially at the collegiate
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level, you only have so much energy and you know, so much
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emotion to put into everything that's in your life.
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You know, running academics, you know your social life, you know
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your, your, you know, your spiritual life, you know,
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personal life, everything, family, etcetera, etcetera,
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everything that makes up who you are.
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And so you have to guard that, that emotional energy.
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And you got to kind of pick and choose how you use your
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emotional energy. And he always thought he always
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felt like, yeah, in, in, in a season, you had four like 4
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races you could really, really shoot for.
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And obviously at North Central, we were trying to win Division
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Three national championships. So we never talked about
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winning, but we that was obviously it that that was his
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secret a little bit is by not talking about winning and not
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putting a pressure up to win. We kind of took that on
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ourselves a little bit. But so the national meet was
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obviously one of them. The conference meet was
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obviously one of them. Because I think they've won the
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conference meeting cross country now since I think since like the
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early 70s, they haven't lost. I mean, how many years that is?
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I mean, it's, you know, 50 years or so they've won the, the, the,
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the conference championship. And then, you know, two other
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meats is the regional meet. Sometimes for us, the regional
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meet wasn't that big of a deal because we knew we were going to
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qualify. But I'm sure some years the
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regional meet probably falls in that category.
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And then you have one other meet during the regular season that
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you can focus on. So that was kind of and that,
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and that was in an era when we raced almost every week.
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So, so we, we understood that some of the races had a place
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and it was just part of the process and stuff.
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So one of the things that and coach able to talk a little
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about this as well, monopolize monopolizing the the the
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airwaves here. But one of the things that that
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we talk a lot about is like, Hey, you have to we want you to
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get to the end of the season with some emotion left to
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compete. Like the most exciting thing for
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me as a coach, when I, when I knew I had done things right is
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when an athlete, I've had this happen a couple times with an
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athlete at the end of the season is like, man, I know I've got
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another good race in me. I know I've got another good
9:10
race in me. And what they either want to
9:13
keep racing or really like, gosh, I can't believe that's the
9:16
end of it. I'm ready, I'm still ready to
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go. And that means that to me, that
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makes me feel like we're still in the upswing physically and
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emotionally. We haven't drained the emotional
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water bottle. We've done and, and, and we've
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done the things along the way to, to not drain it.
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And it, it's, it's, as I, as I mentioned last week, it's tough
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as with a distance runner, especially, you know, the, the
9:40
freshman, because a freshman needs racing opportunities,
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because I believe that racing is a skill.
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And I think like in, in some people, like any skill, some
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people have it better than others.
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And, but, but a lot of them need to get used to racing and what
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it's all about and, and, and get racing under their belt.
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But at the same time, as a freshman, sometimes you come in
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and you put way too much emotion into, you know, the Cowboy
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preview or the Aggie opener. And I've got, you know, Coach
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Able, you are probably a little bit like this, but you have
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athletes that are coming in on Monday.
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Hey, coach, what's the race plan this week?
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And I'm like, just relax, man. This is just a, this is just a
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dress rehearsal. They come in on Tuesday.
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Hey, what's the race plan this week?
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Like, hey, relax, relax, relax. And I've seen really good
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athletes, even as they've gotten older, like drain their
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emotional water bottle way too soon, athletes who've gotten
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good enough to get to the national meet, to get to the
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national meet. There's nothing left in the tank
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at the national meet. And that's when you want to be
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at your best. So it's so I, you know, the
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reason we talked about it and, and I probably need to talk
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about even more is because it's got to be part, you've got to
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have this in the back of your mind of like how you're planning
10:56
your year. So I kind of Babble on a little
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bit there, but that's, that's a little bit of the, the, you
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know, emotional water bottle theory.
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Coach Abel, did you look like you're ready to to jump in?
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Well, are you done? Are.
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You. Well, I'm never done.
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I'm going to keep talking for a while, but I'm.
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Do you need to take a breath? I'll.
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Take a breath here and drink a cup of coffee.
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Sip of coffee. Yeah, go drink that coffee.
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No. So as you as you were talking,
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I'm sitting over here thinking about my five years and I was
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realizing, OK, there was one year specifically where I got to
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outdoor conference and you had and I raced steeple and you had
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me scratch the 5K the next day. And I remember, and this might
11:40
sound bad, but literally crying tears of joy and relief to not
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have to run that 5K. And like, that was the year.
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So that was so COVID had hit my sophomore year, spring.
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So this is my junior year. So that year was tough for
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everybody. I had personal life things that
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made it even worse and I got to the end of that year with
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running was no practice was no longer like a piece and like
12:08
safe place that that was a stressful place outside was
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stressful personal life stuff going on.
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I got to that end of that year and I'm like, I don't even
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really want to race conference at all and like I race people.
12:23
It was bad and I was also hurt that it was just all of it was
12:26
bad. And I race the steeple and you
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and then the next, the next day you were like, oh, just just
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warm up to your shakeout, all the stuff.
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So I'm literally doing leg swings about to start the warm
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up and you were like, and I'm literally like tears like
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welling up like I don't want to run this race.
