Mentoring

Have you inspired someone today? How do you know? As a running coach I see individuals every day who are looking to be inspired, either to get started or to keep going with their fitness programs. They fight and push their way to workouts and through workouts, all the while watching and waiting for that individual to cross their paths that will jump start their desire.
Often as mere mortals we look towards our sports heroes, such as Lance Armstrong or Wayne Gretzky, people who have given up so much of their everyday lives to excel at their given sport, or have overcome illness, tragedy or despair to emerge triumphant. While our sports heroes are definitely inspiring, the realism of their lifestyles does not super impose itself onto our own. Even in triathlon and running where we can compete against or at least compete with our pros, they still have the ability to fill their days with training while for us it is an add on.
To be truly inspired look deeper into the pack where the everyday athletes hang out; the Mom who has taken up running to lose weight and juggles a career with young kids or the Dad who works shift work and has to get teenagers to this practice or that. These are the people that make us want to lace up and head out the door, the runners and triathletes who receive only personal satisfaction or family accolades for all of their hard work, who fit their training in and around their lives just to run a 5k without stopping, to cover that 10k faster or to complete their first distance event.
As an experienced recreational athlete there may be times during your training that you are grasping for some inspiration yourself and while you may be inclined to look up the athletic chain I encourage you to turn the other direction and mentor a friend or relative in their journey towards where you reside. These individuals will remind you with every outing why you fell in love with your sport as they poke and prod the reaches of your memory for information as to how you got started, what you experienced along the way and how you overcame potential hurdles. If you can?t mentor on a regular basis suggest a local fun run or tri-a-try event that you can participate in together, or choose a longer event that can be done as a team to help your prot?g? decide if they want to try an endurance event. Be a cheerleader, support staff or just be an ear to talk over issues.
While your apprentice may feel they have benefited by the one on one tutoring sessions they have received, you too have benefited by getting in a great base workout and remembering what it was like in your beginning. So when you are feeling like you have digressed or have lost that loving feeling you will be reminded about how far you have come and how much you have accomplished.