THREAD: Quick story about the power of #FeedTheCats, tape measures, and instant feedback with @Freelapglobal.

Over Labor Day weekend, my family spent the weekend in Northern Michigan at my parents' cottage.

My brother @coach_germain and I decided to bring some gadgets and gear and have ourselves a little mini-Olympics. We threw med balls, jumped for distance, lit up his radar gun, threw a four-pound ball like a shot put, and sprinted for time. My sons also joined in.

We had a blast, and my kids had fun, too.

But here's the powerful piece. Later that afternoon, I looked outside and my oldest son (14, XC runner for @LNSPORTS, 100 lbs) was throwing the "shot put" over and over again, with the tape measure pulled, trying to beat his best throw.

Then, the next day, we were all sitting by the lake and he asked me if we could get out the @Freelapglobal to run some hill sprints. Nobody asked him to do it. It was going to be an off day for him. But he had fun sprinting with us the day before, and he wanted to do it again.

I got it out for him and helped him set it up. It's a pretty steep hill, and I'd guess we paced off around 35 yards or so. Here's what happened:

7.83
7.81
7.94
7.23
7.19
7.34
7.45
7.10
7.08
7.04

I watched this kid, who is not typically very self-motivated when it comes to working out, specifically ASK to get out the sprint timer, try to beat his previous time, and cheer for himself EVERY TIME he ran his fastest rep on his DAY OFF while we were CHILLING BY THE LAKE.

My wife couldn't believe what she was seeing. She's heard me talk about the power of timing, short sprints, instant feedback, #recordrankpublish, and everything else until I was blue in the face, but this was the first time she saw it in action, with our own son, no less.

This kid has never asked me if we can please go for a four mile run, even as an XC athlete. But this drew him out, motivated him, and got him EXCITED about training. The level of enthusiasm during all of this (which took about 15 minutes, btw) was off the charts.

I was already a believer in #FeedTheCats, but this was powerful stuff. What if I told you you could have motivated, excited, competitive, performance-oriented athletes at PRACTICE, not just at games? What if I told you they'll have fun and consistently push themselves to be fast?

I'm here to say you can. You don't even need a timing system, though in this case it helped. All you need is a tape measure, a stopwatch, and the ability to turn training into a high-score game. Soon you'll have kids who love training so much that they want to do it on their own.