With skepticism, Anthony Velardi stepped onto the bus to listen the John Colter story. A few hours later, he virtually lived part of it. On the first lap of the sloppy Evergreen State College course, a muddy spot sucked one of Anthony's shoes most of the way off. A few strides later he kicked it all of the way off and off of the beaten path. Now he just had 4000 meters to go, thinking all of the way about John Colter's excruciatingly painful barefoot race against the Blackfoots. His mental toughness propelled him to a Black PR by more than 22 seconds! Just think what he could have done with 2 shoes!
"How bad do you want it? You have to want it as bad as you want to breathe!" That quote blended in with the Billy Mills movie "Running Brave", that is a bit like Paige's District Meet race. The first mile, she bolted out as our lead runner with confidence, moving up to 16th place. The second half of the race, things got scary when her asthma kicked in. She still ran tough and barely finished in 19th place, posting a 28 second Black PR, just 5 seconds off her all-time best! Her performance was inspiring to all that understood what she experienced - truly wanting to succeed as much as she wanted to breathe!