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I don't have the emotional energy at this point to do this
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like this. This is 12 1/2 laps is sounding
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like the worst case scenario for me today.
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And when you came over, I remember Thursday I was doing my
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lunch matrix, my leg swings. You came over and you said Hey,
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go scratch. And I was like, I don't even
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think I asked, Are you sure? I don't think I asked any follow
13:06
up questions. I walked as quickly as I could
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over there. I might have ran.
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I hope he doesn't change his mind.
13:11
I hope he doesn't. Change his mind.
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I was like, I'm not asking follow up.
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I went straight over to the tent.
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I said I'm here to scratch myself.
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And I like literally tears in my eyes, like of the relief of, Oh
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my gosh, OK, I don't have to do this today.
13:24
And like, that was the worst year ever for me running.
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That was horrible. Like, and, and I was sitting
13:29
here thinking, OK, that is here's what had happened My
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well, that year, aside from COVID and everything else that
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was horrible. My freshman year, I wasn't good
13:40
enough to make all the conferences, so I'd my seasons
13:43
weren't as long. And then my sophomore year when
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I when I would have probably made outdoor conference, I
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didn't because COVID shut the world down.
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So that junior year was the first year that I was making it.
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Every season was all the way to conference, all the way to
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conference, all the way to conference.
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And so that was the first year where I really had that, the
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lengthy seasons or longer seasons than I was used to.
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And then on top of just everything else, so that, that
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year was terrible. And then I, I, I took I think 3
14:19
weeks off because I had been dealing with injuries that year
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too. I took three weeks off that
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summer, which I had never take that many weeks off.
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I didn't even cross train. The guy didn't do anything.
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And I came back thing. I am so out of shape, like I'm,
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I'm so far behind. And, and I wasn't, and I ended
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up being pretty healthy that next year.
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And I remember that next year. So my 4th year, I remember being
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at Arkansas for regionals and then at this point, that's then
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the furthest I had ever extended my outdoor season.
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I extended it for further again. And so that was new.
14:52
And I remember finishing that race a year later and I remember
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I my Instagram post, but I was very honest in it is I was like,
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I am finishing the season like how you said you're the best
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moments as a coach is when somebody finishes it going man,
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I wish I had another race and I still feel good.
15:08
I remember thinking like I am happy, healthy and hungry for
15:13
more is what I captioned it because I was like, I'm
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finishing this season going Oh my gosh, is it cross country
15:19
season yet? Like, OK, can I race again?
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And and I didn't have that feeling the year before.
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For sure. That regional meet.
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I had just done conference racing, both races, regionals,
15:29
just steeplechase and then that that next fall.
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I was, you know, super high emotional water bottle because I
15:37
hadn't, I think there's an extent where it restarts every
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year because you have the summer, but I feel like if it's
15:43
completely, completely drained at the end of track season, how
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is that going to carry over to your cross country season?
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But that year, my 4th year, I was not drained at track.
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I was still ready for it. So when cross country came
15:56
around, I was eager to race because I felt like I, you know,
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wasn't completely dead this the track season before, I was like,
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oh, finally we're racing again. So that leftover emotional
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energy, I feel like padded my fifth year even more.
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I don't know if that falls into your theory, but.
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Yeah, but it well, all, it all fits in a little bit because I
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mean, we're all, we're emotional animals.
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I mean, we deal with, I mean, your, your emotions, regardless
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of what, where the, how you build up your emotion or how you
16:26
drain your emotion. It it, it's, it's everybody's
16:28
different. Like, you know, our famous
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saying we coach people, we don't coach robots.
16:33
And so that's going to vary from person to person.
16:35
Somebody like for me, I was always like, like when it was
16:42
summertime after track season, the track season could have
16:48
ended super disappointing for me.
16:50
And I, I was always, I mean, like somebody asked me if they
16:53
asked me the question, no, but no, people don't usually ask me
16:55
this question. But when I was an athlete, if
16:56
they asked me like, what's your favorite sport tracker cross
16:59
country, I'm like the one that's next.
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I mean, literally that's like, or the one I'm in, you know,
17:03
because once track was over, man, I was, I was 100 mph
17:08
getting ready for cross country. So I might filled up pretty
17:10
quickly because it's probably a track nerd, running nerd.
17:14
So it's easy for that and nothing else in my life but
17:16
that. So, but yeah, I mean, it's, it's
17:20
that's and it's a thing you have to what you mentioned about like
17:23
your, your your junior year, you know, and how your emotions
17:29
were, were drained because there's a lot of new experience.
17:31
You had a lot of other stuff going on that fits perfectly.
17:33
And like there's a lot of other stuff going on too.
17:35
You can drain your emotions, but also like somebody that is a,
17:40
you know, somebody that maybe like, especially in our program
17:42
over the years, we've had lots of people that come in as
17:44
freshmen. Maybe they race one of the
17:47
seasons of the three, maybe they race a couple of them race cross
17:51
country and indoor, maybe red shirt outdoors.
17:53
Are we red shirt cross and outdoors run indoors and as
17:56
sophomore year, they run all the seasons, but they're not
17:59
traveling all the time. So they get weekends off.
