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Good Losers Make Brilliant Winners · The Gratitude Letters

0:10
Jen: This is The Gratitude Letters. It begins with a letter and continues with a
0:16
Jen: conversation. It's never too late and always a good time to say thank you.
0:32
Jen: Hi, I'm Jen Shenk, and this is The Gratitude Letters.
0:36
Jen: Wherever you find yourself today, I am so glad you're here.
0:41
Jen: We have a letter today written by a current Goshen College student,
0:46
Jen: Caoimhe Farrell. Caoimhe is a junior here at Goshen,
0:51
Jen: and she's a member of our track and field team.
0:54
Jen: The person she's writing to is 3,615 miles away in her homeland of Ireland.
1:05
Jen: It's Caoimhe's track coach, Mary Barrett. Mary has coached Caoimhe since she was six
1:12
Jen: years old, and Mary actually competed for Ireland herself.
1:17
Jen: Mary was always there for Caoimhe. Through thousands of training sessions,
1:22
Jen: in the race where Caoimhe fell, when Caoimhe got her personal best,
1:27
Jen: and the day that Caoimhe decided to move across the ocean, Mary was there for her.
1:34
Jen: In a world where it feels like everyone is keeping score,
1:37
Jen: these two have found something that matters more than winning.
1:41
Jen: Here are Caoimhe and Mary.
1:44
Caoimhe: Well, my name is Caoimhe Farrell. My first name's C-A-O-I-M-H-E.
1:50
Caoimhe: I'm a communication major with minors in public relations and writing.
2:04
Caoimhe: I've lived my whole life in Woodford, which is a really small town in Galway,
2:08
Caoimhe: Ireland, near the coast of Clare. It's very small, like, there's, like,
2:13
Caoimhe: 240 something people. I don't know if that's changed right now.
2:17
Caoimhe: Someone may have had a baby or whatever, but it's the kind of place that you know
2:22
Caoimhe: everyone. Like if you drive past anybody in Woodford, you get a wave.
2:27
Caoimhe: And my school, I don't know exactly how many there was, but in my class itself,
2:32
Caoimhe: I think when we graduated, there was just under 20 of us.
2:36
Caoimhe: Like people did look out for each other, and I'm very thankful for that,
2:40
Caoimhe: and I wouldn't change any of it. But I definitely did struggle in the school
2:44
Caoimhe: department, both academically and just like sometimes socially.
2:48
Caoimhe: We're learning new stuff every week. It's made for a brain that can sit in a
2:53
Caoimhe: classroom for hours and receive that information and then put it on a test.
2:58
Caoimhe: But not everybody has that brain. A lot of the times I didn't have my homework done,
3:05
Caoimhe: or I had it some done because I couldn't remember what we had talked about during
3:09
Caoimhe: the day, 'cause it had just been lectured instead of learned.
3:12
Caoimhe: I would just, like, feel like a failure, you know?
3:15
Caoimhe: I don't think that if I wasn't an athlete I could have gotten through all of the
3:21
Caoimhe: schooling that I did. So I was in athletics training because my two older
3:29
Caoimhe: sisters were, and I've always been super competitive,
3:32
Caoimhe: even though I wasn't wanting to do the training.
3:36
Caoimhe: Like Bushfield is where we would train. It's just like a, a soccer pitch,
3:40
Caoimhe: but it's not well-kept at all. I remember seeing other kids running,
3:45
Caoimhe: and it was a mix of boys and girls, kind of a couple different ages,
3:48
Caoimhe: and all I remember was like, I could run faster than them. Well, I decided I could.
3:53
Caoimhe: Whether that was entirely true, I don't fully remember that.
4:05
Mary: My name is Mary Barrett, and I am q- one of Caoimhe's athletics coaches.
4:10
Mary: I'm very competitive, and I'm still competitive to this day.
