Listen up

With the passing of Dave Brubeck yesterday, I would like to do a double-shot post and present this smoking hot version of his standard Take Five. Please, please please, pay particular attention to the vintage 1964 clip as it shows very clearly the one single trait that separates great musicians from the merely good, (or in my case the occasionally wretched and mostly horrid), that of LISTENING. Watch as drummer Joe Morello keeps constant eye contact with the band, and then, in turn Dave does a 180 swivel to enjoy Joe's sizzling solo. The quartet maintains a subtle vibe (in titular 5/4 time), allowing bandmates to artistically and seamlessly stretch into their interpretation of the piece, a soulful exploration of, yes, the power of passion. Take Five. Where speed and cadence converge in a graceful and elegant jazzy harmonic. Thank you Dave. We may have lost the hard drive but the memory of your music will last forever at the cellular level.

Passion IS Power

Back to basics. Building blocks. The foundation. I would like to start with two powerful quotes from two people for whom I maintain great reverence and respect. The first is from Gandhi:

"Real wealth is good health". And, 

David Olgivy, The King of Madison Avenue, who is quoted as saying,

"Don't bunt. Aim out of the ball park. Aim for the company of immortals."

I like both of those quotes. Each has an intensity and singular focus that brings a larger picture to view. That being the importance of passion. Because it is crucial, dear friends, that we pack this ingredient into every lunch box. Without passion every sandwich is going to taste like styrofoam on rye. A lot of baloney on white bread. If the time has come for you to make a monumental decision, as that time has come for me, then passion needs to power to pick.

You can keep what you have always had by doing what you have always done. Or, as cited by the Gandhi example, if you have felt the empirical effects of the journey we refer to in a politically correctly manner as the 'aging process', and suddenly realize that he is 100% dead solid right on target, you need to do something outside of the status quo. One must embark on a hero's journey. One must have passion for this cause, or else it simply WILL NOT work.

You will quit.

You will accept mediocrity.

You will fail and fall.

You will seek the comfort of convenience.

You will dummy down.

You will buy a flat screen plasma 80" TV.

You will give up.

And then you will die. 

You health IS the only real wealth. Make a daily deposit. Compound your interest. Add passion.

Is there honestly a more noble quest? You aren't going to get much done in your pajamas. We train (and train hard) at oh-dark-thirty because we have lots on our plates. There is much to do. This hero stuff is 24/7 non-stop action. You snooze you lose. I want to be passionate about everything. Every pedal rotation, every watt, every cup of coffee, every conversational exchange, every kiss. 

You can have ho-hum. You can keep your convention. I have no time for quaint, normal or average. The pedestrian can walk, I am going to run. I will accept status quo when its status is perfect. Our chain of events are oiled by it. I want passion. 

And I want it now. 

There, that's better. 

Buy the T-Shirt?

It was a great way to give a little something back. The International contractor I was employed by also maintained about a thousand general laborers. Many of them worked directly under my supervision. The company, in a rare moment of forward thinking, initiated a program called Alternative Education. Simply, any managers or directors who wanted to share their experience, education, special skills or talents with the work force, mainly Filipinos and Mauritians, could do so. It was pretty cool with syllabus ranging from Electronics 101 to Advanced Polka. Coming into this position I had been sales and marketing manager for a publishing company, so chose to offer my experiences and lessons learned in a class called The Basics of Successful Marketing. To my surprise about 50 people signed up for the free, twice weekly sessions. And we were underway.

Although it required a lot of my time for class preparation, the hour sessions themselves we of high reciprocal value. By the second week we had created a powerful and positive group bond, fostered by a technique, known in the motivational speaking circles, as anchoring. It is a Pavlovian tactic designed to create a response from a signal. This is important in sales. The old getting to yes idea. I smile and you smile. I create a atmosphere of trust and you agree to my suggestions. In this particular case we used the anchor of awareness. I was big on that at the time. Still am. The thinking being that if you are 100% in the moment, cognizant of everything surrounding you, accidents are (significantly) reduced. This was an important theme at the time with the military, for what should be obvious reasons. My strategy was to build awareness first and everything after that would be OK. It was, I felt, a solid foundational concept with which to build a successful marketing plan upon. 

I asked for daily practice. Our anchor was to be a right hand tug on the right ear lobe. Whenever one of us passed in the Admin building, in the mess hall, on the ballfield or on the way to church, the power of the present moment was reinforced by the lobe tug. It bound us in camaraderie, and pretty soon there were a hundred of us acknowledging each others presence and strengthening our commitment to the power of the now. That exclusive club went on to achieve a level of performance and safety soon to be the company standard. We won awards and provided an outstanding service to our customers, the men and women of the United States Navy. 

Somebody asked me one day what all that had to do with Marketing. I replied  that marketing was the manifestation of paying attention to the needs of a demographic group and creating solutions to satisfy their wants, needs or desires. We were simply practicing paying attention, the first phase of the curriculum. 

"Oh." 

I share all this with you today because yesterday I felt a quart low on focus. My membership in that small but powerful group of special forces felt more like a bored game of solitaire. Distraction came seemingly from all directions. My back hurt. The check in the mail is lost. More rain is the forecast. No call came from someone just wanting to say hi. Worse, I felt barraged by media. An assault on my anchoring. Some silly global event that in my cynicism I find grossly irrelevant. One of those events that we will get updates on for what will seem like forever.

