Proud Father, Math Team Ninja, Distance Squad Coach, Pitt Basketball Fan, Steeler Fan
Joined December 2013
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Chris Legters retweeted
One of the most important lessons running taught me:
How to work hard for a very long for something far in the distance.
You don’t build a great Track season in May. You build it in the cold, dark months no one sees.
Delayed gratification is one of the most transferable skills
Chris Legters retweeted
A useful message for parents before the big meet: Your runner will notice your energy and your tone.
Be positive and centered. Remind them that how you feel about them won't change with their finishing place.
Coaches, it's worth sharing.
Chris Legters retweeted
One of the easiest ways to build a better culture costs nothing.
Teach your athletes to notice the people behind their success.
- Thank the bus driver.
- Respect the officials.
- Appreciate managers and trainers.
- Shake hands after games.
- Thank your parents for the ride home.
- Recognize the fans who show up, win or lose.
Gratitude changes perspective.
Athletes who appreciate what they have complain less, compete harder, and enjoy the game more.
Chris Legters retweeted
If you want to really become a better coach…
1. Reach out to good coaches with consistently good programs and talk. The majority of XC and distance coaches love talking training and are super friendly.
⭐️ Bonus if you find a group of coaches who meet online and chat regularly.
2. A book will always be >> YouTube and Instagram
3. Attend a coaches clinic
4. Be ready to pour your heart into it. It requires a lot of your time, energy and attention
5. Be ok with making a mistake and then trying something different
6. Make whatever you’re doing your own by focusing on the kids in front of you, the conditions and attributes in your community and your school
7. Focus on getting better not being better than others
Chris Legters retweeted
The woman who ran faster than death itself.
They buried her alive at 19. Eight years later, she stood on a podium and proved death wrong.
Chicago, 1928.
A high school teacher watches a teenage girl sprint for a departing train. She's so fast, he literally times her the next day with a stopwatch.
"Betty," he says, "you need to compete."
She'd never raced. Didn't even know girls could run track.
Four months later, Betty Robinson became the youngest woman to ever win Olympic gold in the 100 meters. She was 16 years old.
Chicago threw her a parade. 20,000 people lined the streets. Diamond rings. Newspaper headlines. America's golden girl.
Then came the plane crash.
June 28, 1931. The engine died mid-flight. Betty's plane dropped into a marshy field outside Chicago. When rescuers found her, she wasn't breathing.
Broken leg in three places. Shattered arm. Eight-inch gash across her skull.
They put her in a car trunk and drove to the funeral home.
The undertaker noticed something. A breath. Barely there, but enough.
Betty woke up seven weeks later to devastating news: You'll never run again.
Metal pins. Uneven legs. Wheelchair. Two years just to walk.
She watched the 1932 Olympics from home, knowing she should've been there defending her title.
Most athletes would've quit.
Betty Robinson started crawling. Then walking. Then jogging.
There was one problem: her knee couldn't bend enough for a sprinter's crouch. But relay runners start standing up.
By 1936, against every medical prediction, she made the U.S. Olympic team for Berlin.
Getting there nearly bankrupted her family. The Depression had taken everything. Medical bills piled up. The women's team wasn't funded.
She sold her medals, her ribbons, everything—except the gold from 1928. She worked as a secretary, saved every cent, and barely scraped together enough.
In Berlin, in the 4x100 relay final, Germany was dominating. World record pace.
Then, in one heartbeat, Germany's anchor dropped the baton.
It bounced on the track.
America's Helen Stephens blazed past.
Gold medal.
Betty Robinson—declared dead five years earlier—stood on an Olympic podium for the second time.
Her daughter said it best: "The first medal was easier. The second one, she had to work her tail off for."
Betty retired at 24. She kept both medals in a candy box in her closet. Never displayed them. Rarely talked about it.
In 1996, at 84 years old, she carried the Olympic torch for Atlanta. Frail but fierce. Refused help from anyone.
She died in 1999, having done what almost no one in history has done.
Betty Robinson didn't just survive.
She didn't just recover.
She came back from death itself—and won.
That's not a comeback.
That's a resurrection.

Chris Legters retweeted
We should never lose our sense of wonder.
Readers added context they thought people might want to know
The video is AI-generated, showing common artifacts like the statue's solid gold eyes without pupils, floaty/unatural toddler movements and physics, and anomalous background elements.
x.com/Samanth6062532…
youtube.com/watch?v=-_JoLz…
Chris Legters retweeted
HS Coaches:
Here's how you help kids in the recruiting process.
Set them up to run PRs every week of the year their junior year of track.
Yes, you can do that if you're skilled coach. Trust me.
"But what about the weather."
