The Stretch Theory

Grade four was a big year in my running career; it was the year I learned the deep importance of stretching.

Every day after school, from late February to mid April, my elementary school's cross country team would practice. Before every training session the team would gather in the gym to do our stretches and this is where I was to learn a vital lesson.

Usually my friends and I would break into not so quiet "whispering" and tomfoolery after the first few leg stretches while the coach tried to get through a decent warm up. The only time we stopped to actually stretch was to see who could balance for the longest while pulling one leg up behind us and standing on the other.

On this particular day though our coach finally became fed up with our antics. He stopped the warm up with nothing more than silence and a piercing stare at our rowdy group. We froze and a multitude of punishments our coach could inflict came to my mind, each worse than the last.

Suddenly the coach broke the silence. "You think this is a joke boys?" he said, "Well do you wanna know what happens when you don't stretch before a race?"

It wasn't really a question so much as an introduction and our coach proceded to tell us a handfull of squirm-inducing stories about kids who had neglected to stretch and had torn all sorts of muscles and ligements and popped knee caps and such in horrifying ways.

Suffice it to say, no one in that room that day ever forgot to stretch again.

Now although I was scared that day into seeing the importance of stretching I later realized the positive payoff of stretching on my own and although I haven't always been the most vigilant in doing a warm up, I've always run better after completing one.

I have also recognized that stretching isn't just an important tool in helping you run a better race, but also in helping live a more fulfilling life as well.

When you stretch before a race you sometimes reach for a part of your body, like your toes, in an attempt to loosen muscles, and become for flexible so you can use those muscles in a race and decrease your chance of getting a cramp or an injury.

In life you can also stretch, but in a different sense. You can stretch to achieve your goals and dreams.

You may not reach your goals the first time you stretch for them. For example you may not be elected the first time you run for student council or toast your marshmallow to a perfect golden brown the first time you make a s'more, just like you may not be able to touch your toes the first few times you stretch. But if you keep on working and stretching outside of the what you can certainly do to something you want to eventually do then you will finally achieve it, as well as improving yourself and learning lessons and skills along the way.

Just as when you stretch you prepare muscles used in a race, when you stretch for something in life that isn't always easy, like a big promotion or reconciling a broken relationship, you learn other skills and lessons about yourself that can help you in other areas of life. Perserverance, time management and the importance of forgiveness are just a few of these.

Stretching for the hard goals in life may take you outside of your comfort zone to try to achieve objectives that you have never reached before, just like in stretching when you use a muscle that hasn't been used as much or when you can't reach your toes as easily. But in doing this you lift yourself out of the ordinary into the extraordinary and prevent yourself from falling into a rut or routine of laziness or self-pity which can lead to harm or missed opportunities just as in stretching you decrease your chance of getting hurt in a race.

Now injury in running may happen even though you have prepared as much as humanly possible, and life is the same. You may fail, lose or fall down, but getting right back up and out onto the course is also important and stretching is a key part in getting yourself back in the game.

Stretching may be hard work, an arduous exercise that seems unnecesary at times and painful at others, but once you take the time, reach out and grab hold of that vision and plan you'll be ready to jump up and track down your dreams.