Posts Tagged ‘Positive thinking’
Runners share their Highs + Lows –
Nobody at the beginning thought that it would be possible to run with a pack and the expedition aspect was an extra bonus. You need to manage calories, hydration, your effort, your rest, your recovery and I think it’s all these elements that make the event so special. It’s the concept, the cocktail of the desert, the running and the self sufficiency that create the success of the event.
- Race director Patrick Bauer talking to TalkUltra (Episode 5 MDS Part One)
A selection of runner’s share their experience at the end of day 3. Footage shot using multiple GoPro Hero cameras:
It’s hot in hell, but it’s a dry heat.
There is nothing like a trip to the desert to remind you of the precious commodity that is: water.
What we all wouldn’t do for a shower!
From camels to ruins; blisters to smiles, this video aimed to captured what is, after all a human experience.
Watch out for the dung beetle!
MDS 2012 – Next Story of Human Endurance
Well, if you followed us at the Yukon Quest and loved that then follow us at the Marathon des Sables in April.
This mountain of a race takes part in the Sahara Desert from 7th April. You will need to add me as a friend on Facebook, “Like” the MDS page and “Friend” the UK MDS page It’s best to do all three.
The race is 250 Km through the Sahara and runners carry all their own gear and food for 7 days.. It is run over 6 stages looking a little like this… Day 1 – 28km, day 2 – 35km, day 3 – 38km, day 4/5 – a huge 80km, day 6 – 42km and day 7 – 21km.. So pretty damn tough.
Runners will battle temperatures of up to 50 degrees, blisters and soreness like never before, total exhaustion and inevitably some will drop out… They cover sand dunes that go for ever, mountains and valley salt flats on a daily basis. This years race will be as exciting as ever so go to those FB sites and follow it through here…
We will for the first time be filming it with GoPro and mobile cams and uploading to the social networks as we go along… Images will also be uploaded to the official site on a daily basis… I will upload blogs for the English-speaking runners and supporters and other reports can be seen on the official site www.darbaroud.com and the Facebook pages mentioned earlier… There is no shortage of information coming out of the desert from the 7th April. No excuse not know what happening deep in the Sahara.
Search this site for older articles from previous years to get a flavour.. It’s the toughest footrace on earth.
The Yukon Quest – A Goose Eve
Here is a piece I recently wrote to finalise my Quest trip… I will repost it here in a few days too…
Brent Sass and His Team
I just watched Brent Sass preparing his dogs for the next leg of the Yukon Quest, from Peli Crossing to McCabe Creek. I watched in awe of how he is with his dogs… He had a bag of booties and told someone how he bought 4000 of them before the race. 4000 at 85cents each… Thats a lot of cents! 
He then attended each dog taking the paws one by one and checking them for soreness or injury. Not just checking though, he took each paw and pushed gently checking between the claws. He then would kiss the dog and give it a hug, then slipping on a bootie and tying it carefully.. Each foot painstakingly checked and cared for. Each with a new bootie for the next leg of the journey and all to be repeated again very soon.
Brent shows his team the respect they are due for without them he would not figure in the race. If he did not care for them he would not be cared for by them. But more importantly if he did not care it would eventually bite in the rear in some way…
He chatted to some of the photographers with passion too. Never too busy to give of himself. Never too tired even though he had not sleep much for the last 8 days… Never too focussed that others don’t matter.
Brent is a kind of special competitor.
He is not alone, though as this race seems to breed special people and strong teams.. I have watched other in the same way and they are different from other sportsmen that are so often too obsessed with themselves and non caring. The Yukon Quest has some real stars.
Last night I watched Lance Mackey arrive at Stepping Stone, stop for a Burrito and then checkout.. He had no reason to chat but did… But that is another story and my next….. The race continues…
The rest of Brents team… http://on.fb.me/AqJLtm
A night on the Quest…..
Well, here I am at 7 am.
Sleep was between 3 and 5am and now I am trying to force my body into action each time a musher approaches.. Not easy, I can assure you.
Its relatively quiet in the press room with only a handful whereas last night it was heaving with press, cameramen, radio people as well as tourists who have come to watch..