Run fast in January and February. March sinks.
Chris Legters retweeted
If you’re sick, don’t train. Just rest.
If you’re tired, rest or train very light.
If you’re injured, cross train.
Otherwise, train and stop making excuses for why you can’t get it done.
Chris Legters retweeted
Monday's workout was awful.
Not "a little flat."
Awful.
I stopped it about 75% of the way through because there was nothing useful left to accomplish.
Tuesday we did a shorter-than-normal recovery day.
Today was supposed to be hard.
Before we started, I told them:
This is the pace we've been training for all year. This is the work that gives us a chance to reach our Impossible Goal.
Don't let yourself down.
Don't let your teammates down.
Then they crushed it.
Every athlete.
Every rep.
Every number.
Monday was terrible.
Today was one of those practices that reminds you why you coach.
One bad workout tells you what happened that day.
It doesn't get to decide what happens next.
God, I love coaching.
Chris Legters retweeted
Here’s the part coaches can’t miss:
If you want more players to lead, you have to create more opportunities for them to lead.
Let them speak.
Let them solve.
Let them hold each other accountable.
Leadership grows when players are trusted to practice it.👇
Titles can identify captains. But they can’t create leaders.
I love this from Marcus Freeman:
“We have a whole bunch of guys who are going to choose to lead. They don’t need a title to lead.”
That’s what great teams need.
Not 2 or 3 captains doing all the leading.
A locker room full of people willing to speak up.
Hold the standard.
Bring energy.
Help a teammate.
Do the right thing when nobody is watching.
Too many players wait for permission to lead.
They think they need a “C” on their jersey, need to be a senior, or need the coach to name them something.
You don’t.
Leadership isn’t a position you’re given.
It’s a choice you make.
Every single day. 👇
Chris Legters retweeted
You’re allowed to feel nervous and still be ready.
You’re allowed to sleep badly and still have a good race.
You’re allowed to want to quit. to have doubts, and still step forward.
You don’t have to settle everything in your head before you participate in your life.
Chris Legters retweeted
Running teaches more than fitness.
It builds two skills we desperately need today:
– The ability to be alone with your thoughts.
– The ability to connect deeply with others.
In a world dominated by screens and distractions, that’s no small thing.
Chris Legters retweeted
No one really cares about your running, and that’s awesome.
Of course, your friends, family, running mates might follow what you do and support you. But the reality is that we tend to think other people care about our results much more than they actually do.
We put too much pressure on ourselves, invest too much of our ego in race results. We feel embarrassed when we blow up or have a bad race.
But no one really cares.
The opposite is true too. Run a big PR and people congratulate you, but then they go back to their own lives.
There’s freedom in realizing that. You can stop worrying so much about what everyone else thinks and focus on why you’re doing this in the first place.
I’ll give you my own example.
Last October, I ran a 10k race on a warm afternoon. It was a double out & back course, and I completely blew up. I didn’t even finish. I DNFed at the turn.
It was humiliating for me.
I’m a guy who posts about running and training, who coaches other runners. And here I was, DNF in a 10k race.
I posted about it here because I always post my race results, good or bad. Be transparent, there is no other way.
But I thought, you know what? No one really cares. And chances are, if you’re reading this now, you don’t remember that race.
Several weeks later, I ran a PR in another 10k race. And guess what? You likely don’t remember that either.
My friends and family know that I run. But the vast majority of them don’t know what my race times are, nor do they care.
You do this for yourself.
That doesn’t mean your results shouldn’t matter to you. They can matter a lot. You can want to run fast, set PRs, compete, and accomplish difficult things.
It just means the weight of the world isn’t on your shoulders every time you stand on a starting line.
A bad race isn’t public humiliation and a great race doesn’t suddenly make everyone think differently about you. It’s just running.
So the next time you’re putting enormous pressure on yourself before a race, worried about failing or embarrassed because your training isn’t going well, remember that no one really cares, and that’s awesome.
Chris Legters retweeted
I do always wake up tired the day after a meet but I’ve never l👀ked at the specifics!
7 miles cheering on 5 races.
@AltamontXCTF
Chris Legters retweeted
High school athletes: these ARE the good old days.
The team dinners.
The early mornings.
The bus rides.
The big wins.
The tough losses.
One day, you’ll wish you could get one of these days back. Don’t wait until it’s over to appreciate it.
Soak it in now.
Chris Legters retweeted
Doctor says newborn son will have limits in life.
Mom says…
“My son will be whatever he wants to be. If he wants to be a tennis player, he’ll be a tennis player…but this illness is not going to define us.”
Son wins US Open!
That is powerful. ❤️👇
Chris Legters retweeted
Total rest is not the move when you are recovering from an injury.
