Thread by @CoachGSanders

Yesterday, as I was standing in the middle of the #BULaunchpad, slowing spinning around watching the sprinters jogging their warm up laps, the jumps beginning their drills, the throwers in the middle of a series, I knelt down and my eyes welled up...(1/n)

"It's happening... we're here, we're doing this, we're really doing this...wow...wow..." (2/n)

Yesterday was our first official practice since the Friday before Thanksgiving week...(3/n)

I really didn't expect it to hit me like it did. I had some moments of anticipation and anxiety on the drive in (is today REALLY the day?! ha), but it didn't really hit me until that moment...(4/n)

Externally or internally, anyone can be as critical as they want as to how @BU_Tweets and @BUAthletics has handled college and athletics in this pandemic, but damnit I am unapologetically proud of the measures they've taken to keep me, our athletes and community safe here...(5/n)

That doesn't make it any less disappointing not being able to engage in something you love with people you love being around, it's not a binary state of mind...(6/n)

And yesterday it really hit me how just how much the privilege I have to do what I do as a career as a coach, as Director of @TerrierTFXC in the place that I get to do it, @BUAthletics means to me and how much I missed it and the people within it... I Iove this team...(7/n)

I know I lot of it underneath had to do with our series of team and class meetings last week. One theme, one word that kept coming up in every discussion for what everyone here wants when they leave @TerrierTFXC ... a Family... (8/n)

Yesterday I felt like I was reunited with my family. We were all back together again. It was a beautiful, euphoric, and, emotionally overwhelming moment (9/n)

The season will shape up to be what it will be. We will show up, do the work, and continue to build ourselves and this program up, brick by brick, day by day. The seniors will leave it better than they found it, and the 1st years will set the tone for years to come...(10/n)

We will also be more available to each other through these difficult times. We will check in on each other more. We will acknowledge mental health more candidly. We will continue to roll with punches, the pauses, the return to plays, the protocols, and through it all...(11/n)

We'll do it as a family...(12/n)

I don't think after yesterday I will ever approach a practice the same. It's earned a different type of respect and reverence from me. It's so good to be back. It's so good to be together. It's so good to #BU (13/13)