This title is a little misleading, I mean who ever wants to lag? The definition means “to move or develop slowly, as toward a goal or objective, or in relation to an associated factor”. As I have mentioned in previous posts, I ran track all through high school and college. I was not heavily recruited for college because of my “late blooming” in high school. Also, I had already determined at the beginning of my senior year that I wanted to go to pharmacy school. That narrowed down the choices for me to pursue my degree given the number of pharmacy schools was less than half it is today. As a result of my recruiting process, I was not very well known to the team. They just saw me as another “lowly freshman”.

The way our coach ran practice was very disciplined, based on interval training with specific timed targets. The idea was to be consistent in hitting the interval times versus high variation above or below the target time. As a new guy and a freshman, I had two problems. I lacked stamina to maintain pace for all the intervals, and I wanted to prove myself to my teammates and coaches that I was the “real deal”. So, my typical practice consisted of running at the back of the pack to save stamina and energy until the last interval at which point I would take off like I was shot out of a cannon and leave the pack behind. Needless to say this was not well received by my teammates. The upper classmen had several years of experience through consistent training and practice to know how to hit the intervals on the target every single time. They also had experience of how this training methodology translated into high performance at meets. I think it might of been about 4 days into our first week of training, when we were on our last interval and I was poised to take off. The coach blew his whistle, at which point I took off, but what I quickly realized is I was not projecting myself forward. Rather I found myself flying through the air laterally off the track and into the infield landing on my backside. My teammates through their frustration, took it upon themselves to push me off the track and out of the way. I can tell you from that point forward I never did that again and learned quickly to stay on pace with the interval and the leader. Once I became acclimated to following the leaders pace and hitting the interval, I gained significant stamina and was even given the opportunity at times to lead because my body had become consistent at understanding the effort and pace necessary to hit the interval. By the time I was a junior and the upper classmen had moved on, it was me at the front leading my teammates every interval. It was critical for me to “lag” behind leaders before me in order for my mind and body to learn and understand so I could one day lead.

Leadership takeaways:

1. Leadership is not necessarily about what you know as an individual, it’s about how you influence others to make the team better and stronger. I knew I was fast and could beat all of my teammates, but that was not making the team better. Consistency, discipline and hitting the intervals is what made all of us better.
2. Leadership takes time and is based on earning the respect of others through your actions, encouragement and “In it with them” mentality. I had to show my teammates that I was willing to put in the work, but also run alongside them when the intervals got difficult to earn the respect to lead an interval.
3. Leadership should never be at the expense of others. While I was trying to impress the coach with my ability to “leave them in my dust” on the last interval, I was alienating my teammates that had put in the consistent work on the other intervals to hit the target.