Endurance Athlete - On the desire to be great - By bobby mcgee

Hi! this is Bobby McGee from bobbymcgee.com My cheeks are a little bit frozen. I'm out here on Marshall Mesa Trail in a... Boulder, Colorado. If you look behind me you'll see a.... the foothills uhm... just having a little bit of a run. And uh... I wanted to talk to you guys this morning a little bit about uh... wanting it. You know? Whether you're a beginner... triathlete beginner runner or whether you're an extremely experienced pro. A..getting to to the very top involves crossing over a lot of barriers, and when you sign up you don't sign up for all the dips and valleys and canyons that you have to go through to get to where you want to get to. And you don't even clearly know, you know? What it is that you want to achieve and uh... once you start going those things become clearer but uh... a good coaching colleague and friend of mine Sergio Santos uh... Olympic Silver Medallist coach of a... Vanessa Fernandez and coach of many other fine ITU triathletes very good uh... runner himself. Uhm... always speaks about the things that go wrong with countries when the athletes don't succeed at the highest level and...and his theory is that the want goes away, that life becomes such that the desire to apply yourself in these Endurance Sports becomes uh... comes muted and it's no longer that important. When I was uh... starting off my coaching career I was a high school teacher for twelve years. And, it was always very difficult for me to determine why some kids would show up every day and why they would want it so much and not to have as much talent as as some of the other kids obviously had and ah... would... would ah ultimately get uh... a lot further down the line they would be the over achieved and the other one's would get uh... state colors and national colors, and records and things like that. Just because of that, the sheer passion and desire that they had and uh... so to you see uh... with with uh... nations and countries and uh...you know? we are we speak about that mongrel effect. Where... it seems that to be a successful Endurance Athlete you need to have had a pretty tough upbringing somehow uh... growing up should have been physically, mentally, emotionally uh...or one of those three really really hard in order for you to have that kind of tolerance to to put up with the... the amount of discomfort you have to put up with to be as good as you can be. So, I think today's messages is just to make sure uh... that you are really really clear on uh... on your desire on your passion, and what it is that you want and... and go after that even... even when it is cold, even when it is hot, even when it is... when you are tired and other life circumstances are preventing you from being uhm.. you know? as effective out there as you would like to be. Just a...focusing on...on what your ultimate outcome is. And that's what makes us the Endurance Community, such a sick bunch of puppies because we are able to hold onto this deferred gratification, this long-term gratification and... and put up with uh... a large amount of... of for some it is basically tough, and then in the end to have what... what we ultimately want, and then to be able to intrinsically love that... that suffering or that application. Alright guys! Go out there! Be tough! Enjoy it! And uh... keep focusing on what it is that you want.