Building Your Pile: Leadership Lessons from the Track

The transition from professional athlete to "regular person" is rarely smooth. When I hung up my soccer cleats, I felt adrift- missing not just the game itself, but the daily rhythm of competition, the shared purpose of training, and the community that comes with pursuing something difficult together. When I completed my master's thesis exploring others' experiences transitioning out of women's professional soccer, I found it both cathartic and validating to discover just how universal and profound this struggle really is.

Finding the West Chester running club was exactly what I needed. Here was a committed crew who made my former "long" runs look like warm-ups, yet welcomed me into their fold without question. Surrounded by mostly marathon trainees, I found myself drawn to something different: the community's annual one-mile race, The Warner Mile.

I raced the mile in my first year with the club and immediately set my sights on a fairly ambitious goal for the following year and started a training plan. It felt great to train for something again.

Bell Lap Workout

Towards the end of my training cycle, the plan led me to a workout that every miler knows well: 400 meter repeats at mile pace. I knew that success in this workout would indicate whether or not I was on track to achieve my goal. At the time this workout hit, I was out of town working a summer soccer camp – I knew how important this workout was and I wasn’t thrilled to do it solo - I found myself making up plenty of excuses as the workout neared. 

I had 12X 400 meters in front of me, solo, in July heat.  Somewhere around the third rep, feeling the weight of nine more to go, I had a simple idea that turned out to be more helpful than expected. At the end of each rep, I grabbed a small rock from the path next to the track during my recovery jog. 

Rep by rep, I built a pile.

Twelve rocks. Twelve completed intervals. Twelve pieces of evidence that I had completed the workout.

The Power of Tangible Progress

What started as a simple counting mechanism became something more useful. Each rock represented more than a completed repetition—it was a small piece of evidence that I was sticking to my plan. When the voice in my head suggested stopping at eight or ten, the growing pile beside the track reminded me of what I'd already accomplished.

This connects to something important in leadership development: making progress visible and concrete. Too often, we pursue goals that feel abstract or distant, losing motivation when we can't see clear signs of our advancement. Like the rocks, growth happens in small, specific moments that we can choose to acknowledge or let pass by unnoticed.

Leadership Lessons from a Pile of Rocks

Start where you are, with what you have. I didn't need fancy equipment or perfect conditions—just commitment to the process and a willingness to get creative when motivation dulled. Leaders often wait for ideal circumstances that never come. Sometimes the best time to start building your pile is simply now, with whatever resources are in front of you.

Make progress visible. In teams, we track metrics and statistics, but how often do we celebrate our progress or growth? Whether it's celebrating small wins, documenting lessons learned, or simply acknowledging effort, visible progress sustains motivation through difficult periods.

Embrace the value of incremental achievement. Twelve 400-meter intervals felt overwhelming when I first saw it in the workout plan for that week. One interval, followed by picking up one rock, however, felt manageable. Big goals become more achievable when broken into concrete, sequential actions. Good leaders help their teams see the next step, not just the end goal.

Find meaning in routine work. Elite performance is built on the repetition of fundamentals. The rocks helped transform a standard training session into something I looked forward to completing. How we approach ordinary moments often determines whether they become building blocks or just things we get through.

Trust the process, especially when it's hard. The hottest, most challenging intervals often produced the rocks that felt most significant to me. Discomfort wasn't a sign I was doing something wrong—it was usually evidence I was doing something that mattered. Leadership growth rarely happens when we're comfortable.

Building Your Own Pile

Every leader faces their version of 12x400 meters: the project that seems complex, the skill that feels challenging to develop, the change that appears daunting. The question isn't whether these situations will come up, but how we'll approach them when they do.

Consider what "rocks" might serve you in your current leadership journey. Maybe it's:

• Documenting one lesson learned from each difficult conversation

• Celebrating each team member's individual contribution to a goal

• Tracking small improvements in a skill you're developing

  
  

The specific rocks matter less than the commitment to collect them consistently, especially when the work gets hard.

The Mile That Followed

Did I achieve that lofty goal I set for the mile race? That's a story for another day. What matters more is what the training taught me.

We become who we need to be through the accumulation of small, intentional actions, repeated with purpose even when no one is watching. Leadership isn't built in breakthrough moments or grand gestures.

The pile you create becomes both a record of your commitment and a foundation for whatever comes next. So, find your track. Identify your hard workout. And start building your pile, one rock at a time.