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A relentless positive attitude.
Sounds cheesy but it's the truth.
Being a good person and everything that entails.
After that, being a good student.
I would place those two attributes well ahead of running talent and running work ethic.
For a girl, the strength and self-confidence to not be taken out by jealous, backstabbing teammates. I've talked to a lot of sports parents and many of them can tell you horror stories about catty girls' teams and how the internal strife affected their daughter's self esteem and performance.
Being 21.
nordicmama wrote:
For a girl, the strength and self-confidence to not be taken out by jealous, backstabbing teammates. I've talked to a lot of sports parents and many of them can tell you horror stories about catty girls' teams and how the internal strife affected their daughter's self esteem and performance.
^This^
Also the will to want to win. I'm not an actual coach, but the 2 kids I worked with had an extreme will to win and it showed in the other parts of their training. Willing to do the little things that pushed them over the top. Both were state champions
Positive attitude even through injuries.
Work ethic doesn't even come close to that in high school.
There are a lot of kids who work hard and then when they get injured give up all together.
One of my best guys comes to training injured or not. If he is injured he will help me out with coaching. Now that is attitude.
Other guys who don't race as they like give up for a period or when they get injured you don't hear from them for a long period.
I usually don't even try to reason with those guys even if they have a lot of talent.
1) The wherewithal to realize that high school is not the be-all end-all of a running career.
2) The patience to plan and proceed accordingly.
An absolute need to win. Distinct from a desire to win.
extreme competitiveness
brostache?
Liking running.
don't do EPO.
B personality with other interests and goals outside of running.
good genes
nordicmama wrote:
For a girl, the strength and self-confidence to not be taken out by jealous, backstabbing teammates. I've talked to a lot of sports parents and many of them can tell you horror stories about catty girls' teams and how the internal strife affected their daughter's self esteem and performance.
if your daughter's self esteem and performance is that sensitive by the time she's in high school, then you have failed.
cant believe it wrote:
nordicmama wrote:For a girl, the strength and self-confidence to not be taken out by jealous, backstabbing teammates. I've talked to a lot of sports parents and many of them can tell you horror stories about catty girls' teams and how the internal strife affected their daughter's self esteem and performance.
if your daughter's self esteem and performance is that sensitive by the time she's in high school, then you have failed.
You are an idiot. And that's not an invitation to a debate, it's a stone cold fact.
It's a loaded question. All of the answers are both right and wrong, because there are numerous "most important" factors.
Dan
The willingness to do whatever it takes to get ahead.
Example, I once went for a pre-race warmup jog with a teammate that thought we were BFF but I was sick of losing to her every single frigging race. While she was in the porta potty I pushed it over when nobody was looking. I won that day, and she was forever known as the girl who soiled herself in the porta pot. She never ran again.
Hating, no not just hating but HATING to lose. You see, the desire to win isn't nearly as strong as a pure hatred of losing.