18:01
They don't make the conference team.
18:02
And then also in your junior year, you've you've you've done
18:06
what we want you to do, which is develop and get to a higher
18:09
level. Well, now all of a sudden, you
18:12
know, it's like you're OK, we're going to go to you're going to
18:14
go to Stanford. We're going to go to Brian Clay.
18:15
We're going to go to pen relays and then, you know, so you have
18:18
to end the outdoor season all of a sudden, like you can get to
18:20
the conference meet and they're like most persons running great.
18:23
Well, then they get to the FCC meet and they're hanging on by a
18:26
thread at. The and you're a veteran, but
18:28
it's just you haven't had a year like that yet because when you
18:31
are a freshman, you're not going to all those big meats.
18:34
So it's like even as you get older, the seasons get longer
18:38
and the meats get bigger and and you're, you're more able to
18:42
navigate the emotional water bottle.
18:44
But it still is a challenge. That's why I think my junior
18:46
year, obviously there were other circumstances, but I think that
18:50
was the first year I was going the deeper in all those seasons
18:54
and I wasn't as ready for that. Yeah.
18:56
So it's something you have to guard with, something we as
18:58
coaches have to guard against. And it's, it's something that,
19:02
you know, we have to educate our, our, our student athletes
19:05
about so that that they understand, they understand what
19:09
it's all about. And I would say I also wanted to
19:12
mention you said we need to educate them on, but for us it's
19:15
like honestly a, a tradition. You do it every year at the at
19:20
the first team meeting for cross country every year and then you
19:22
reference it the rest of the year.
19:24
But you've done it every year since I've been a part of the
19:26
program. It was funny this year you
19:28
hadn't mentioned it yet. And I think it was Cooper
19:31
Catherall was like coach the emotional water bottle talk
19:34
about it. He like literally I think he
19:36
handed you. Yeah, somebody, somebody had,
19:37
Yeah, somebody had a water bottle.
19:38
Like I need a water bottle. I need a prop, you know.
19:40
But like it's, it's just cool seeing a senior or a fifth year
19:44
being like coach. No, no, you need to talk about
19:45
it. And whether it's you need to
19:47
talk about it just because you always do or you need to talk
19:49
about it because we see value in it.
19:51
Either way, they want to hear it and I think it's good to talk
19:55
about it at the beginning in depth and then you can continue
19:59
to reference it the rest of the year and everybody knows what
20:01
you're talking about. Maybe we talked about, obviously
20:03
we talked about it in training, like about, hey, we're just
20:06
checked a lot of times we're doing workouts and, and you
20:09
know, when you're young and these workouts are new and all
20:13
sudden you're doing longer tempos or maybe you never did
20:16
tempos. How we do our threshold
20:17
workouts, like how we do them, they're different and, or the
20:21
hill workouts, we do there things that are different than
20:24
what you did in high school. And a lot of times like I have
20:28
to, you know, we have to remind our newcomers and our freshmen
20:32
every, every workout is not a test.
20:34
You know, it's not, it's, it's, it's just checking the box.
20:37
You know, it's like this is like, it's like brushing your
20:40
teeth. You don't nobody wastes that
20:42
much emotional energy every morning brushing their teeth.
20:44
In fact, most of the time we do it, we don't even remember we
20:46
did it, but you have to do it every day.
20:48
And so that's what workouts are like.
20:50
But if you if you build up every as a freshman coming in, build
20:53
up every workout to be some sort of test and and did I run the
20:56
workout faster than I did two weeks ago?
20:58
Did I do that? That drains that begins to drain
21:01
your emotional it potentially as a potential, depending on how
21:05
you're wired, it has a potential to to drain your emotional water
21:08
bottle. And that's why we, I mean,
21:11
that's why I probably might, if anybody wants to criticize how
21:14
sometimes we do things and workouts is what that maybe
21:16
maybe sometimes I'm too controlled, like, hey, no,
21:18
relax, chill out, you know, don't go to the well, because
21:21
we're going to go to well on race day and trainings about
21:24
preparation. And like I said, check in the
21:27
box, check. Did we OK, we covered that.
21:29
Did we, have we been doing enough threshold work?
21:31
Check, you know, have we done enough long, long aerobic work?
21:34
Check, you know, we done and we started, you know, we, we
21:37
touched on the VO2 Max stuff. Check how we doing those things
21:40
check we're just checking the box getting, getting the work
21:42
done and not, not, not not making everything into the
21:46
Olympic trials or anything like that.
21:48
So. Is is now a good time to talk
21:50
about the two paths you could go down and?
21:52
It's yeah, for sure. You.
21:53
Yeah, yeah, that's, that's, yeah, definitely.
21:56
We've talked a lot with our freshmen, but it it goes with it
22:00
goes with all classes and honestly, like the stuff we're
22:04
talking about with the emotional water bottle, we're relating a
22:06
lot to running and a season, But it's the same if you're a
22:10
teacher and you're starting off the school year or if you work
22:13
in a my brother works in a finance office.
