Nurture your potential and it will take you anywhere
In these strangest of times, when the world has simultaneously gone crazy and slowed down, there’s been time to think.
Wouldn’t it be nice if we could figure out how to get moving again, but leave the roads nice and quiet?
Can we somehow bottle the abundance of kindness that seems to be around, so we can spray it around when people inevitably return to their busy lives and tensions rise?
And then there are the odd thoughts. Like, what even is potential? It’s something we often hear about when we’re kids, – ‘‘oh, she’s got potential’’.
But how can you have something you can’t really see and hold? I know, it’s a funny thing to think about. But these are funny old days, right?
And, it’s a puzzling thing, potential. Because it’s something that doesn’t really exist – it’s the possibility of something, right? – but it can also be crushed.
We all know examples of that. Kids who’ve been told they’re never going to be good at something who then give up. Someone who gets it into their head that they’re a failure and so they quit, broken by the idea that it will never happen.
And then there are those who turn that potential into something no-one ever dreamed of. On the Dirt Church Radio podcast this week, my co-host Matt Rayment spoke to someone who fits that category.
Australian Vlad Shatrov strides the trail running stage like a giant, demolishing course records. In February, he won the Tarawera 100 Mile Race in a record time of 15 hours and 53 minutes.
Here’s some context: I was in that same race and I took 28 hours and 53 minutes. So I took exactly 13 hours longer to finish than he did.
Think about that: he had time to cross the finish line, soak up the congratulations, go back to his hotel, have a shower, have a three-course meal for dinner, have an eight-hour sleep, wake up, have a coffee, cook breakfast and then wander down to the finish line and I would still have been going.
In other words, he’s a phenomenal runner.
But, as a 10-year-old, he was in plaster up to his knees in both legs after surgery to correct fused ankles.
As he left the hospital, the surgeon said something to him which he never forgot.
‘‘I remember he just made an off-hand comment,’’ said Shatrov. ‘‘He probably didn’t even think that I liked running, but he said something like, ‘you know, you’re never going to be good at running’, or like, ‘you’re never going to be a professional runner’. And it just kind of sat in my head.’’
Like Shatrov said, it was probably just a throw-away comment.
And the surgeon probably had no idea that on the family sheep farm in the Snowy Mountains near Canberra, little Vlad loved almost nothing more than running around in bare feet.
At that moment, his potential as a runner could have withered and died.
In fact, when Shatrov moved away from the farm to go to university, studying engineering and business, he nearly did stop running altogether.
But something kept calling
him back – probably raw talent.
He started to compete in triathlons and, then in 2013, discovered trail racing.
He entered the 50km event of the Ultra Trail Australia, one of the most prestigious trail races in the Southern Hemisphere, and not only won but he set the course record.
Today, Shatrov very much makes his living from running, from winning races and from coaching.
He has a lot to thank that surgeon for. As well as correcting a young boy’s ankles, he left Shatrov with a small pebble that niggled away at him.
It’s not that Shatrov became somehow driven at that stage, determined to prove the surgeon wrong – but he has.
Life has those moments, even when we don’t recognise them. Times when our dreams can be crushed, or can somehow fledge and eventually soar.
Determination and application are crucial ingredients, too.
Potential, though, will get you going.
It’s not something we can hold. But it’s something we can nurture, in kids especially.
Eugene Bingham and Matt Rayment are hosts of a trail running podcast Dirt Church Radio. Learn more at dirtchurchradio.com or get in touch via email dirtchurchradio@gmail.com