4:14
Mary: I mean, even though the body isn't as strong or, or as fast as it used to be,
4:19
Mary: I still want to win. I knew from a very young age that I wanted to be a PE
4:25
Mary: teacher. I would have been educated in England in a convent school.
4:28
Mary: A convent school in England at the time, um, was very ladylike,
4:35
Mary: and the only sport I would have played at the time was netball.
4:38
Mary: There was no athletics in my school, but we did have a sports once a year,
4:43
Mary: the Catholic Games, where all the Catholic schools came together,
4:46
Mary: and it was actually the starter, Mr. Duffy, who said to me,
4:50
Mary: "You should join the local athletics track," 'cause I would have won the sprint
4:55
Mary: every year that I did it. Then I tried high jump and they found I was a decent
5:03
Mary: high jumper, so I kind of did high jump, did multi events and I've just,
5:08
Mary: I've kept going. Keep going. I went through school, I did it through college,
5:13
Mary: kept going as a senior and eventually got onto the Irish team in 1985.
5:21
Mary: We were the first ladies team in Ireland to make the Europa Cup and did it again in
5:27
Mary: '87. So we started the thing that Kate O'Connor now is now the European champion.
5:37
Caoimhe: She felt famous to me. And so Mary was coaching...
5:41
Caoimhe: Like, she's coached hundreds of kids. I don't think at first she really, like,
5:46
Caoimhe: paid much mind to me 'cause she was with slightly older kids.
5:49
Caoimhe: And I remember being like, "Oh, I need to show her that I'm fast.
5:53
Caoimhe: I need to, like, prove myself to her." I just wanted to be the fastest,
5:58
Caoimhe: whatever that took. And I didn't necessarily love training at first.
6:02
Caoimhe: I loved competing, I loved to win, but I didn't love the, like,
6:06
Caoimhe: repetitiveness of all of it.
6:08
Mary: You can put 20 kids out there doing a high, a high skip, as I call it.
6:12
Mary: You will immediately see the ones that have potential to do some kind of jump.
6:17
Mary: The other thing that is really interesting with kids as well,
6:20
Mary: you would get a lot of kids come into training from a very young age who are put
6:25
Mary: in there by parents, and there's no passion there. They don't want it.
6:31
Mary: Caoimhe, naturally she would've been very fast, so she was a sprinter and she was on
6:35
Mary: relays, and she was one of a bunch, and there would've been four or five other
6:40
Mary: girls with her. But gradually, the four or five other girls all disappeared.
6:45
Caoimhe: I know a lot of people have found Mary to be very intimidating.
6:50
Caoimhe: She helped organize competitions, and so people know her as, like, kind of bossy.
6:54
Caoimhe: And they would come to me and they'd be like, "Gosh, your coach is, like,
6:58
Caoimhe: she's so scary. She's so intimidating." And I'd be like, "Mary?
7:02
Caoimhe: Like, she's like my granny. Like, she's like family to me."
7:05
Caoimhe: A very comforting figure. But also, like, there's been times where, like,
7:09
Caoimhe: I've had a really hard day and I'll go to training and I'll just be sitting there,
7:14
Caoimhe: you know, and she'll rub my back and she'll be like,
7:17
Caoimhe: "You can see that you're tired, but we're gonna do more."
7:27
Jen: Caoimhe went on to compete in the pentathlon.
7:30
Jen: A pentathlon is five events scored together: 60 meter hurdles, high jump,
7:36
Jen: shot put, long jump, and the 800 meters. It's a sport you might only notice every
7:42
Jen: four years when its bigger sibling, the heptathlon, shows up at the Olympics.
7:47
Jen: That one adds a 200 meters and the javelin. Athletes call these multi-events.
7:56
Jen: It's an unusual choice to compete in these, and for Caoimhe and Mary,
8:01
Jen: there's a reason for it.
8:05
Caoimhe: I think the reason that I got into multi-events,
8:08
Caoimhe: and a lot of Mary's athletes are multi-eventers,
8:11
Caoimhe: is because Mary is great at keeping young athletes in a really good spot.
