Immortal Czech @ MindSay

Emil Zatopek, known as The Immortal Czech, is one of the greatest distance runners to come out of the 20th century.  He is a legend within the sport of Athletics and the Olympic community as he is the only runner to ever win Gold Medals in the 5,000 meters, 10,000 meters and Marathon events within the same Olympic Games.  This feat was accomplished during the 1952 Olympic Games in Helsinki, Finland.  The Immortal Czech’s performance during the 1952 Olympics has gone down in history to this day as one of the greatest Olympic accomplishments EVER and it is unlikely that it will ever be matched again.

Emil Zatopek happed into the sport of running by being persuaded to enter a 1,500 meter race that was sponsored by a shoe company that he worked for.  Without training he took second place out of a field of one hundred and took a keen interest in the sport. 

Over the years as he was training and competing at an elite level, many other runners and coaches would criticize his running style.  Zatopek is considered the father of interval training, i.e. intense repetitious intervals on the track that are standard workouts to this day at all high schools, colleges, universities, running clubs and elite runners around the world. 

Zatopek would push his body to the limit and is well known for the amount of pain that he could endure.  He would run forty by four hundred meter repeats on the track with a four hundred jog as a rest between each repeat.  This in itself was a twenty mile workout.  He thought it was important to train at a fast pace, thus the creation of interval training.  Sure he wasn’t a sprinter, but he understood the importance of training the body to run faster and longer at high levels of intensity. 

Other coaches and runners at the time thought his methods were absurd and crazy.  Why, you might ask?  They were new and different, untested.  “No one ever did this before,” they would say.  “Emile, you are a distance runner, not a sprinter,” they would smirk.  Well Emile did not listen.  He responded by saying “Why would I want to train slow?  I already know how to run slow.  I want to run fast!  So I must train fast!”  Emile Zatopek did not listen to the critics, he trained harder and faster than anyone before him and he has gone down in history as The Immortal Czech due to his amazing accomplishments on the track.

We can learn from Zatopek’s persistent attitude to stick with what he knows to be sound, even if others view it as unsound.  As Seth Godin says, “sound ideas never become hits, however unsound ideas always do.”

I read an interesting story about Emil Zatopek in the book Running with the Legends, which gives a great insight into the character of Emil Zatopek that reminds me a great deal of many of the leaders within Team.  It was the night before the 10,000 meter final at the Helsinki Olympics in 1952.  While he was in bed sleeping and preparing for his race the next morning, he heard a knock at his door.  He sluggishly got out of bed and went to the door to see who was there.  He was greeted by a reporter who did not take into consideration the fact that Emil is a superb athlete that is competing in the gold medal race the next morning that desperately needs to sleep to prepare for his race.  The reporter was after his story and only thinking of himself and not Zatopek.  Zatopek, however, did not mind.  He invited the reporter into his room and gave him the interview of a lifetime.  As the interview winded down and the reporter was getting ready to leave, Zatopek realized that the reporter did not have a place to stay.  So Zatopek did what no other Olympic Athlete would do, he offered the reporter his bed the night before his race.  You can imagine how most athletes would respond if this happened to them.  Many would slam the door in the reporters face yelling obscenities and then they would blame their poor performance in their race on the reporter that woke them up at 2:00am in the morning the night before.  Not Emile Zatopek.  He graciously gave his bed to the reporter who had no place to sleep after giving the young reporter a stellar interview that he would remember for a lifetime.  The next morning, Emile Zatopek went out on the track and devoured his competition and won the Gold Medal in the 10,000 meter event.  This reminds me of many instances where leaders on Team such as Orrin Woodward, Chris Brady and Tim Marks have put themselves last and others first in order to make someone else feel good or to serve someone else other than themselves.  The leaders on Team understand servant leadership and that is a key component to their successes’ that they have attained over the years. 

Emil Zatopek revolutionized the sport of running and with sheer guts and hard work he outperformed his competition and took the sport to great new heights.  This is a trait that we can all learn from.  If you want to win in life then you must be like the Immortal Czech.  You must be willing to put in the sweat, blood, pain, tears and passion into your cause and do not relent until you reach your desired destination.  When the critics laugh and mock your efforts, just think of Emil Zatopek and say, “Why would I want to be average, everyone is already average, I already know how to do that.  I want to be great!  So I must act great!!!”