Pfefferle Likes to Pratice
I often reflect on what makes one team or one individual more successful than others. It is most often a case of inner drive, to a level that you can't coach. Beth Pfefferle knew how to practice hard. There was never any half speed efforts. Beth had a form that appeared so effortless she probably fooled some people into thinking it as easy. But whenever I checked the stopwatch the times she was running couldn't have been easy. Unbeknownst to her athletes and coaches would stop what they were doing to watch, because it looked so sweet.
So senior year I enter her in the Boston College Invitational, just Beth. We drive up with her best friend, Karen Pearce. Beth runs the 600 against good competition and places 5th. And she's distraught. She can't imagine why she couldn't beat some of those people. On the way home we talk about training and I mention that we haven't done much speed work yet and probably doing some 200's would help. By the time we get back to North Attleboro the sun is going down, its cold (probably in the 20's) and its windy - and Beth wants to do 200's now!! Karen and I have a seat in the bleachers and proceed to watch her do repeat 200's under 30 seconds - probably only 4 or 5 - and we're absolutely frozen. Partly it was the speed work, but mostly it was Beth proving to herself that she cared enough about what she was doing to practice as hard as it took - pain or no pain. In the next few weeks she went on to win the Brown Invitational 500 and the Dartmouth Invitational 400 in school record times - just to prove it was all worth it.