8:17
Caoimhe: And so with multi-events, the beautiful thing is you don't specialize.
8:22
Caoimhe: I could win a national medal in hurdles, but if I don't work on my weaknesses,
8:28
Caoimhe: for example, if I don't throw a shot put far enough,
8:32
Caoimhe: then my multi-events are not gonna do anything.
8:34
Mary: I probably have a philosophy. I'd be a good loser and you'll be a brilliant
8:38
Mary: winner. And I think that's the most important thing,
8:52
Mary: that if we lose at something, can we work our way through it?
8:52
Mary: If we've lost, have we done our best performance? How can we improve?
8:53
Mary: What do we need to go back to the drawing board and work on?
8:53
Mary: And I think that's the most important thing.
8:54
Caoimhe: It's a really great way to keep things in perspective,
8:58
Caoimhe: 'cause it's not common for people to have all five events be great.
9:01
Caoimhe: You're gonna have bad events. And so it's really important to keep people in it,
9:06
Caoimhe: and keep people trying, and keep people working at things that they're good and
9:10
Caoimhe: bad at. And I'm really thankful for that.
9:13
Jen: Every athlete has a bad game. With a multi-event,
9:17
Jen: it's pretty much a given that you'll have at least one bad event.
9:21
Jen: Those tough losses stick with us. Ask any athlete about the race they can't forget,
9:27
Jen: and they'll know exactly which one. Caoimhe is no exception.
9:32
Jen: She can tell you exactly which event on which day.
9:38
Caoimhe: That day was, like, Connacht Schools Athletics Combined Event,
9:42
Caoimhe: so it was my second event of the day in a pentathlon.
9:45
Caoimhe: And I was intermediate, so I was probably 16 or 17,
9:49
Caoimhe: and I was leading the competition. My next event was hurdles.
9:53
Caoimhe: Like, this was, like, my, like, really good time in hurdles, like, my prime.
9:56
Caoimhe: And so I was like, "Yeah, this is gonna be good."
9:59
Caoimhe: And I had nothing to lose with this hurdle race, and I just got out so fast,
10:04
Caoimhe: and I was going. Like, I've never... I don't think I've run that fast over
10:08
Caoimhe: hurdles since then.
10:10
Mary: She was absolutely flying at the time. Go, Caoimhe.
10:15
Caoimhe: And on the second to last hurdle, I don't even fully know what happened.
10:19
Mary: Didn't hit a hurdle, just went down on the foot.
10:24
Caoimhe: Fell straight to the track and, like, almost into the next hurdle.
10:27
Caoimhe: But I got up and, like, finished the race with, like, not even that,
10:31
Caoimhe: that slow of a time. But I don't know.
10:34
Caoimhe: I've even tried to, like, time that race and do the maths to see, like,
10:38
Caoimhe: what it would've been 'cause it was so good,
10:41
Caoimhe: and then I just ate track 'cause I was like, "Ah, that could've been so fast."
10:50
Caoimhe: There's not much you can do after a fall, but I just felt so frustrated.
10:54
Caoimhe: I didn't even care about the win that day, 'cause I had like track burned on my knees
11:00
Caoimhe: and like they were gonna... Little did I know they were gonna get really bruised.
11:05
Caoimhe: And like my whole like shin, like front calf was all like burnt and everything.
11:10
Caoimhe: There had to be dressings on that. But I didn't feel any of it.
11:14
Caoimhe: And I was like, "This whole thing, like it feels pointless.
11:28
Caoimhe: Like why would I finish a competition when
11:28
Caoimhe: I've already kind of messed up my chances?"
11:29
Mary: I won't say she wasn't competitive to come back at it, but what she was, it...
11:32
Mary: What it does to you, and I know it does to myself, you lose your confidence,
11:38
Mary: and it takes you a long time to build that confidence up again.
