Aesopean Tales

A literal plethora of info, tales and data today. I would like to begin with two stories. They are somewhat Aesopean, so please bear with me. 

In 1957 a Swiss social scientist wanted to do research on an interesting subject. He wanted to demonstrate, prove or somehow measure what we refer to as Hope. Here is the experiment:

He built a plexiglass tube measuring 18 inches tall by 6 inches wide. He filled the tube half-full with water. He dropped ten mice into the half filled plastic tube. In five minutes he (and I am assuming his assistants) plucked five of the mice from the frothy chaos and put a ID tag on their legs. The five tagged mice were returned to the tube. After an hour the five mice NOT removed and tagged had all drowned. The five rescued and returned mice went on for another twenty-four hours (average). Hope?

Ten baby frogs were scheduled to race up the notoriously steep Matterhorn. The news of this event had reached a large audience and thousands lined up at the start and the finish to witness. At the start many shouted, 'you cannot do this, it is impossible even for strong men, and you are foolish young frogs'. The race began and the frogs hopped off. They were met with more cries from the crowd, all trying to convince them to stop, give up, quit their foolish attempt. By the half way point five had succumbed to the mob's warnings. With one kilometer to the top only two frogs remained on the quest. The volume of advice rose with every hop, 'you'll never make it to the top, the hardest is yet to come, quit now and go home'. One frog made it to the summit. Turns out he was deaf and couldn't hear the nay-sayers telling him that he would never make it. 

The articles from Science of Running have kept me busy all morning. Fascinating stuff on many (if not all) of the reasons why we train and compete.

This video talks about what really matters. And it is not matter. It is energy. 

Have a great day folks. Have hope, believe in yourself and create more energy.