Chris Derrick Nike Bowerman Track Club

“This image always makes me think about how you have to control what you can control and not worry about what you can’t control.

And in some sense, that applies to the results of the race where, you know, I felt like I raced well that day, given what I had in the tank, but I didn’t have that much in the tank. You know not because I hadn’t been training hard I had been training as hard ever trained.

But, you know, I’ve had these injuries that kind of prevented me from being at the fitness I need to be at to contend for the team. And I feel like I did the most that I could with that day. But it also, you know, I think about controlling what you can control because you can’t control people’s perceptions of you. You know this, I felt like going into the mixed zone, I was trying to. I was trying to be positive.

I was trying to put on a brave face as you well, or just express that, you know, I wasn’t ashamed of how I ran. And, you know, trying not to be self pity. And I thought that I did that. But look at the picture. Capture one moment, one stride. Looks like I’m pretty despondent, sort of like ignoring the people that I’m walking past. You know, you might get the impression I was one of those athletes that stormed out of the mixed zone instead of giving interviews.

So, yeah, you know, you can’t you can only control how you behave and you can’t control how other people perceive you, how the people will represent you. And if you if that’s what you care about, how you proceed and represented. I think you’re going to be in for a bad time of things. But, you know, one positive that came out of that day after that, you know, right after this picture was taken is.

Shalane Flanagan and Amy Craig you know, they waited for me and, you know, they you know, after I came out the mix and they told me, you know, they’re proud of me and they’re proud of how I ran. They thought I was really tough. And I guess, you know, I guess I’m kind of betraying my being a little hypocritical here because. Shouldn’t care at people, think about you. But it did mean a lot to me to hear it from those two women who I greatly admire as teammates and athletes and people I would like to be more like.

So I suppose maybe the lesson isn’t to not care at all what anyone thinks of you, but to maybe reserve that those thoughts for people close to you, people you admire who know you best to try to avoid the eye of the public, I guess, or at least try to avoid carrying what the public thinks about you. My take away from the picture.