11:42
Mary: It's not necessarily in the physical, but it's the mental.
11:46
Mary: It's the mental strength that is important, and that can take a couple of
11:50
Mary: weeks. It can take a couple of months. It can take a couple of years,
11:53
Mary: and it takes you a little while to get back up to where you were,
11:57
Mary: and then you have to go. There's a fear there that we're going to do it again,
12:01
Mary: and if we do something a second time, that's double trouble.
12:11
Jen: But this didn't break Caoimhe. Scraped raw, she was more focused than ever.
12:16
Jen: There was a competition left to finish, and more important than any of it,
12:22
Jen: she knew her coach was there rooting for her.
12:26
Caoimhe: But I remember her just like keeping chill, keeping me going the whole time,
12:30
Caoimhe: like kind of the same Mary she always is. I can hear my own breath,
12:34
Caoimhe: but sometimes I can hear her and she'll be like, "Go, Caoimhe, come on, last bit,
12:38
Caoimhe: last bit," or whatever. Um, and like for high jump,
12:42
Caoimhe: she'll be on the sideline sometimes, "Just focus on this and you'll be fine," or,
12:45
Caoimhe: "Just do this and the next one you'll clear it." And I'm like, "Okay."
12:49
Caoimhe: She remains very consistent the whole time.
12:51
Caoimhe: Like it's just another training session. Even if you're on like a national final,
12:55
Caoimhe: she's still gonna talk to you like you're at home training and you're in the grass
13:00
Caoimhe: fields of Bushfield, you know?
13:03
Mary: I think what you do to help them as an athlete, and I did it myself.
13:06
Mary: I remember when I was 14 winning our county high jump championship and jumping
13:12
Mary: 1 meter 56, breaking the record and on the bee's knees and I did something else.
13:17
Mary: But I remember going to another competition a couple of weeks later and
13:22
Mary: the starting height was 125. And I remember knocking the bar three times at
13:26
Mary: 125. And I remember crying my eyes out and going away.
13:31
Mary: But you then have to park that and say, right,
13:34
Mary: I come on the next day and I actually then work at it.
13:38
Mary: And I think that's, that's probably one of the best events for helping athletes.
13:43
Mary: There'll be one event and quite often the event
13:45
Mary: that they go down in is their best individual event.
13:51
Jen: Life is funny sometimes. That same afternoon, the afternoon she fell,
13:57
Jen: with barely 20 minutes to warm up, Caoimhe
14:01
Jen: jumped higher than ever with a personal best.
14:05
Caoimhe: That was like right after the competition that I had fallen.
14:09
Caoimhe: And so I had only had like 20 minutes to warm up for high jump.
14:12
Caoimhe: Like it was weird because I was around lots of girls who were all jumping and
14:17
Caoimhe: trying to get in their zone. And I was like turned around and I had my eyes
14:21
Caoimhe: closed and I was talking to myself like a crazy woman.
14:23
Caoimhe: And I was like, if she can jump that, you can jump that.
14:26
Caoimhe: Which is such a silly logic and I don't even know where that came from.
14:30
Caoimhe: But in my mind, I was like, if she can jump that, you can jump that.
14:33
Caoimhe: Or if the girl before me knocked the bar, I'd be like,
14:36
Caoimhe: it doesn't really matter what she does because you're going to clear it anyways.
14:40
Caoimhe: And I remember Mary being there, like I could see her in the corner of my eye and
14:43
Caoimhe: she was like running around because she was helping organize the event.
14:46
Caoimhe: And she had like her camera up and she was like trying to like get my jumps on.
14:50
Caoimhe: And she was like so happy. And I remember her being very proud of me that day.
14:56
Caoimhe: She said, well done, good girl. When she says that, I'm like, yeah, I did do good.
15:02
Caoimhe: Like, well done. You know, especially for young minds and disciplines and
15:11
Caoimhe: everything, it's not good to have so much pressure on this one thing.
