Brooks Inspiring Coaches

Over the past few days I was fortunate to attend the 1st annual Brooks Inspiring Coaches Camp just outside of Seattle, WA. This was all made possible with your nomination that was spearheaded by Mrs. Stanulis who submitted an application. I owe Mrs. Stanulis and all of you a huge THANK YOU for your kind words. Without any of you I would not have had the chance to be in this position. Coaching great kids and in such an amazing community is such an honor! There were over 600 applicants that were submitted... and in the end Brooks brought out 55 coaches from 30 somethings states. More on the top 10 coaches HERE. The winner of the Inspiring Coaches Award went to Amy Pitzel from Texas. See more about Amy HERE.

From those 55 coaches Brooks narrowed the list down to 10 finalist. After hearing the stories of each of the 10 and what they have done over the years I feel so privileged with even making the top 55. These coaches coach national championship teams, most have been coaching for over 15 years and some even over 30 years, have coached many state champions, and have made a huge impact on their local running communities over the years. These 10 are the "cream of the crop" and to even be in the same room as them was an honor. I have definitely been Inspired by them all.

Brooks always does a great job of putting on 1st class events. Whether it's one of their Rock 'n Roll marathon events, a coaching camp like this, or anything else that has to do with running you can be guaranteed that it will be pretty cool. We got to run each morning and the trails were amazing in these mountains. Another coach from Michigan, Jeremy Hurley from Grand Rapids Forest Hills Northern and I ran for over an hour in these woods and were just floored by the views we encountered on our run.

At the camp there were many great speakers who presented information to us on a variety of topics. Brooks has some amazing new shoes coming out this fall. They are making solid efforts now to get product into the hands of high schoolers who are the future of our sport. A new line of shoes they are working on is the Pure Project. For those of you that love your minimalist type shoes these 4 shoes have the potential to do great things for the running world. See these shoes HERE!

To fill our extra time we had field day... think elementary school field day. Even though we are a little older, we still enjoy the lawn dart toss, relays, etc. The mid-west coaches took 3rd overall... but we think the other teams cheated or something because we were on fire. We also played 18 holes of golf on a beautiful course in the mountains. As a middle schooler I enjoyed playing tons of golf in the summer but got out of the sport as the years past. The night after the golf outing I had a hard time sleeping because I was so sore and tired. I now have a new respect for the world of golf.

I learned a ton at this event that can be used in our specific environment in Haslett and I am looking forwarded to adding some new things to our program to make it that much better.