Toot! Toot!

Yes, that's the sound of me tooting ITA's horn, which is not something I do all that often, but the circumstances so merited today. Two days ago I was impressed when I learned that not one but two ITA Athletes —Torin Koos and Laura Valaas —won their respective sprint races at the recent SuperTour event in the Methow Valley, virtual hometown competitions for both Koos (pictured below) and Valaas.


But before I could bask in the reflected glow of that news for even one revolution of the earth, a second set of races happened at that same Methow Valley SuperTour. In those races —a 15k classic for the men and a 10k classic for the women —ITA Athletes not only went 1-2 in the men’s race, but they swept the podium in the women’s race. To wit: Torin Koos edged out Brian Gregg by nine-tenths of a second on the men’s side; and Caitlin Compton led an ITA 1-2-3 on the women’s side, with Laura Valaas and Nicole De Yong taking second and third, respectively. Pretty impressive results, yes?

And as it so happened, the logging of the above superlative athletic performances coincided with the publication of a fascinating editorial in yesterday’s New York Times titled “On Basic Human Pleasures: Food, Sex and Giving”. (FYI: there’s really very little sex in the piece; I think that’s just a hook to get you to read the column.)

It was penned by Nicholas Kristof (one half of the duo expected to speak at Middlebury College's commencement ceremony this spring; the other —and better? —half is his wife Sheryl Wu Dunn, with whom he co-authored the bestseller “Half the Sky”), who uses his 750 word allotment to link “doing good” to “feeling good.” To the extent that happiness drives athletic performance —and I would argue it does —one might be able to make the case that all of the Arena Athletes who do good on a regular basis are putting money in their emotional banks, as well as in the vault of their athletic potential. Just my two cents.