15:16
Caoimhe: And so the reason that Mary keeps so many of her athletes in multi-events up until
15:20
Caoimhe: almost adulthood is because it gives them an opportunity to be great at things and
15:27
Caoimhe: be very poor at things and try it all.
15:30
Caoimhe: Like, I think Mary said this earlier, every single time you compete,
15:34
Caoimhe: whether it's a great day, whether it's a poor day, whether it's the best day ever,
15:38
Caoimhe: you always end on failure. But you have to wrap your head around it first before you
15:43
Caoimhe: wrap your body around the bar and get over it.
15:46
Caoimhe: And I think there's something important in that.
15:55
Jen: Two years before Caoimhe graduated, a message landed in her Instagram DMs.
16:00
Jen: It was from the Goshen College track and field team inviting her to come to
16:05
Jen: America. She thought it was a scam. America to a girl from a town of around
16:11
Jen: 240 people didn't feel real. A year later, however, the invitation came again,
16:17
Jen: this time from a teammate she knew. And for the first time,
16:22
Jen: Caoimhe started to think maybe she really could go.
16:27
Caoimhe: So we did a Zoom call, and I got, like, a tour of the athletic facilities,
16:45
Caoimhe: and it looked fantastic. Because to me, I was like,
16:45
Caoimhe: "I'm gonna continue doing athletics, and that's all I need to do."
16:46
Caoimhe: And I get to go see America, and it looks like in the movies, which it does,
16:46
Caoimhe: by the way, very much. And it's just a completely different feeling.
16:47
Caoimhe: I think that in a way, I kind of needed to come to America.
16:49
Caoimhe: Not because I don't love my country. Of course I love my country,
16:52
Caoimhe: and I love being with my family. But for me, I think that I needed that boost.
16:56
Caoimhe: I needed that extra support. Because I'm not stupid, and I'm very capable.
17:03
Caoimhe: But if I'm ignored or if I'm just kind of left with this whole mountain to climb on
17:11
Caoimhe: my own, I'm not gonna do it. But if I can take it, like, rock by rock,
17:15
Caoimhe: then it's much easier.
17:17
Mary: And she said, "What do you think?" I said, "That's up to you."
17:20
Mary: I said, "If you're happy to go there." I would not have pushed very many athletes
17:26
Mary: to go to American colleges because I've seen there's been more detriment done to
17:32
Mary: their performances. There's been more injuries. Um, a lot of them have given up
17:39
Mary: the sport totally when they're out there. And it's very difficult.
17:43
Mary: I mean, I went to college in England, which was two hundred miles away from my
17:47
Mary: parents. That time there was no mobile phones,
17:51
Mary: so there was a phone on our corridor. And every Sunday night you went with your,
17:55
Mary: whatever it was at the time, your coins to ring home.
17:59
Mary: You rang home, and that was really the contact outside of letter writing,
18:03
Mary: which I'd generally write a letter to Mum every week.
18:06
Mary: So you have the other balance of homesickness as well.
18:13
Caoimhe: She's just texted me like nothing's, uh, like no distance.
18:16
Caoimhe: Like she'll text and she'll be like, "Oh, hope you're doing well.
18:20
Caoimhe: I saw this of you on Facebook or LinkedIn or whatever."
18:24
Caoimhe: And then she'll go on to be like, "Oh yeah, this is how the grandkids are doing,
18:28
Caoimhe: and then I was doing this last week, and then this went well, and this went well."
18:32
Caoimhe: She'll ask about training or be like she acts like the same person even though,
18:37
Caoimhe: like, I haven't seen her in a while.
18:40
Mary: I told her she came back for too little. We wanted to see a bit more of her.
18:43
Mary: But that's Caoimhe. She had her plan, and she was going to do what she was going to
18:47
Mary: do. And I said, "That's fine." So I said, "We'll see you again at Christmas,
18:50
Mary: hopefully for a couple of weeks, and get
18:51
Mary: back and do a little bit of training then."
