Thomas Cave, senior at St. Xavier High School in Louisville has agreed to blog for KYtrackXC.com this season. This past spring he helped anchor the 3200m Relay to a Class AAA Kentucky State Championship. The relay also set a Kentucky State Record with the their time of 7:52.18. He is a member of the Class AAA Pre-Season #1 Tigers squad.
This first blog is a general writing about this upcoming season.
Personal Bests
5000 Meter Run16:35.00
800 Meter Run1:57.24
One Mile Run4:21.40
I honestly didn’t know what to write about so I looked back to the first day of my senior year which was this past Friday. I walked into my 5th period class which was Business Administration, taught by Coach Larkin who is our swimming coach. The bell rang and we all sat there looking at each other wondering how he was going to open the first class of the year. Most teachers usually give there boring “speech” about how they’ve become who they are today and dish out the rules for the year. Coach Larkin was different, he simply said “Introduce yourself and tell me what grade you are going to get in my class and how you will achieve it.” I raised my hand first and told him: “I will get an A in your class. I am usually a B student and it’s going to be hard for me to get an A but I think I can do it.” He stopped me and said, “Never say something is going to be hard, I dislike that word. It simply sets you up for failure. Instead use the word challenging. This word is better than hard because it gives you an opportunity and a decision to make and often times if you rise up to the challenge and be courageous you will be successful.” After he told me this, I thought about all the guys on the team and how we have huge goals for the upcoming season. Before Friday I thought our goals were maybe going to be “hard” to accomplish and everything would have to go right to make them happen. But Coach Larkin taught me that our goals for the upcoming season weren’t hard but challenging. And we know that to make our goals happen we must rise up to the challenge and be more courageous than we ever have been.
