Adventure Awaits
Biggest Team Race Yet
Aint’ no party like a Team Tribal Race Party!
This weekend the team descends on Chattanooga, Tennessee for the IronMan 70.3 Triathlon (1/2 the distance of a Full IronMan Triathlon.)
We have 21 athletes competing under the Tribal Banner, alongside two coaches (one being me) live coaching them through the event. There’s family, friends, and other athletes making the trip to support our athletes and bring our team spirit to the entire competition.
These athletes are everyday folks who simply chose a better version of themselves by sticking to structured and serious training, diving deep into our team culture of personal development and purpose through sport, and reaping the rewards of a strong community pushing them forward despite external adversity and internal doubts.
Watching these athletes, some of them lining up for the very first time in their adults lives, realize this potential in real time is a great honor for me as Tribal Prof, assistant coach aimed at extracting the deeper meaning of all our honest efforts in sports.
It’s the full circle where we celebrate the starting line, feel gratitude and appreciation, SEND IT on the race course, adapt to the circumstances and forge through, and recognize transcendence after the finish line.
Let me tell you something, it’s more addicting than ANY PRO SPORT. You see people just like you bringing all of themselves towards a challenge and through their sheer determination, guts, talent, and perseverance they get the job done.
Excitement, Fever Pitch
As the Tribal Prof, I’m most excited for a few of the special events we plan for our athletes in addition to the race.
Our athletes will be meeting for a swim tune up, a bike tune, registration together, a team meal, and team pre-race reflection session, and post race cool downs to soak in the accomplishment and let it truly ‘sink in.’
I’m most anticipating our pre-race reflection session. We began incorporating these the first time I attended a race to live coach last November at our team IronMan race in Florida.
I created a prompt “How is this race the end of a chapter of life and the beginning of a new one?”
It was a great prompt that opened the team up to view this race not as THE PINNACLE event, but instead one giant accomplishment in a longer process of growth through athletics.
Coach
and I ran another successful pre-race reflection session at our Elephant Mountain Team Ultra in February. This added an additional writing component to the process and has evolved into the entire rebranding of our team with it’s Run.Write.Build message.
These moments set our team apart.
Other teams could replicate what we do in terms of meals and training sessions (they could, but they generally don’t).
Other teams could build a strong online community so people meeting for the first time in real life feel like close friends already (they could, but the generally don’t).
Other teams could have coaches live on course motivation and helping athletes get the most of their efforts on race day (they could, but the generally don’t).
But there isn’t a team out there that takes as seriously the aim of personal growth through sport with these intentional reflection and writing sessions on what our efforts and these races truly mean and give us.
I’m excited for this structured session but also all the informal chats I get to have with athletes about their nerves, fears, excitement, questions, or just having them pick at my brain looking for tips, advice, or perspectives to turn to when adversity strikes in the race. Getting these moments makes it meaningful for me as a coach and heightens my desire to show up and give everyone my best self!
The Impact of Meaningful Sports
These team events are the highlight of my sports calendar.
It’s different to be involved in a sport where you are the active participant, not the passive spectator.
Endurance racing as an adult sport hits the sweet spot.
You can train seriously and get real depth and meaning out of pushing yourself hard physically.
You gain community.
You can aim at results.
You can use it to travel.
You can mine the experiences for life lessons, easily.
When done on a Team that shares the same desire to use the training as vehicle to learn deep internal truths and find the courage to live towards your own individual purpose and meaning, sports become more than just ways to move your body and stay healthy.
They become to orientation that sets you proper. That keeps you committed to the best version of yourself. When you feel like you are actively pursuing a life of ‘virtue’ and ‘quality’
I see it happen everyday in our Team through the Training we all put in.
And I’m ecstatic to see it come to fruition in real time, helping along the way, for all out 21 athletes brave enough to enter the arena on Sunday.
When I say ‘Live the good life through sports’ this is what I mean.
Let’s have a RACE DAY TEAM!
Good luck to your team on this event, being one in a progression on a long and exciting journey!