18:54
Caoimhe: Yeah, Mary's always been the exact same. I d- I don't think I could imagine Mary any
18:59
Caoimhe: differently. I don't think she's capable of that,
19:01
Caoimhe: and I don't think I'm capable of processing that.
19:04
Caoimhe: I think that she's seen me in so many different phases,
19:08
Caoimhe: so it's kinda like weird 'cause she's always been the same to me.
19:10
Caoimhe: Like she could still have the same clothes and everything.
19:14
Caoimhe: She just, she just is Mary.
19:16
Mary: I find her very mature, for a young girl, I mean.
19:20
Mary: I have a lot of other students who haven't a clue where they're going,
19:24
Mary: what they're doing, and they most certainly wouldn't have survived in
19:28
Mary: America. But she didn't struggle. She had a small initial period,
19:33
Mary: but you would understand that. But since that, she's just moved on.
19:37
Mary: Athletics is an individual sport, and it's very tough. Um, you- it's self...
19:43
Mary: You have to motivate yourself. Okay, there's a training group,
19:47
Mary: but you have to turn up at that training group,
19:49
Mary: and it's up to you at the session what you put in.
19:51
Mary: Do I put 100% in, or am I just doing 70% today?
19:55
Mary: So you have to be self-driven, and you have to have your own goals,
19:59
Mary: whether they're short-term, medium, long-term.
20:03
Caoimhe: It's a tough world to be in as an athlete, especially as a female athlete,
20:07
Caoimhe: because people are always gonna have things to say.
20:10
Caoimhe: Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce, the Jamaican sprinter, she's just retired.
20:14
Caoimhe: Like, she's up there with Usain Bolt, but she has people commenting on how she
20:19
Caoimhe: styles her hair or what her stomach looks like a year out from having a baby,
20:24
Caoimhe: and you don't hear that with men as much. It's not that it's entirely gone.
20:27
Caoimhe: People are always gonna comment. And so I think that's another, like,
20:31
Caoimhe: very important thing that Mary's taught me, is, like,
20:34
Caoimhe: she is a wonderful role model as a woman. I was a teenager, like, looking at Mary.
20:37
Caoimhe: She doesn't care whether I come in looking whatever that looks like or in my pajamas.
20:44
Caoimhe: She doesn't care. She's not there to criticize, and if I need to stop and have
20:49
Caoimhe: a snack in the middle of an athletics training session, that's fine.
20:53
Caoimhe: Mary offers a, kind of a refreshing reminder that she is a,
20:58
Caoimhe: an incredibly successful athlete, and coach, and parent, and grandparent.
21:03
Caoimhe: She doesn't feed into whatever whoever wants her to feed into,
21:08
Caoimhe: and she's not gonna let anything come in the way of that.
21:12
Jen: When we first reached out to Mary and told her Caoimhe wanted to read her a letter,
21:16
Jen: she said yes right away. Ireland is hours ahead of us, and by the time we recorded,
21:22
Jen: it was already late at night there. So we spoke to Mary and Caoimhe separately,
21:28
Jen: but we wanted Caoimhe to read her letter to Mary face-to-face over Zoom.
21:32
Mary: You look very professional.
21:33
Jen: The moment they saw each other, Caoimhe lit up.
21:36
Caoimhe: Like the newsreader. The newsreader. Welcome back to RTÉ.
21:38
Jen: She sounded like the little girl who wanted to show her coach how fast she was-
21:42
Mary: Is Mom and Dad behind you?
21:43
Jen: telling Mary everything that's happened
21:45
Jen: lately, even though they text all the time.
21:48
Caoimhe: Hi, Mom. Listen, Mary, the whole weekend I've been moving, and moving, and moving,
21:52
Caoimhe: and moving. I have a whole flat now.
21:54
Mary: Not doing too bad. Um, I suppose we didn't have too many compete this year.
