Give thanks and grow the pie!

Thanksgiving weekend not only has me thinking of ways that I can be more appreciative, it's also got me thinking about pie.  You see, fighting for ones slice of the pie has been and will continue to be one of life's challenges.  It's human nature to be competitive and reach for more than you have.  A related challenge to this equation is to view the slice of pie that you are going after to be a part of a bigger pie.

I travelled to the California State High School Cross Country Championships at Woodard Park in Fresno yesterday.  Team Specialized Junior Neilson Powless competing plus my cousin had just become a grandmother.  Coincidentally, she's been a teacher in the Fresno school district for a few decades and was part of the State Championships becoming an annual event in Fresno.

Cross country running is such a beautiful sport.  No "little league" parents to be seen, just a bunch of "best efforts" by every single athlete.  Lots of cheering and the team scoring format is the BEST!  (Top five for each team score, 6th and 7th runners help the team if they can score ahead of the other teams 5th scorer)

Yesterday - 1000+ high school cross country runners competing in five divisions for both boys and girls!  Organizers, volunteers, coaches, parents, siblings, and friends helped to fill the whole park.  What a sight and what a buzz as the waves of runners set out onto the 5km course competing for their respective titles. 

At the end of the day (end of the year), there were 10 individual and 10 team champions.  The size of that pie won't change anytime soon.  The part of the pie that I'm referring growing are the 1000+ runners.  Criky, what if we could get 1000 runners to try bike racing?  How quickly could our cycling "pie" grow?

Congratulations to Neilson for his personal best 15:27 5km time over a rolling dusty course and for his very fine 8th place finish.  He's only a junior so there's still the 2014 season ahead of him!

Larry Nolan, Team Specialized