Doesn't matter if it's an ankle sprain, a back issue, or a hamstring pull.
You have so many choices that can compound into healing faster.
The most underrated is your self talk. The story you tell yourself about an injury, the thoughts around your recovery, the beliefs you have and the faith in your body to do it's job and heal all add to to the result.
You will heal different than someone who just hangs out on the couch until they are 'ready'.
Those looking for a magic pill are always going to be disappointed. In the meantime there's literally 90 some active decisions they could've made that together the compound effect would be better than any pill on the market.
Be intentional about your recovery and you'll heal different.
You were not taught how to rehab an injury and how to deal with pain.
That's the stark reminder I got this week dealing with sciatica for the first time. I'd never felt burning down my leg like that before. It scared the hell out of me.
If I was 'normal' then sometime during day 1 I would've rushed to the ER or Urgent Care, waited around for hours, been X-Rayed, shushed off, given some muscle relaxers and pain meds, and told to go home and sleep it off.
That's not good enough. That's not a strategy. That's not letting your body do it's job and warn you + heal.
That's giving your brain and body a drug to tell it to shut the fuck up I have 'life' to go live.
While I wanted to cut off my left leg this week, pain is not evil. It's a signal. Sometimes it's quiet like a whisper. It's a gentle nudge. OTHER TIMES ITS A RED ALERT ALL HANDS ON DECK DON'T DO THAT AGAIN OR YOU'LL SUFFER.
We have so many options to feel better than just shoving down pills.
If you've followed me for any amount of time on Twitter, you know my #1 recommendation is movement. Period.
Movement > Everything.
Specifically pain free movement. That's a signal to your brain and body that's okay, this is safe, we can still do this. You're not gonna die. I promise.
That might sound cooky, but in a flare up you are not a logical being. You are inflamed. In pain. Scared. Panicked. You think this is going to be permanant and forever and are already grieving the life you were going to live is gone.
Straightening your leg might light your leg on fire, but bending forwards or even backwards might be totally fine.
If you even think of the word sciatica, there'll be 10 different Youtube Videos, TikToks, and Reels demonstrating Nerve glides, Figure 4's, Back Extensions, the McGill Big 3... Most people don't need 19 exercises. They literally need just 1 to calm things down and feel a little better. Yet there's also a big conflict among all those exercises based on position.
A nerve glide + a straight leg raise that's supposed to help you could be the worst two exercises for you and they trigger the most pain. BUT THIS DOCTOR AND THAT YOUTUBER SAID IT WORKED FOR THEM.
Yeah, and all of this is just a game of little tests of movement. Your body is different. Your pain is different.
You might be suffering from back, butt, and leg pain, yet pushups from your knees make you feel safe.
Are you wrong? NO! It's your body.
It's figuring out does this movement make me feel better or worse?
Is it safe or does it light me up?
Dr. Charlie Anderson uses the delineation of yucky vs. yummy movements.
If it makes you feel yucky, you don't do that as much.
If it causes no pain or makes you feel better, that's yummy. That's good for you. Do more of that.
Why I say we weren't taught how to rehab is we weren't taught the realization that it's not just exercises that are yucky or yummy.
Again, a straight leg is also sitting on a recliner, laying down in bed, driving a car.
So if you hurt doing that exercise... you could be lighting your leg on fire every time you drive to work, then 'rest and relax' afterwards, and then try to sleep off the pain.
You don't have to throw out your mattress, it's not the problem. You need a little tweak to position. Which again is another little test that you are in control of.
You are driving the ship of how you feel. You are in control of so many variables on how to feel better.
You can choose 10 tweaks that compound and suddenly you aren't in so much pain and can function again.
Or even better you realize the one BAD position that is causing you the most pain, you back off of those movements and stay away from the yuck, and then things calm down and you can work your way back to that.
Our bodies are REALLY smart. They know how to heal. You heal yourself everyday.
Make it easier for your body to do it's job and take care of itself and get out of the way.
If you're in pain, don't add on 12 exercises to fix it. Calm things down.
Then find ONE. ONE thing and test it and try it and see if it improved how you feel or not.
Same deal with tweaks, test ONE thing at a time and see if it calms things down or not.
Then when you find the pain free movements, the pain free tweaks, the things that make you feel better. You do more of that.
Just about everyone should do more walking than sitting or laying on the ground writhing around in pain.
Even if it's slow, even if it's cautious lil hobbles. Walking is movement.
Chris Legters retweeted
It's why I keep harping about the mental side of this.
It does you no good to beat yourself up for an injury.
But if you flip it around and start tallying up small wins you can build a fat Evidence List that's undeniable.