22:15
Well, maybe it's the fiscal year and he, you know, goes into the
22:20
well and gets himself exhausted in Q1.
22:23
Shout out Austin Q1, then Q2 maybe now he's, you know, now
22:29
he's more drained and he gets to the end when he's having to do
22:30
all of his stuff and wrap up the year and and he does not have
22:33
enough emotional energy and he starts to make mistakes like
22:36
that. This stuff we're talking about
22:37
relates in any field of life, not just running.
22:41
So if you're listening to this and you're not a runner, you're
22:43
like, how does this apply to me? Figure out a way to make it
22:46
apply to you because it does in this job right now.
22:49
Like I told Coach Mcraven last night, like this week, I've been
22:52
stressed and I said my emotional water.
22:54
He said we're going to talk about the emotional water bottle
22:56
tomorrow on the podcast. And I said mine is empty and it
22:59
was a joke. It's not empty, but we talked
23:02
about it with like when we went on vacation, like we each went
23:06
on our own family vacations at the end of the summer and it was
23:08
like, Hey, we know how long these seasons are as coaches, we
23:12
need to go on these vacations to fill back up our water bottle
23:15
before the season starts. So this relates to any field of
23:18
life, anywhere you're at, athlete, non athlete, like this
23:21
can apply to you. But the, the way I we've talked
23:24
with our freshmen and, and this relates to everybody is your
23:29
freshman year, especially just because everything's so new.
23:31
Coach Mcraven has talked a lot about like you have new
23:35
roommates and new academic stress.
23:36
You're not with your parents and you're doing laundry for the
23:38
first time and you're trying to figure out how to grocery shop
23:40
for yourself. And all these things, whether
23:43
they're running related or not, they have a stressful toll on
23:47
your body and they can they can drain that emotional water
23:50
bottles. So we talk about these are the,
23:53
this is the two ways your year can go as a freshman and it, and
23:57
there's not really really an in between.
23:59
It's either really one or the other.
24:01
And we've laid this out with all of the freshmen that have come
24:03
to see us this year is you. And I was like, I'm going to
24:07
paint these two scenarios for you and you can decide which one
24:10
you want to have one of which you, you get here and you're
24:15
like super stressed out and you're trying to prove yourself
24:19
to your teammates and your coaches, but you're also having
24:21
fun with your teammates. So you're staying up late,
24:24
you're getting up early to run, you're running workouts too hard
24:26
because you're trying to prove yourself to us, which is not the
24:29
way to prove yourself. It's actually the opposite of
24:31
the way to prove yourself. But you run workouts too hard.
24:35
But then you, you don't want to, you know, slow down your
24:39
recovery runs. So you run those two fast, then
24:41
two, and then your legs get tired.
24:43
And we tell them all, hey, your legs, you might feel fine week
24:47
1. You might be feel fine week two.
24:49
Week 3, you're not going to feel very good.
24:51
And, and I guess that can relate really in any area of life, if
24:55
you start doing something like 3 weeks later, you're going to see
24:58
the change, whether good or bad. And we tell them he and Coach
25:01
Mcraven's harp on this since my freshman year and obviously long
25:04
before that of it's gonna, if the training like the outcome
25:09
you're having in cross country, the success is because of what
25:12
you did last indoor or outdoor season.
25:14
It's not because of what you did right now.
25:15
So everything has a delay. And on the bad side of that, the
25:19
overtraining, the going too hard, letting yourself get
25:23
stressed out, that has about a three-week delay.
25:26
So you think, oh, I'm fine, I'm running all these workouts
25:29
really fast. I'm running all my long runs
25:30
really fast. I feel great.
25:32
Well, in about 3 weeks, you might not feel very good.
25:34
And so, and that's, that's scenario A with freshman year.
25:38
You get 3 weeks in and now your legs are tired.
25:41
And now guess what? We've got a home Invitational
25:44
and now you don't run as well as you as you thought you would be
25:48
able to. So now you're all mentally
25:49
psyched out. Maybe you make nutty comb our
25:51
next trip, maybe you don't. Let's say you make nutty comb
25:54
and it's a, it's another step in the up the ladder of intensity
25:59
in our season. And now maybe you don't do as
26:02
well there again and now you're starting to get really stressed
26:05
out and then not just spirals and spirals.
26:07
And then now you're going into indoor and you're drained from
26:11
cross country already. And maybe you don't even make it
26:14
to outdoor healthy. And you're definitely not
26:17
excited to run cross country again your sophomore year, or do
26:20
you have something to add? You look.
26:21
Excited. OK, then on the flip side, let
26:25
me paint you a a shiny, happier picture with flowers and
26:28
rainbows of you come in your freshman year.
26:31
We had we had a freshman say week 1.
26:33
She was like, I don't really feel like I'm in the right
26:37
group. Like I could I think I could run
26:39
these workouts harder. These don't feel that hard.
26:42
And we were like, hey, listen, be patient with us.
26:44
Be patient with yourself and your group because eventually
26:48
you're going to start to feel it.
26:49
So just be patient and, and luckily she's awesome.
26:52
And she was like, yeah, sure, of course.
