People Are Good

I had a great weekend of watching and cheering on racing this past weekend that I'd like to share my key thoughts on.

Local race, IRONMAN 70.3 Boise, in its second year after a ten year hiatus, was Saturday. The entire Boise multisport community was excited along with thousands of additional visitors. It's a beautiful swim in our Lucky Peak Reservoir, a biking tour of our local "sand pits" (yea, bike course is nothing special to look at) and an incredible run on our Boise Greenbelt that follows the Boise River on both sides.

As with the entire Pacific Northwest and most of the Rocky Mountain States, July has produced an exceptional amount of smoke this year. The week leading into the race was the worst to date - except for the two days prior. Then, on race day, blue sky! That was incredibly good news! The bad news was that clearing was caused by wind, which was amplified by the mountains surrounding the reservoir.

IRONMAN cancelled the swim due to the high winds (although kept it for the Pros with a modified course) and started all the Age-Groupers from the bike. As we can imagine, there were many "happy" athletes after hearing the announcement an hour before the start. But many of those athletes finished the race and immediately began wishing it was a true Triathlon - that's how it goes! :)

The five Team MPI athletes who raced all had many successes throughout the day, and I felt both relieved and super happy for them. But what really caught my attention throughout the entire day - even with the last minute, unexpected change of the course - were the genuine niceness, happy and grateful athletes and spectators I witnessed and talked to.

Almost everyone seemed to share a communal goal as they cheered and raced throughout the day. People supported each other and shared a genuine appreciation of participating in something special...collectively.

I left that afternoon feeling really upbeat, pleasantly surprised and thoroughly entertained by humans biking, running and cheering.

Sunday morning I woke up watching the last day of the Tour de France. Day 23 for the riders (that includes 2 days off) has customarily been ceremonial with a final sprint at the end. But the last two years, due both to course changes and to Tadej Pogačar (5-Yellow Jersey winner and the greatest cyclists of all time), this final day of racing in downtown Paris had me standing up and yelling at the TV.

I give credit to Tadej because he made it a race when he didn't have to. Ultimately, both he and Mathieu van der Poel broke from the lead group on the last climb, and seemingly against all odds, actually had a shot to escape the Peloton on flat terrain for the remaining 10 miles.

Then I watched as each mile ticked by, the Peloton got 20 seconds back...then 10 seconds back...then 6 seconds... At that point Mathieu found strength to accelerate AWAY from Tadej (remember, greatest cyclist ever). Then within the last meters, the big sprinters from the Peloton launched! But they were literally feet behind Mathieu as he crossed the finish line to win the final stage. Incredible.

Mathieu's comments after the race were special and endearing. He was super grateful, recognizing he was a part of one of the all time best finishes of the Tour de France.

But it was Tadej's remarks that stuck with me. Again, 5-Time winner of this race and greatest of all time. Here's a snippet of what he said.

Interviewer: Asking how he has won his 5th Tour de France.

Tadej: "I don't know. It's a lot of factors. The most important thing is that you enjoy what you're doing and you have people around you that you trust. And that they help you, and that they're there for you when you are at your lowest. And then you can build yourself and chase your dreams. And yeah, you have to set your goals always. So yeah, I need to now find a new goal after this!"

In the often crazy world that we now live in, yea, it was sport over this weekend that once again gave me hope.

People are good. :)

Gratefully,

Mark

Team MPI