It starts small: pain free movement.
But it adds up.
You can walk.
You can sit to stand without pain.
You can squat down and not worry about collapsing.
You go from fragile and fearful to confident and capable.
You see it ALL THE TIME in return to play.
Two completely different stories: one sits on the couch and waits to be healed to start putting in work.
The other starts right away.
Even if it's a minor injury: that's two weeks of daily opportunities to get better.
What coach would say No to 14 extra practices?
Or an hour or two of extra reps?
No one!
Same deal with your rehab. You can sneak in microdoses of movement all the time.
Extra little walks.
Extra little stretches.
Extra little pushes and pulls.
But you have to own it and recognize this is the game of little advantages that you are playing.
It's not just about big numbers like pounds, reps, sets etc.
It's smaller wins that are worth celebrating.
Chris Legters retweeted
You were not taught how to rehab an injury and how to deal with pain.
That's the stark reminder I got this week dealing with sciatica for the first time. I'd never felt burning down my leg like that before. It scared the hell out of me.
If I was 'normal' then sometime during day 1 I would've rushed to the ER or Urgent Care, waited around for hours, been X-Rayed, shushed off, given some muscle relaxers and pain meds, and told to go home and sleep it off.
That's not good enough. That's not a strategy. That's not letting your body do it's job and warn you + heal.
That's giving your brain and body a drug to tell it to shut the fuck up I have 'life' to go live.
While I wanted to cut off my left leg this week, pain is not evil. It's a signal. Sometimes it's quiet like a whisper. It's a gentle nudge. OTHER TIMES ITS A RED ALERT ALL HANDS ON DECK DON'T DO THAT AGAIN OR YOU'LL SUFFER.
We have so many options to feel better than just shoving down pills.
If you've followed me for any amount of time on Twitter, you know my #1 recommendation is movement. Period.
Movement > Everything.
Specifically pain free movement. That's a signal to your brain and body that's okay, this is safe, we can still do this. You're not gonna die. I promise.
That might sound cooky, but in a flare up you are not a logical being. You are inflamed. In pain. Scared. Panicked. You think this is going to be permanant and forever and are already grieving the life you were going to live is gone.
Straightening your leg might light your leg on fire, but bending forwards or even backwards might be totally fine.
If you even think of the word sciatica, there'll be 10 different Youtube Videos, TikToks, and Reels demonstrating Nerve glides, Figure 4's, Back Extensions, the McGill Big 3... Most people don't need 19 exercises. They literally need just 1 to calm things down and feel a little better. Yet there's also a big conflict among all those exercises based on position.
A nerve glide + a straight leg raise that's supposed to help you could be the worst two exercises for you and they trigger the most pain. BUT THIS DOCTOR AND THAT YOUTUBER SAID IT WORKED FOR THEM.
Yeah, and all of this is just a game of little tests of movement. Your body is different. Your pain is different.
You might be suffering from back, butt, and leg pain, yet pushups from your knees make you feel safe.
Are you wrong? NO! It's your body.
It's figuring out does this movement make me feel better or worse?
Is it safe or does it light me up?
Dr. Charlie Anderson uses the delineation of yucky vs. yummy movements.
If it makes you feel yucky, you don't do that as much.
If it causes no pain or makes you feel better, that's yummy. That's good for you. Do more of that.
Why I say we weren't taught how to rehab is we weren't taught the realization that it's not just exercises that are yucky or yummy.
Again, a straight leg is also sitting on a recliner, laying down in bed, driving a car.
So if you hurt doing that exercise... you could be lighting your leg on fire every time you drive to work, then 'rest and relax' afterwards, and then try to sleep off the pain.
You don't have to throw out your mattress, it's not the problem. You need a little tweak to position. Which again is another little test that you are in control of.
You are driving the ship of how you feel. You are in control of so many variables on how to feel better.
You can choose 10 tweaks that compound and suddenly you aren't in so much pain and can function again.
Or even better you realize the one BAD position that is causing you the most pain, you back off of those movements and stay away from the yuck, and then things calm down and you can work your way back to that.
Our bodies are REALLY smart. They know how to heal. You heal yourself everyday.
Make it easier for your body to do it's job and take care of itself and get out of the way.
If you're in pain, don't add on 12 exercises to fix it. Calm things down.
Then find ONE. ONE thing and test it and try it and see if it improved how you feel or not.
Same deal with tweaks, test ONE thing at a time and see if it calms things down or not.
Then when you find the pain free movements, the pain free tweaks, the things that make you feel better. You do more of that.
Just about everyone should do more walking than sitting or laying on the ground writhing around in pain.
Even if it's slow, even if it's cautious lil hobbles. Walking is movement.