HOEBEKE! HOEBEKE! HOEBEKE! Go High Noon! Go Finger Lakes!
@pgxc-high-noon, @pgxc-flrc, I’d never quite thought about it in this way, but it turns out there are research-backed reasons why we always gather for our pre-race cheer on the starting line of PGXC races. From the full article linked below:
Rituals Improve Performance: Feeling nervous? Things beyond your control? Gotta preheat that oven. Do a ritual. Predictable routines intravenously dump confidence into your bloodstream and turn you into a 100% US RDA approved Tyrannosaurus of the workplace.
Rituals Relieve Anxiety: You are not allowed to be bothered by anything today. I literally told you how to cast a spell and scientifically proved it would reduce your anxiety. How cool is that? Seriously. Who else gave you magic powers today? I made you a wizard in under ten minutes, for free. (Now smile or I’m putting a hex on you.)
Rituals Build Community: Traditions are more than just dead people peer pressuring us. Rituals blur us at the edges and bind us as one. Get your friends together to share a meal. Rituals are the big bandwidth cable providing a zero-latency connection to the hearts and minds of those we love.
There is no understanding, there is only chanting.
Rick Hoebeke was the coach and prime organizer of the High Noon team for the Upstate New York Cross-Country Series and one of High Noon’s top runners before he retired and moved to Athens, GA some years back. I don’t have the details at hand, but I believe Rick won his age group for the series overall multiple times in his 40s, 50s, and 60s—he was one of the most dominant local cross-country runners of all time.
To this day, he provides a cash prize in honor of series founder Pete Glavin to the top runner in a different age group each year—I was lucky enough to win the 40-49 division in 2017 when that division was up for the prize.