26:53
And, and one of the most coachable people ever and said,
26:56
yeah, OK, like that's fine. I trust you guys.
26:59
And now on week 4, we've actually combined Group 1 and 2.
27:04
So now she's running with the big dogs.
27:05
And so it's it. And, and they had a great
27:07
workout yesterday and we're talking yesterday and we're
27:10
like, hey, how's the group now? And she's like, oh, it's
27:12
awesome. I loved it.
27:13
That was so fun. And because she was patient, but
27:16
she still feels excited, like she is pumped up for this ANM
27:20
Invitational. She's ready to go and she's
27:23
going to have a great rest of the season.
27:25
And she's going to go into outdoor or indoor going.
27:28
Yeah, cross country was awesome. I am so excited for indoor.
27:32
And then that's going to carry on.
27:33
And she's learned to trust us. She's learned to trust herself.
27:36
She's going to get to outdoor going.
27:38
Well, that was a piece of cake. Freshman year was awesome.
27:40
It was challenging, but I'm happy I'm healthy and ready for
27:43
sophomore year and we've explained those two scenarios
27:47
and obviously I have like a person to relate it to now.
27:50
But we had told her these two scenarios before it was even her
27:54
a few weeks ago of like, Hey, this is I'm going to tell you
27:56
the two ways that this year could go for you and you decide
28:01
how you want to feel in May and June right now and being patient
28:05
right now and being conservative right now and doing all the
28:09
little things right right now. And here we are four weeks in,
28:12
she still feels awesome. And maybe there's other people
28:15
that we don't really even know about that are like, Oh my gosh,
28:17
my legs, my legs are toast. And and they're they're going to
28:20
have two different scenarios of freshman year.
28:22
Hopefully not hopefully, hopefully if somebody's legs are
28:25
tired, they're realizing, Oh my gosh, and they'll change some
28:28
things. But I do know for this one girl,
28:30
she's on the track to that really good scenario of freshman
28:33
year. So that's what we talked about
28:36
and that's that's kind of all-encompassing.
28:38
That's a a different way to not a different way to explain the
28:42
emotional water bottle, but a way to relate it of the
28:45
emotional water bottle. If it gets drained in week one
28:47
and two and three, you're going to have a completely different
28:50
freshman year outcome, sophomore year outcome, junior year
28:52
outcome. Then if you just check off those
28:55
boxes, do the little things, keep very even keel, and then
29:01
everything just it it it just smooth sailing for the most
29:04
part. You can dig yourself a hole that
29:07
you can't get out of early on. And that's why communication is
29:10
so, so important with our athletes or any, in any
29:14
situation, just letting them know.
29:15
I mean, we like I said, like talking about it using those
29:18
examples, you know, using those examples of like, hey, you're,
29:22
you're, this is your choice. And, and a lot of times, I mean,
29:25
I think it's tough with newcomers and freshmen because
29:30
if you're at this level, you probably had success doing
29:34
things a certain way. Most of the time.
29:37
Most good freshmen, the vast majority weren't on good teams
29:41
in high school. So they were the top dog.
29:44
They're used to doing a lot of things by themselves or if
29:46
you're a female, you're doing it the guys team and you're not
29:49
running with other girls. And so like you've had success.
29:54
You were successful once that we recruited you.
29:56
And so you think, well, this is what worked for me.
29:59
And as coach Henry always talks about, yeah, you're going to
30:04
have to change at the next level.
30:05
You have to make some changes. And all of a sudden now you've
30:09
got you're going on easy run and, and you're like, well, I'm
30:13
used to running my easy run all by myself because I nobody could
30:17
run with me anyway. And now all of a sudden there's
30:19
ten other girls that are right there with you and you're like,
30:21
I need to run faster because I'm just used to, you know, running
30:24
back, you know, whatever. And, and, and the work,
30:26
everything like the workouts are faster.
30:29
The workouts are probably more volume, all kinds of little
30:32
things. And like I said, like you said,
30:34
we got new roommates, you got new classes, all these other
30:37
little things. It's just, yeah, so it's all
30:39
part of the process, but that that it's great.
30:42
It's great to talk to our athletes about that.
30:44
And for the person that asked me last week, I hope we did a good
30:48
job of explaining the emotional water bottle and, and, and what
30:53
it means. You know, like I said, Alcarius
30:56
was a huge, huge influence for me.
30:59
I, I still think like, and the great thing, I guess I'll go off
31:02
on a little side here. The great thing about coaches,
31:04
the successful coaches, I'm convinced, like if like I'm
31:09
convinced that great coaches are great coaches regardless of what
31:12
sport they're in. They're great teachers, are
31:14
great mentors. You know, I think Al Karius
31:19
would probably be, I don't think anybody ran for Al Karius.
31:22
That's he thinks of him like as a Zen like character and stuff.
31:25
But then I listen to stuff. Phil Jackson, you know, I was
31:29
listening to Phil Jackson, the famous coach of both the the
31:31
Bulls and the Lakers, who won, you know, all those World
31:34
Championships, NBA championships as a as a that's why I hear him
31:37
talk and I go, oh, that's a Al Karius type thing.
