If You Can Take It, You Can Make It
“If [I] can take it, [I] can make it,” Louis Zamperini echoed the words of encouragement he received from his older brother while training to qualify for the 1936 Berlin Olympics. He never could have imagined that several short years later, he would cling to those same words while fighting for his life as a prisoner-of-war.
“All the things I learned from running applied to any survival situation,” Zamperini shared during a 2010 interview with Runner’s World. “You learn to be 100 percent obedient to discipline.”
Angelina Jolie’s 2014 film, Unbroken, highlights Zamperini’s true grit, primarily showcasing his story subsequent to enlisting in United States Army Air Corps during World War II. After surviving a deadly B-24 plane crash and enduring 47 grueling days in a life raft at sea, he was captured and taken in as a prisoner-of-war (POW) by the Japanese Navy. Zamperini turned to his mental strength to endure severe torture and overall mistreatment, just as he had done during his month-and-a-half lost at sea; just as he had done to set national track records — one being the youngest qualifier for the 5,000-meter Olympic race, which remains untouched.
Zamperini passed away in 2014, at the age of 94, and is therefore unable to witness the recent rise in mental health awareness and advocacy within athletics. However, he is undoubtedly a catalyst for the movement — as he even credited his trials as a competitive runner for fostering the resilience he utilized during the war. Unbroken certainly emphasizes and raises awareness of the ways in which the perseverance learned in competitive athletics can be employed in other aspects of life, but spends less time presenting how this mindset develops.
Although factors such as natural ability, diet and sleep can have some impact an athlete’s performance, mental toughness is what distinguishes champions from participants. This level of perseverance and tenacity is primarily developed through situations in which an individual faces uncertainty or adversity. Loyola Marymount University cross country and track coach, Scott Guerrero, believes that his athletes reach victory once they come to an understanding that they must push their bodies further than they thought possible.
“If you want to succeed — not only as an athlete, but in life — you have to be comfortable with being uncomfortable,” he explains. But how? Doesn’t the human body insist on shutting down at some point? According to sports psychologist Andy Lane, the body’s natural response — the signal to slow down or stop completely — is hardwired.
“There’s no good reason for it when you’re running out of energy and the body is burning more fuel that it can give to the brain,” she explains (C. Wilson Meloncelli, 2017). The key to success in endurance trials “is learning to ignore that signal and replace it with something else.”
At one point in Unbroken, a POW assures the others, “This is the end, mates. It’s best if you just resign to your fate” (Universal Pictures, 2014). But Zamperini had been here before — running the final lap of his Olympic race faster than all of the others; ignoring slices down his shins from competitors attempting to injure him with their track spikes; surviving off rain water and fish for over a month in the middle of the ocean — and he refused to give up.
“It’s pretty funny that you bring up Louie Zamperini — I have one of his quotes hung up in my room. It says: ‘a moment of pain is worth a lifetime of glory,’” shares Anahi “Nani” Betart, now a senior on the California Polytechnic State University (Pomona) cross country and track team. Betart recalls one day of training while she was in high school, when her coach wanted her to run 400-meter repeats — one lap around the track — 15 times, with each one being completed in under 70 seconds. “I remember during the tenth rep or so, I hit 71 seconds and he said, ‘doesn’t count, get back on the line.’ I ran another rep, and another — both ‘didn’t count,’ but my body was breaking down. My legs felt like Jell-O. I remember thinking: am I going to die right here on the track? But sometimes that’s what it takes to succeed.”
I grew up in a family with no “slow down signal.” NCAA Division 1 athletics with a full-ride scholarship wasn’t encouraged as much as it was expected. I have been a competitive distance runner since I was six years old; I ran under coach Guerrero, I suffered on the line with Nani back in 2012 and I had that same Zamperini quote written on the side of my racing flats. I have recently retired my racing spikes for good, but the lessons I learned during the past 15 years are enough to convince me that I can do anything I set my mind to.
