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There are Champions in every
Neighbourhood
This week at the 2011 World Athletics Championships in Korea, a young
man from Prince George, B.C., Geoff
Martinson, contested the 1500m. As I watched the internet feed of
his race, a thought struck me - this was the first runner who's ever
run in a Wolves
Cross Country Series event to make it to a World Track Championship
race.
How cool is that? Someone who actually showed up to one of our dinky
little local x-c races was now duking it out with the best runners in
the world.
Later on that week in those same World Championships, Dylan
Armstrong, from the sprawling metropolis of Kamloops, B.C, won the silver medal in the Shot
Put - the first-ever medal by a Canadian in any throwing event in a
World Champioship.
The world's second-best shot putter is from Kamloops? Go figure.
Taken in isolation, these two little factoids seem quite amazing, but
are they really?
One of my favourite all-time quotes came from the world's greatest
distance running coach, Arthur
Lydiard: There are champions in every neighbourhood. Lydiard
supported this assertion in 1964 during the Tokyo Olympic Games when two athletes he coached,
Pete Snell and Murray Hallberg, who grew up literally blocks away from
each other, both won gold medals within the same hour.
So dream big, shoot high, and work hard towards your goal. It matters
little that you grew up in Prince George or Kamloops or even Balzac, AB
- excellence doesn't care where you were born.
For help with your goal race
taper, or better yet, a complete training plan, check out a
customized Run
Quick Training Program.
Bill Corcoran
September 2011
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