31:41
He's just saying it a little bit different way.
31:43
And I hear coach Henry say stuff.
31:44
I'm like, Oh, yeah, that's, that's just a different way of
31:47
saying that what I what I heard from Al Carious, you know, you
31:51
know, 30 years ago. So, you know that it's, you
31:55
know, it's kind of cool. Like I actually heard like, you
31:58
know, we talked about last week a little bit the freedom to
32:00
fail. We're not going to go into super
32:01
depth into the freedom to fail, the freedom to fail theory.
32:04
But like that was an Alcarius thing.
32:07
And I and, and I heard Phil Jackson talk about how when he
32:09
was ANBA basketball coach, he talked about focusing or looking
32:14
beyond the score. As a team, we want to focus,
32:16
focus beyond the score because and, and, and if something
32:20
happens, the other team does something that negatively
32:23
affects us or the referees make a call that negatively affects
32:26
us. Just live in the moment and
32:28
focus on us and focus on what we're doing.
32:31
Which kind of goes in line with, I mean, it's like maybe all
32:34
great coaches are doing the same thing because, you know, you
32:37
focus on your football coaches say one play at a time.
32:41
You know, they say the great quarterbacks have to have a
32:43
short memory and stuff like that.
32:45
But that's just that's the freedom to fail.
32:47
Like if it's like, if you understand that, if you
32:52
understand that you're the same person whether you race well or
32:58
whether you race poorly, it doesn't change you as a person,
33:02
then you're more likely to be successful.
33:04
If when Phil Jackson was coaching the Bulls and coaching
33:08
the Lakers, if his team's focused on being the best
33:12
version of themselves and didn't spend all all the game looking
33:15
at the scoreboard, they had a greater chance of being
33:18
successful. If a quarterback throws an
33:20
interception and but forgets about that doesn't work and and
33:26
comes in the next set of set of downs and focus on what he's
33:30
capable of doing, he's more likely to be successful,
33:33
etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. So, you know, I thought that
33:37
that that's just kind of like it's it's one of the I probably
33:39
could do it. We probably could do a whole
33:40
episode. Maybe that's why I should've
33:41
done that and Al Carious episode.
33:42
But you would your only insight would be I think maybe you
33:45
didn't meet. No, you didn't meet him.
33:46
You have you ever met Al Carious?
33:48
You ever met? That's right.
33:48
The end of becoming the convention the last couple years
33:52
now, now that he's retired. But yeah, but I could do a whole
33:56
episode. I could just maybe call it Sean
33:58
Carlson and John Oliver and. And kicked me out for the week.
34:02
No, you could. You could be the, you could be
34:04
the buffer. Perfect.
34:05
But yeah, but out like, yeah, yeah, we can do a whole episode
34:07
now. Curious because he was such an
34:09
influence on my life. He's, you know, somebody that
34:12
told that asked me, you know, about coaching and I'm like, oh,
34:16
I'd be I'm really a coach. And, and we're all influenced by
34:21
decisions we make. And the just you know, I was, I
34:24
mean, jeez, I mean, like in, in, in decisions other people made,
34:27
you know, like my parents, like your, your parents moved to
34:30
built a home in Keller. You went to Keller High School
34:34
at a time when there were other good runners at Keller High
34:37
School. You were on state championship
34:39
teams and a team that finished fourth at Nike Nationals.
34:41
If your parents had built a house in, you know, 15 miles
34:46
away, you may have never started running cross country.
34:48
You may have been a swimmer or something like that.
34:50
And then now you would never be you wouldn't have been a had
34:52
this collegiate running experience, you wouldn't be a
34:54
college track coach. Now I my parents bought a house
34:58
in the Wheeling high School in district in Wheeling, IL, which
35:02
happened to be high school that the timing was just right where
35:09
Mark Burns, who coached at Burns and coached at Missouri and now
35:13
works for Boost treadmills. He, which is unofficial sponsor
35:16
of our podcast, by the way, but they are.
35:20
They ever going to become an official sponsor?
35:22
We'll find out. We'll work with, we'll work with
35:23
Burns. But you know, I end up running
35:26
to him. He's been to be a teammate.
35:28
Keith Burden's our our middle school junior high track and
35:32
cross country coach who just happens to be way beyond the,
35:37
the norm of a middle school cross country and track coach.
35:41
And then we have Hall of Fame level high school coaches and
35:45
other really good teammates and our really good teams.
35:48
And then, you know, and then I picked North Central College.
35:52
I don't know why. I have no idea why I wanted to
35:54
go to a small college, but in my head when I was in high school,
35:57
I'm like, I'm a small college guy.
35:58
I'm a small college guy probably because I wanted to run and I
36:01
couldn't run it. I wasn't good enough front at a
36:02
big college, but I picked North Central College.
36:05
I don't think I'd be a coach right now if I didn't pick N
36:07
Central College. There's other schools I I might
36:10
be writing for. You know, I might be an
36:13
unemployed writer for the Chicago Tribune right now if I
36:15
if I decided to go to some of the schools I wanted to go to.
