One step at a time

You don’t have to see the whole staircase. Just take the first step.

– Martin Luther King

As an awkward and shy kid, I’d struggled to find many team sports that suited me when I’d try. When I got to middle school, a couple of posters hung around campus were shilling for athletes who liked to do things “solo”, and talked about tryouts for the cross country team. I showed up out of curiosity, and really ended up liking the coach. He was a little less enamored of the shape I’d shown up to practice in, and had his doubts about how long I might last in the discipline. When I told him I was pretty stubborn, he told me he’d be willing to give me a try. When I asked him how I’d learn to be as good as some of his best runners, he was plain.

“The same way you win a race. No shortcuts, one good step at a time.”

When Cherry Creek High School Cross Country runner Parker Wolfe started his season this year, he was coming off a year in which he had earned All-American status at the Foot Locker Nationals. Expectations for the 5’7″, 125-pound dynamo were high. Until he got COVID, and got it severely enough to impact his lungs and heart, tools that are, well… somewhat important to a long distance runner.

But Parker got back into his season the only way he knew how. One step at a time. Though he’d have to sometimes call off workouts and sessions as he broke back into his routines, he took things steadily, and ended up mostly bouncing back after an arduous month of effort. Even now, Wolfe uses an inhaler pre-race to mitigate the impact the disease took on his lungs, a huge step forward from the early days of having to use IV’s to fight his enlarged arteries. But step by step, he’s made his way back to racing.

Though his season was shortened by his recovery, the result of a healthy Parker were one of the dominating Colorado sports stories of the year. Setting course records at the state Class 5A meet (15 minutes, 10.4 seconds), the Heritage Classic (14:30.1), and a scorching 14:26.9 at the RunningLane XC national championships, Wolfe made short work of the opportunities afforded him in cross country try this year. His speed is impressive, with those times putting him around a 4:30-4:40 minute mile, over terrain. When running a regular 5k a month ago, Wolfe nearly broke the 14-minute mark with a 14:06.

This one-step-at-a-time approach has placed Parker in some pretty lofty company, having signed on to one of the country’s up-and-coming cross country programs at North Carolina. Even more impressively, his torrid short season landed him the well-earned honor of being named the 2020-21 Gatorade National Boys Cross Country Runner of the Year.

Many psychological methods teach us to look for our inspiration in those who are succeeding around us. In a year that so many found challenging, and with good reason, seeing a home-grown superstar at the beginning of his ascent on a national stage. If you’re looking for someone to emulate as you lift yourself above whatever might be on your plate these days, you could do worse than looking to a kid from Cherry Creek High School.

Just take it one step at a time.