Running a mile

Whenever Rose and I go for a run, we never run more than a mile or two.  Whenever Rose and I go for a run, she blows me away by about 150-200 yards.

I went for a run with my sister.  Over the course of a single mile, she put about 250 yards in between us.

I once asked Walden how many players on Machine could run a mile at 6:30 or quicker.  His answer was all of them.

I have never run a mile faster than 7:30, but that was high school.  This week I put myself on a treadmill with an 8:00 min pace.  It was not an easy run.

Beware the signal and the noise!

I seriously doubt Machine is running miles as part of their training.  I also doubt that any well-designed training scheme will not include running miles as fast as you can.  However, pounding out a fast mile is a result of their training.

If a point last more than three possessions my utility falls off of a cliff, any “elite” player is more than capable of playing strong for a long point.

I do not plan on running miles more often, but until I can regularly run a 6:30 mile I will know that I am not training as hard as those above me.

Sisyphus

I envy Sisyphus.  Sisyphus knows his limit.  Sisyphus knows how far he can go.  Every morning he wakes up and goes all the way to his limit.  Every day.

I have a personal theory towards test taking.  If want to study until I get to a point where I feel like, even if I had more time I wouldn't study anymore.  My goal before every test I have taken is to get to this level.  In the academic world, I am able to get there every time.

I think I know my physical limit.  I got there my junior year of college.  I could have worked harder sure, it is always possible to work harder.  However, given a time machine, I wouldn't have worked harder.  Some readers may argue that the only way I feel this way is because I had a satisfying end to my junior year.  I would argue that getting last at Nationals when the dream was to play on Sunday isn't all that satisfying.

I have not gone to my limit since that season.  It has been easy to make excuses.  To rationalize missing opportunities to put in work.  To eat garbage.  To not lift heavy.

Today I did three work sets.  I wanted to do five work sets.  I only did three, but I did some extra plyos to "make up" for the two sets I skipped.  I convinced myself not to go to my limit.

I envy Sisyphus.

Early and undigested thoughts on coaching High School:

I don't think I ever earned the full trust of the girls.  Whenever I would provide them with feedback or try to have a teaching moment, they would always feel victimized.  They would tell me that I was picking on or being unfair to them.  I never found a way to share thoughts in a way that they would feel comfortable owning and digesting the criticism.

The fundamentals are way more basic than I ever could have imagined.  All of the time we spent discussing how to play defense, how to structure an offense or general in-game ideas never found it's way from drills to the field.  If I were the dictator I would go all in on partner throwing and running for practices.  Completing an upline and an incut are really hard.  Doing them well puts you in the cream of the crop.

Hopkins practices from September to June.  Most other schools that were at our level practiced from March 1 to June.  Does this mean we horribly mismanaged our practice time?  Do we desperately need all that practice time in order to stay afloat?  Or is the benefit/returns of having a long season overhyped?

High Schooler's are immensely hypocritical.  It makes me feel good because at least they know what the right thing to do is, it makes me really sad because they lack the self-awareness to check if they are doing it.

If you want kids to hate you, talk down to them.

It is really hard to flesh out a philosophy or a multistep idea with the attention spans at this level.  Everyone is looking for a quick, unbreakable answer.  There is little interest in diving into nuances and grey-scales.