36:18
But so, I mean, this is a little shout out to Al Caries more than
36:23
anything because I couldn't ask for a better mentor.
36:28
You've had great mentors besides your college experience.
36:33
Yeah, all the other people before that, yeah.
36:36
Yeah. But I got into cross country
36:38
class because the counselor at my school didn't know.
36:41
She didn't know what she was talking about.
36:43
She thought she she said, well, since cross country is earlier
36:48
in the year than soccer, you should put that on your schedule
36:51
now. And then once cross country's
36:53
over, you can switch into the soccer class, but you can't that
36:56
you can't because the cross country class was first period
36:59
and soccer was like ninth period and they you couldn't do it.
37:02
But she didn't, she completely messed up.
37:05
I got thrown into the cross country class.
37:07
I wouldn't have picked cross country, I would have picked
37:09
soccer. And so anyway, here I am now.
37:11
But but I know we're trying to keep it quick.
37:14
We got to get out to the cross country course, but we've talked
37:17
about those the two ways you can go in the emotional water
37:21
bottle. And I don't want people to
37:22
think, Oh my gosh, I'm drained and I'm doomed for the rest of
37:25
my life. Oh my gosh, I've run too hard my
37:28
freshman year in the first month and a half and now I'm drained
37:32
and my whole season is going to my whole year is going to go to
37:34
crap now. So that's not what happens.
37:36
You can fill it back up in a way.
37:38
So can we talk briefly about if you find yourself in that
37:41
situation where legs are tired, mentally tired, drained or
37:45
stressed in your job after college, Like how can you?
37:48
We're not. We're not sports psychologist.
37:50
We're not life coaches. Thank goodness.
37:52
We kind of are. Kind of.
37:54
But what are some things, and this is completely random, but
37:57
what are some things we could do?
37:58
Because I'm sitting here thinking we just preached a
37:59
bunch of bad news this morning, So what are some?
38:02
Good things. We we've had people, obviously
38:03
we've both I've been doing this for a long time and you've been
38:06
both the runner now in your second year coaching.
38:09
Some of it's just common sense. Obviously it's like, but we have
38:13
such different personality types.
38:14
It's different for different people.
38:16
Type a personalities do not like taking the day off.
38:19
You take a couple days off, you know, and they're like, oh, a
38:21
couple days off. I'm not going to be out so out
38:23
of shape after I take a couple days off.
38:25
Oh no. So you have to kind of like you
38:27
have to deal with the personally individually.
38:29
A lot of times like like for me, I was I mean, I was kind of guy
38:33
that like I was completely anal about running.
38:36
I was one of those guys that like take a day off every week.
38:41
If I take a day off every week, that's 52 days of the year.
38:44
That's almost two months of not running because that's why I
38:46
much of my brain would. Work, yeah, but you're going to
38:49
find yourself for two months of running if you keep doing.
38:52
Based on my health history in college, I ended up taking way
38:55
more time off than that. But but yeah, it's it's, it's
39:00
really an individual thing. Like for me, most people ask me
39:03
like, hey, kind of a coach. I'm really feeling a little
39:05
drained and stuff like that. Maybe maybe we sit out of me,
39:09
maybe we back off. I mean, I've had athletes where
39:12
I've had a day off. I've had athletes where we've
39:16
gone a week. And I said, and once again, this
39:19
depends on the individual and how confident they are in
39:21
themselves and how confident they are in us as coaches,
39:24
because I've got athletes, well, hey, we're just not going to
39:26
work out for a week. You're going to run, run as you
39:29
feel for a week and just enjoy running.
39:31
Yes, we're going to, you know, the days that we're working out,
39:33
you're just going to go for a run or the end.
39:36
And then the easy days and the distance days you throw the
39:38
group, you know, and I've seen athletes do do that and bounce
39:41
back really quickly. And, and, and as we know this
39:44
sport is so mental. A lot of times it's just like,
39:48
like I've seen athletes where I said, OK, yeah, Tuesday we got
39:51
to work out. We're going to we're doing a
39:52
threshold on the track. Just go run how you feel.
39:57
And I'll look on their Strava and they ran like 12 miles and
40:01
it's a guy to run 12 miles and he's clipping off the last few
40:05
miles, like sub, you know, 6 minutes run, five 30s, five 40s
40:09
for the last couple miles. I'm like.
40:11
You know, and and and he does that for a week of that and he
40:13
comes back next week and feels great and it's like you busted
40:17
your ass like I'm sorry, busted your butt like he busted.
40:20
I know how to click the explicit content, but I.
40:24
Don't think that word explicit content, but that athlete then
40:29
the next week feels great because and they really worked
40:32
hard the previous week, but they feel great because they did
40:35
something different. So and sometimes it's athletes,
40:37
you know, Hey, go in the pool on your easy day.
40:40
Let's just go instead of running, let's go in the pool or
40:42
you normally cross train on your recovery day.
40:45
Just take that day off, go for a walk, whatever.
40:47
You know, every every kids different and you got to start.
