“There is no such thing as bad weather… just soft people…"- Bill Bowerman
Trust me on this. The topic of competing when it is convenient is not going to go away. We live in a different era than yester year- I realize that more than ever now. I will be as honest and forthcoming as I can be on a subject that has perplexed for than a few people. The difference for some (who will go nameless) is that I can openly say what I feel in that I coach and make decisions within my inner circle.
The bad weather of the past week defined us as coaches, athletes, and even fans when it came to our sport of track and field. It showed us how soft we really are when a little adversity comes our way. We got spoiled in early April with great weather (well above average temps for Chicago land) that made people lose their minds. We were wearing shorts everywhere like it was summertime although it was only 65F. I went to Florida for a week long family retreat at the same time and basked in 80 degree climes. The following weekend in mid-April I traveled to Indianapolis IN to cover a meet where the Mercury reached the upper 70s. All along I knew it was a façade and I could not fully get comfortable. It all came became reality after the Midwest Prep Invitational was over and driving back home on April 18, the temperature went from 79F to 45F in a span of two hours near Lafayette IN. The temperatures continued to drop over the next week to where we are right now.
It got so cold during mid-week last week that I brought my young charges indoors for practice. I have no shame in doing that. The reason being is because it was so cold and windy that I felt it was better to get an accurate read on the times that I wanted out of my group. We were doing race pace 200s and I knew it would be impossible to ask the fellas to run 29-30 seconds every minute with the wind blowing at 20 mph. In my mind I felt it was a legitimate reason for ducking the inclement environment. But I made an excuse like so many of you out there in shielding my athletes. Or maybe I was shielding myself. Obviously if there was a competition on the line we would have competed in the elements. Not to be contradictory, we have a saying at Lane Tech: “what kind of weather is it?!" The kids shout back: “Lane Tech weather!" That simply means we compete in any weather without complaining or looking for alibis. So if it's 99F in the summer we train in it. If it is 20F and the race is not cancelled we compete in it. I remember going to a cross country race one time and seeing a team of girls wearing Ugg boots complaining about the rain soaked course during a walk through. “Oh my God, do you have to run in all of these wet stuff." I looked at my team and said 'half of your battle has been won.'
Here is what is not acceptable in my opinion. There were rumors as far as two days before this past Saturday of cancelling meets. It appears that we have relied so much on technology and advanced weather reports that we have forgotten about good old common sense. I don't understand how meet managers can cancel a meet 48 hours in advance… or even 24 hours? In the Midwest? I think if we lived on the Gulf coast or in a hurricane zone then yes. But not in Illinois. Here is a message that I received from one school on why they cancelled their meet:
“Head Coaches and AD's…
Please be advised that we have made the decision to cancel tomorrow's girl's track meet due to the projected low temperatures, rain, and inclement weather."
It sounded like to me this particular meet wanted to mail it in. So I actually took in what they said and closely monitored the situation. So on Saturday morning I got up real early and look at the weather reports and then went outside. The climes were actually better than Friday night when I was at the Dan Horyn Invite where the conditions were laced with rain, wind, and cold. I live in the Chicago suburbs where some of the meets were cancelled so I know what's going on. I took my son to his school community service project at 9am. It was drizzling and temps in the 40s but nothing outrageous wild. My son even said the conditions were fine as he was planting with his peers. If there is any kid who complains about the elements it's my 14 year old son. As I said earlier he was cool. So I am going to repeat the famous sentiment one last time: “there is no such thing as bad weather… just soft people." And there you have it.