The quest seeps into my blood more each day. Having run endurance I understand their need to complete this. Their thirst for finishing, thirst for winning and their desire to push themselves to the limits of human endurance. The hardest part is the mental. They will be feeling exhausted and elated at the same time. Physically drained yet energised with the power of their achievement. Their minds will be playing games. “Why?” “What for?” “Never again” and usually only minutes after finishing in Whitehorse they will be talking of their next race….. But what makes these guys special is that they also need to care for their team . 12-14 dogs that need feeding, sleep and looking after. This make this event far tougher than met I have witnessed….
We have another week or so on the journey to Whitehorse and who knows who will take the prize. What is clear is that all are winners.
Yukon Quest….. A Wow! Event.
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- I have never seen the moon as in I did in Yukon
The relatively little known Yukon Quest is one of the most powerful events I have witnessed.
I am here in the Yukon, Dawson City to be precise, and have travelled from Kuwait to London then Fairbanks to get here… Our (photography team) remit? to cover the Yukon Quest providing top notch images and GoPro video of the competitors……
I have been sucked in to this race already and cannot believe the performance of the mushers.. Tough, focussed, and basically the hardest human beings I have met.
They set off from Fairbanks on a 1000 mile quest to reach Whitehorse sledding with their teams throughout the beautiful but hostile wilderness of the Alaskan and Yukon Arctic. There are checkpoints and food along the way but many of them elect to sleep out, care for their dogs and keep moving rather than succumb to the warmth of a cabin for a few hours… With temperatures usually below -20c and often to -40c or colder this is an unbelievable race to witness.
I am now in Dawson City the half way point and where the teams must break for 36 hours before the final leg to Whitehorse. We are currently GoProing up the city, the start line and anything that moves.. Our first production can be seen on the previous post so check that awesome piece of work edited by Tom Barber…. Images above…. and on my Facebook and the Yukon Quest Facebook….
“You taught me to find things others could not see”
This is a quote from a student I recently wrote to complimenting his photography. I did not send him the email looking for this reply, I sent it because I noticed. I noticed how good this young man was becoming as a photographer. I wrote it because I thought he should know. Read the rest of this entry »
Performance – Talent vs Practice
My daughter started surfing this holiday. She completed her first 15 hours of practice and the improvement was huge.
Working with people as I have for 30 year, I have learnt to recognise many factors in the way people perform. I have had arguments with parents about their children when they believe that their talent will get them through, I have seen some highly skilled individuals rely on their attributes and receive praise only to end up failing and not understanding why. And I have seen child prodigies who, by the time they reach 18, are no different from their peers.
I have, however, Read the rest of this entry »
EyeforLife
Learn to look at your world from a different perspective. Take an EyeforLife course.
Exciting times ahead with EyeForLife…. We have our new courses starting in October. Checkout the website http://eyeforlife.net/ for all the latest info. In late November we will run a trip to South Africa on safari, this is not to be missed. All details are on the site too, or just email me or Yousef.
We will also take online participants if getting to a course is not possible.. Obviously the Safari is not possible online, well, not yet anyway.
Back to breakfast now!
MDS 2011
Just back and here are a few images from the portfolio….. The portfolios can be found on my Facebook and Flickr page and will be on junglemoon soon….
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- Learn to look at the world from a different perspective. Take and EyeforLife course.
Eye For Life
I have now been presenting the Eye for Life course for a year in Kuwait. It has been constantly developing and improving and the post on the AYMSTRONG blog sums up what its all about. Read it here http://bit.ly/e1iFgB and come back and trail through a few post on my blog…. Your “eye for life” is critical for your future…
The next Eye for Life courses are being planned for May. If you would like information, please contact me or Yousef at AYMSTRONG for details.
Mark
Its how we spin it…….Be your own spin doctor.
I love words…. I always have. Even as a young child I remember playing with them. I think most children probably do this. I would put the emphasis on different syllables or letters. Change the tone. Sing them…. I would do anything to see what they sounded like in as many different ways as I could. Then I would notice that the word would often sound silly once I said it more than 5 or 6 times..
What I noticed was that just by small changes in the pronunciation or tone, the effectiveness or even meaning of that word would change and sometimes quite radically. Try saying “I had a great day” in as many different ways as possible and feel the difference. Just say the word “great” in different ways too…. Said sarcastically of course it means the opposite. Said with passion, it comes from the heart. Said blandly it means nothing at all.
When I started coaching Read the rest of this entry »
Joining The Dots….
A group of youths who needed to repair their picture...They trekked 150 km across the Sinai
The last few posts have created quite a few questions which I always like….. James Cracknell’s article, beliefs, limiting beliefs, motivation and what is your chronic injury…? These are all inextricably linked to the title of todays post; Joining The Dots.