21:59
Caoimhe: I got news that I'm going on to the next level in the speech competition I did.
22:03
Caoimhe: It's gonna be a bit awkward actually, Mary, so... God, this is awkward. Sorry.
22:09
Jen: And now, a letter straight from the heart.
22:14
Caoimhe: Dear Mary, we met for the first time on the squishy wet fields of Loughrea
22:19
Caoimhe: Athletics Club's grounds in Bushfield. I was six years old,
22:23
Caoimhe: and I was wearing my little flower shorts that I was obsessed with at the time,
22:27
Caoimhe: and you had our group run all the way across the pitch and back.
22:31
Caoimhe: I was determined to be the fastest out of all the boys and all the girls in the six
22:37
Caoimhe: to eight age group, which I was not. Just so you know,
22:41
Caoimhe: if Ireland needed a sub for the Olympic team, I would be available.
22:46
Caoimhe: You convinced me to come training for all five events of the pentathlon,
22:50
Caoimhe: even when I was moody about it. 12-year-old Caoimhe was not a fan of doing
22:56
Caoimhe: all the technical things or practicing my landing in the long jump sandpit over and
23:02
Caoimhe: over again, just one more time, but you would tell me to, so I went again.
23:07
Caoimhe: You had faith in me even if I did not.
23:10
Caoimhe: Your patience and persistence got me to training and actually kept me there.
23:16
Caoimhe: I didn't like it at the time when you were stern, yet supportive,
23:20
Caoimhe: while I was a teenager. I was sometimes lazy or sore,
23:24
Caoimhe: and you made sure I ran the session anyways.
23:27
Caoimhe: I tried so hard every time you corrected my leading leg over the hurdle with the
23:32
Caoimhe: reminder to snap it down when I hurdled, even though I flicked it out anyways.
23:37
Caoimhe: The times you rubbed my back as I puked my guts up after running the 800 meters at
23:42
Caoimhe: the end of the Connacht Schools Multi-Event Championships after a long
23:47
Caoimhe: pentathlon are gross yet fond memories for me.
23:51
Caoimhe: I puked after every 800-meter race for the five years competing at the Connacht
23:57
Caoimhe: Schools on the bright blue track in Athlone.
23:59
Caoimhe: Gladly, I made it to the black rubbish bins in time to barf.
24:05
Caoimhe: You always said that my tendency to puke was a way of getting my nerves out,
24:09
Caoimhe: though it often just felt like my breakfast was what wanted out.
24:13
Caoimhe: I always looked for the texts you sent me when you couldn't make it to watch me
24:18
Caoimhe: race. They were sometimes the only thing that kept me sane as I walked to the start
24:23
Caoimhe: line, shaking while I set my blocks. I loved the races you were able to come to.
24:29
Caoimhe: I could only hear your voice in the background through the crowds clearer than
24:34
Caoimhe: any other. "Caoimhe, push now. Snap that lead leg," or, "Caoimhe,
24:38
Caoimhe: get up again and finish strong." I remember the affection you gave me after I
24:43
Caoimhe: fell in what would've been a personal record race in the 60 meter hurdles.
24:48
Caoimhe: You helped keep me calm while my dad cleaned the little rubber track pieces out
24:53
Caoimhe: of my legs after hitting the track in between the hurdles.
24:57
Caoimhe: It stung and sent raw pain throughout my legs and made my eyes tear up.
25:01
Caoimhe: I had little specks of blue rubber embedded into the burns on my shin,
25:06
Caoimhe: back of my shoulder, hip, and cheekbone. I could not have competed the following
25:11
Caoimhe: three events without you being there to guide me through them,
25:14
Caoimhe: telling me to breathe and just to finish strong.
25:18
Caoimhe: I recognized the pride you had with each medal I won.
