Team Meeting

During the day to day miles of the TREK USA event, we understandably focus a great deal of attention on athletes who are running and biking hundreds of miles per day. They have tuned their bodies through commitment, perseverance and many hours of training. That is what athletes do.

But during yesterday’s TREK Team meeting in the hotel lobby, it once again occurred to me the most admirable character these amazing people possess.

They are amazing not because they are different from those who may never consider running 10 miles, biking 20 miles and then running another 5, only to get up and do it again day after day. They are amazing because they are exactly the same as the people who never will.

They have jobs. They have families. They have physical limitations, emotions and stress. They have dreams and they have disappointments. They are just like everyone else.

The defining difference is that my TREK teammates don’t endure life, they pursue it with a youthful hunger and an eager vengeance. There is no reason at all to run across a thousand miles unless you are willing to stand up and say there is. You will never hear them utter the defeatist creed “Thank god it’s Friday.” Not in this group. They are powered by a childlike optimism that refuses to fade not by luck but by desire.

To all my fellow parents out there, I am now heading out in the pre-dawn grey to meet my teammates far another day’s journey. I know my children possess this wonderful hunger for life that is a requirement of TREK, and I sincerely wish for your children that they will grow to possess it too.

ROCK ON!
Billy the Coach

Billy Sheehan, Managing Director
The DMSE Children’s Fitness Foundation
PO Box 752
North Andover, MA 01845
Tel: 978-689-0957
www.dmsefoundation.org