“The comeback is accomplished in the relative obscurity of smaller steps performed without fanfare, often with no one watching.”
Everyone loves a good comeback story, and our sport has them in all forms. You see athletes who deal with illness, injury, burnout, and life changes of various forms that take them away from their best performances, or even away from the sport completely. Sometimes, you see those individuals work their way back to their peak, even surpassing what they previously were capable of doing. You can see the great joy in them, knowing that they don’t take anything for granted, that the success is made sweeter by the struggle.
There’s also the comeback within a season, or even just bouncing back from a hard race. On the micro-level, you can even witness a comeback within a race, which is my inspiration to write about this topic today.
If you go to around 4:43:30 of this coverage of the Wisco Mile and watch the men’s elite race, you’ll see what I mean. You can watch the race develop, and see the huge (for a mile) field bumping around and fighting for position. Once you get to the last lap, you’ll see the epic comeback of our own Colin Abert. Well, you’ll see part of it – he’s far back and out of the picture for much of the coverage.
Wearing the white top, Colin is boxed in on the inside through much of the race, then drops back to about 9th place to free himself with a lap to go. At that point he was so far back that he did not appear to be a factor in the race at all. There’s a dramatic final surge down the homestretch, which of course everyone can appreciate. However, Colin’s race was made in the preceding 350 meters, where he pushed hard and focused on moving up position-by-position to put himself into the exciting battle for the win in the final straightaway.
This is rather unusual for a mile race, but it’s illustrative of how comebacks are performed on all time scales. The final product — the big finish — is just the tip of the iceberg. The comeback is accomplished in the relative obscurity of smaller steps performed without fanfare, often with no one watching. For people out there who find themselves in a difficult place, either in an upcoming race, in their running journey, or in any other aspect of life, remember to focus on the small steps and minor victories, which, when stacked up over time, can produce dramatic change.
Chris Lundstrom is the head coach of Minnesota Distance Elite – formerly Team USA Minnesota – which includes some of the top distance runners in the USA, including Annie Frisbie, Dakotah Lindwurm and Joel Reichow.