25:22
Caoimhe: You always took pictures of me, regardless of whether it was the County Galway medal
25:27
Caoimhe: that I got for getting through the race or a national medal that I got for running
25:31
Caoimhe: faster than I ever had before. You gave me the reminder that I should be grateful for
25:36
Caoimhe: everything I achieve, even when I consider myself to have failed.
25:40
Caoimhe: Your support when I told you I was moving 3,615 miles across the world to do
25:46
Caoimhe: athletics in a time zone five hours behind Ireland's was so abundant.
25:51
Caoimhe: I truly don't believe there is any coach who would feel happy about their athlete
25:56
Caoimhe: moving away after spending so much time training with them,
25:59
Caoimhe: but you were the anomaly. You embraced the move with an open mind and supported me
26:06
Caoimhe: through it entirely. Your presence made my faith stronger in all aspects of my life.
26:12
Caoimhe: The world knew I needed a coach like you, who was supportive of me even when I am
26:17
Caoimhe: training with a new team, a new coach. The letters you send me in the post and the
26:23
Caoimhe: occasional text message never fail to make me smile.
26:26
Caoimhe: Thank you for mentoring me into the athlete I have become today.
26:31
Caoimhe: Without you as my coach, I am not sure I would have achieved what I have in getting
26:35
Caoimhe: to the States, winning all of the county, provincial, and national medals I have,
26:41
Caoimhe: and especially in gaining the discipline I have now, both on and off the track.
26:46
Caoimhe: You will always be my number one coach, both in person and across the globe.
26:53
Caoimhe: Thank you, Caoimhe Farrell.
26:57
Mary: Wow. One letter. Didn't think I had that effect on you.
27:18
Caoimhe: Now I need to know about your, uh, my effect on you, eh? Where's my letter?
27:23
Mary: Good God, I'd have to be half to sort of compose one.
27:27
Mary: Yeah, my English was never my strong point, I'm afraid.
27:31
Caoimhe: It's all right. I'll forgive you just this once.
27:34
Caoimhe: But, well, when I wrote the letter, I didn't actually, um,
27:37
Caoimhe: anticipate having to read it to you, so
27:40
Caoimhe: gotten a bit further than I thought it would.
27:44
Mary: God, it brings back all the memories. Sh- I actually remember that.
27:48
Mary: That kind of stuck in my head for lots of different reasons.
27:53
Caoimhe: And I PB'd and... Do you remember I PB'd in almost everything? Yeah.
27:56
Caoimhe: I know I was, I was bouncing.
27:56
Jen: I don't know about you, but I could listen to them like this all day.
28:03
Jen: So is there someone you'd like to thank for making an impact on your life?
28:07
Jen: Perhaps someone who's your coach as well, or a person who's influenced your life in
28:13
Jen: a powerful way. If so, we would love to hear from you.
28:18
Jen: Just visit our website at thegratitudeletters.org,
28:22
Jen: where you'll find everything you need to send us a letter of your own.
28:27
Jen: The Gratitude Letters is a brand-new podcast about the people we're grateful
28:32
Jen: for and taking a moment to let them know.
28:35
Jen: In each episode, someone writes a letter of thanks and we bring it to life.
28:39
Jen: New episodes drop every other Thursday. Search The Gratitude Letters wherever you
28:45
Jen: get your podcasts, and be sure to follow us on Facebook and Instagram.
28:52
Jen: Today's show was produced and sound designed by Yebu Ji.
28:55
Jen: Sound engineering by Alex Dugger. Original music by Hannis Brown.
29:00
Jen: Our marketing manager is Melissa Troyer, and our audience engagement manager is
29:05
Jen: Courtney Dobrzykowski. Duane Stoltzfus is our executive producer.
29:10
Jen: The Gratitude Letters is part of More Than Just Stories with funding from Lilly
29:16
Jen: Endowment. And until next time, I'm your host, Jen Shenk,
29:23
Jen: with a reminder that it's never too late and always a good time to say thank you.
29:30
Jen: Thanks for listening.