I spoke with Carlyle of Prohab Performance yesterday who asked what this weeks posts were about… I responded with “why?” His reply was “I asked my clients how they would know if life was a success? The answers were obviously very mixed but the overriding observation was the a lack of clarity.
If we take look at someone like James Cracknell who seems to have all his ducks in a row and most would say leads a successful happy life; he has just had a huge life experience that has knocked one or more of those ducks down. Shaken his success, maybe his belief too. His accident in America where he was knocked of his bike during another endurance attempt will make him evaluate seriously. Before, all was good with his tv career blossoming, work was fun, exciting and so on. He was shaping his role as super endurance hero but this came with a price. Read the rest of this entry »
Limiting Beliefs
I have watched the video below many times. I thought much about his methods and as a coach I both like them and dislike them. I have also used them on occasions in a different sporting arena and successfully. Not by choice but out of frustration. I didnt like doing it but I also new the player could do what we were asking.
This lady believed she was trying her hardest. She truly believed she could not do the 30 second run. However she actually did it around 4 times just short of the 30 seconds. Had she completed it the first time she would not have wasted time and effort doing it 3 more times. Read the rest of this entry »
Limiting Beliefs – Food for thought.
More to come…..
Free Consultation
Why not find out more about the previous two posts…. A colleague of mine has offered a free consultation at Prohab as will I for coaching. The only stipulation is that you contact us through reading this blog and the offer will last for one month…. Read more on Carlyle at http://prohabperformance.com/ and for coaching go to Coaching
…..And now what is your chronic injury?
Your chronic injury is your excuse, your disclaimer. Not in all cases as some people will have chronic pain and no the reason and others will have it and attend many sessions with a chronic pain psychologist to get help and never find a reason for the pain. However there are a large number of people who’s injury is no more than their mind creating it for them so they have reason not to do stuff.
I have met so many who don’t run because their “knees are bad”. “Cant go to the gym I have a bad back”. “Doctor says no”.
Then again, someone I covered this year in the Marathon des Sables completed the last 3 days with a broken foot, was medical tented on the long day and recovered only when he was told he would get a penalty if he took on an intravenous drip, then on the last day pulled a hamstring which is an acute injury and still ran 20km through sand dunes.
So in essence your chronic injury is your lack of want, need for an excuse and your very good disclaimer……. Sorry for those who have one but I am not too sympathetic.
Look within and look at your life. Many of your injuries will resolve with work on your whole body, mind and nutrition. Look after these and your wants and desires come back……. More to come later
What is your motivation?
Are you fed up in your work, your life?
When you decide on a life change, career change or simply something you would really like to achieve, you need to find your motivation. What is it that drives you? What is it you so badly want to be or do that you were not, or did not do, before?
Most people who decide to run a marathon do so in their mid thirties and are typically NOT runners. They just decide they want to do it. Of all of those, there are a percentage who decide for the wrong reasons and by the third or 4th week of training, usually less, they quit. Then there are those who carry on but get a chronic injury that they cannot explain and that forces them (in their minds) to stop and quit. There are a few who get acute injuries and have no choice but to stop and then there are all those left (the majority) who go on to complete the biggest event of their lives. Until they have done it that is and they realise that yes, even they can do a marathon and they do more……. Read the rest of this entry »
Intent, mistakes and still winning
His intent was to win... He did.
I read through an old post called intent and took this paragraph and have decided to add a few bits..
In sport you have an opponent you wish to beat. It is unlikely you will win without mistakes and failing is a part of the process in any sport as it is in life. In sailing for example or golf, your opponent is not fighting against you directly but still has an effect on your performance. You are aware of them, their standing, their ability and what you have to do to win. On that journey you will make mistakes but this does not mean you wont win, or be first. It is no different in life but its how you deal with these failures or mistakes along the way that can increase your chance of success. Having intent and consistently striving for your goal will greatly increase your chances even more. In both sport and life there is a battle that needs to be thought through and tackled with tenacity and skill but can only be done effectively with intent.
Making mistakes is really not the best way of looking at something you do that has an undesirable result, however, thinking of it as an action that has a consequence is more productive. If the consequence in not to your liking change the action next time. Change how you do it or what you do. The result will be better…. More in a bit.. Off for a run.
