Last week, the final Exeter open meeting of the summer took place. One of the University athletes I coach raced in the 100m and competed in the long jump. He’s worth drawing attention to because of his exceptional attitude, and as a result, his exceptional progress.

This athlete turned up at Exeter University last year. He hadn’t done athletics beyond school but enjoyed long jump and fancied signing up for the athletics club. It didn’t look like he would be racing or jumping at BUCS, and he had plenty of room for improvement with his running technique, namely he hadn’t learnt the difference between a good foot plant in sprinting and a good foot plant when jumping, so he sprinted in a squat position because of a heel-led foot plant. I’m very happy coaching anyone and everyone, and so I gave this athlete as much time as anyone else in the training group, and he slowly began to improve. Importantly, he showed to most training sessions with a good attitude.

In March, he made the effort to travel to an early open meeting to compete over 100m. He ran 12.93. A few weeks later, he competed again, and I was in the same race as him. He was slightly faster, but I comfortably beat him despite being an old fart. Now’s when things started to change for this athlete. He didn’t give up, he stuck at it.

About 6 weeks later, this athlete is invited to BUCS to compete in the long jump. He’s also asked to register as a 4x100m relay runner in case our sprinters are unable to race. He’s our last option. Injuries happen, other athletes pull out at short notice, there are a few admin errors and with very little notice, I’m asking this athlete to take the baton and run the first leg of our relay. He accepts with a smile, and just gets on with it. He smashes his relay leg, nails his changeover and our relay team runs a good time.

The University year finishes, everyone goes home, and most of our athletes stop training and competing. This athlete doesn’t. He finds a local club, turns up to training, and competes all summer (notching up 29 performances throughout the year). His 100m PB drops from 12.93 to 12.02 and he runs a couple of good 200m races too.

Then last week, he turns up to an Exeter open meeting to finish the year, races against me again, beats me by a country mile, is only 0.02 off his PB and regains bragging rights over his coach.

This athlete is going to turn up to winter training with momentum, enthusiasm, fitness and sharpness. There’s no reason why he can’t hit mid to low 11s over 100m next year, and I look forward to coaching his jumps too (I’m now coaching horizontal jumps whereas I wasn’t last year – nobody was!). This all boils down to having a good attitude. Turn up and train with a smile, listen to your coach, and good things happen.