40:50
That's where communication, getting to know the athletes
40:52
because some athletes are going to react better to different
40:56
scenarios than others. So but but part of it's just
40:59
really being kind to yours. I mean, if an athlete's
41:01
listening to this and asking what they should do, be kind to
41:03
yourself, trust yourself, believe in yourself and be your
41:07
biggest fan because somebody along the line thought you had
41:12
the ability to be really, really successful.
41:14
Trust those people, those people like like, you know, like we
41:18
tell all of our athletes, hey, you wouldn't be on this team if
41:21
we didn't think you were capable of running at this level.
41:25
So you need to, you need to, you know, believe that as well.
41:33
And and once we don't believe that we're going to, we're going
41:36
to tell you, tell you yes, we will tell you.
41:44
I was going to say something, Oh, and then they going along
41:47
the lines of like taking a day off, taking a step back, like
41:50
having like you talk about having that confidence in
41:54
yourself and in US is like we were talking to somebody on the
41:57
team and way back and she's talking about, well, it's hard
42:00
for me to take an off day because somebody else is not
42:03
taking an off day. And and I was, I'd said like,
42:05
hey, sometimes confidence. Confidence is not always what
42:08
you do. Sometimes it's what you don't
42:09
do. Like the way you can prove to us
42:11
that you're confident is staying within your group for the
42:15
workout and taking that day off and like you're thinking, well,
42:18
this is crazy. Like shouldn't I be trying to
42:20
prove myself at practice? No, sometimes to show that you
42:23
are the most confident and mature runner is the stuff that
42:26
you don't do, the stuff you hold, quote, hold back from.
42:30
Because if you're not confident and you're not mature, that's
42:33
when you're trying to bust it every day at practice.
42:35
You're trying to do too much and drain your emotional water
42:38
bottle. And if you're confident and
42:40
mature and you, you know what you're about, you know what
42:43
we're about, that's when you honestly it, it's kind of like
42:47
you're no longer going 1,000,000 miles an hour.
42:49
You're kind of sitting back a little bit.
42:51
And that's what we're talking about with clicking off the
42:53
singles, just having check the box, those kind of days that
42:57
shows the confidence that maintains the emotional water
43:00
bottle. Yeah, I mean, a lot of times
43:01
people like I, you've heard me say this before.
43:03
A lot of times people think when they think the word discipline,
43:06
I'm, I'm very disciplined. I mean, they, they think that
43:08
means they work hard all the time.
43:10
A lot of times having discipline and self-discipline and maturity
43:14
is, is, you know, trusting the process, you know, back, you
43:19
know, like understanding that, like I don't have to prove my
43:23
worth every day in training, you know, like by hitting certain
43:27
times and stuff like that. And that's a tough thing to do
43:29
when we're everybody that's attracted to the sport of
43:31
running is attracted to, and not everybody, but a lot of, a lot
43:34
of people get attracted to the sport of distance running and
43:38
any kind of endurance sport. It's because they, you know,
43:43
they like the, I work hard and I see an outcome and I, and I, and
43:48
my outcome is a direct result of, of the effort I put into it.
43:52
And that's true to a certain extent, especially early on in
43:55
your running career. But eventually everybody's good
43:58
and the people that train smarter are the people that end
44:01
up being more successful, so. We've got to get to the cross
44:05
course. Yeah, we got to get to the cross
44:06
course. Hopefully this is a we.
44:08
This is very all of our, like I said, all of our episodes are
44:10
unscripted. This was very unscripted.
44:12
This was by the least scripted 1.
44:13
Yeah. So hopefully we, we almost
44:15
weren't doing 1 this week, but we wanted to keep it rolling.
44:17
We wanted to keep the ball rolling and what was ride the
44:21
wave of momentum, right? That's our.
44:23
No. Ride the wave of progress.
44:25
Yeah, no. Is that what he said?
44:27
Andre got us ride the wave of progress.
44:30
That's his same. I was like, I like that.
44:33
That's a That's a good way to. Ride the wave of progress, keep
44:35
the ball rolling and. Something else it'll come.
44:40
Alright, so. Have a great day.
44:43
The goals to appreciate the coach, the ones that pouring
44:46
people most every season needs a voice of reason speaking the
44:49
growth you got to prep before you carry the load ice coffee to
44:52
the soul. For those of us who stay on the
44:54
go proper handoff to stay in the zone which you packing for the
44:58
road. There's more than one way to go
45:00
taking those that's paying you're told it ain't practice if
45:02
your purpose ain't Clair, it can't happen until you listen
45:05
with both is you can't mentor without a mentor of experience.
45:09
You can reinvent those years every plan's got to stand and
45:12
deliver to and the price sacrifice can you give up you.
45:16
It's a choice and a fight, not a win or lose.
45:18
It's not a ploy boy device. Y'all can make more moves.
45:20
It's not about how to it's all about why you don't know till
45:24
you know who you are inside 6,000,000 Waste of time choose
45:27
none. So y'all cross finish line, the
45:29
work ain't done so we learn from the experts but y'all got to put
45:32
in the leg work. Your athletics is network.
45:35
It's all about connections put together for the profession to
45:38
where every track coach could be blessing.