And here is my response:

Starting today, every time you hear about the Duchess of Cambridge carrying her royal baby, please anchor with the thought that you need to ride your bike. 

Kate = Go spin

That should get us some serious training miles for the next nine months. Cheers!

By the T here. 

Would YOU?

There was a famous poll conducted a few years ago during race week in Kona. IIRC, it was worded something like this:

If there was a drug that would enable you to win Ironman, but wold cost you five years of life as a side effect, would you take it?

Do I need to tell you what the results of the poll were? 

Again, if I recall correctly, it wasn't even close. Maybe 95% answered the way you might expect a hyper Type A Triathlete to respond. Type A and Triathlete being a redundant. 

We have another opportunity to poll the audience today. The poll du jour is in regard to four-time Ironman world Champion Chrissie Wellington, who has announced her retirement from long course racing. Speculation has it that her training regimen, widely regarded as tough beyond belief, has caused physical damage to her system, compromising both health and performance. In a nutshell, GETTING TO those championships has taken its toll. 

She is 35 years old. She is as gracious a world champion as I have ever seen, widely renown for her courage, grace under fire and charismatic smile, even in the heat of competition. She has legs most Pro Men would sell their cars for. She is equally famous for her dedication to hard workouts, sessions that would kill most of us, simply made her stronger. .

For a while.

Begging another poll. 

Which I will word thusly:

Assuming that you were able to physically, emotionally and financially train and race at a Wellingtonian level (off the charts hard) and that training would propel you to four World Championships, but would end up causing irreparable cellular damage potentially compromising your health, would you?

I believe this is an interesting look at our motivation, and perhaps even more, a glimpse into our soul. That elixir created when we mix intense desire, competition, reward, effort, mission, meaning and moving doesn't always taste like cherry cola. 

We are starting to get some good data from those that have gone before us in this crazy world of endurance sports. We all recognize that to excel one must go further than one has in the past. We must go harder, give more, focus. We must look into the eye of the tiger and face our fears. 

We spoke this morning about the path. The process of going from pain to mirth. Of enjoying the ride and appreciating the journey. Nobody enjoys a hard effort more than I. I love racing primarily for that single reason; anything other than your absolute best is un-satisfactory. Or as we used to say in MWR, totally unsat. 

At what point all this breaks down and begins a nasty downward spiral into entropy is the question. 

The question du jour, today's poll:

Would you?

Pic: 2011, Chrissie at the turn in Hawi on her way to her 4th Kona win. She spent the preceding two days in a local hospital with a viral infection. 

Listen

Another in an avalanche of sagacious responses to the WSJ article. It is validating to know that so many are passionately debating the "findings" of the initial article. Chris Carmichael checks in here with a level-headed and rational (one of the very few times will get to use those words in the context of endurance training) comment on age, distance and intensity. Additionally, if I was to follow the advice of the "One Running Shoe in the Grave" article, 20 miles a week at a 7:30 pace would be IMPROVEMENTS. 

Good information is hard to find when passions run high. Here is one baby step towards getting solid feedback from an expert:

LISTEN TO YOUR BODY FIRST!

Run when you need to run.

Ride when you want to ride.

Spin on a regular schedule.

Do some type of resistance training.

Stretch like a yogi.

Eat right.

Sleep well.

Manage stress without toxins.

Love the one your with.

Let the experts flail their way towards their chosen agendas. They want your attention because it is the best, most proven way to get your credit card information. And the best way to get your limited attention is to challenge convention and raise eyebrows. Examples:

LOSE THIRTY POUNDS OF FAT IN ONE WEEK!

KILLER ABS OVERNIGHT!

A THOUSAND DOLLARS PER DAY WORKING AT HOME!

REVOLUTIONARY NEW DRUG ERASES WRINKLES!

MAGIC SUPPLEMENT ADDS MUSCLE AS YOU SLEEP!

ONE SECRET ALL MILLIONAIRES KNOW!

HOW TO PICKUP HOT BABES!

EAT ALL YOU WANT AND LOSE WEIGHT!

MAKE HER BEG FOR MORE!

FREE HEALTH CARE!

Obviously the exclamation points are crucial in the successful marketing of these absurd commodities. But guess what?

The marketeers and slimeballs behind the campaigns are laughing all the way to the Grand Caymans. Because people buy (into) this crap. People want an easy fix. They want it NOW. From plastic surgery to retirement planning, washboard abs to hair loss and body mass index to Rolex watches, people want the outward signs of success. As easy and as quick as possible. With no work, with no effort and with no sweat. Preferably in pill form and available at Wal-Mart. An entitlement of shallow.

Listen to no-one but you. Don't listen to me. Ignore my ravings. Think of me as another challenge in your relentless pursuit to eliminate distraction. When I plead with you to focus, think positive, go further, smile and repeat, give it some thought. Ask your heart, your lungs, your core, your telomearse, your very soul for second opinions. Listen closely to that response. 

And then follow their advice. The sage is within. 

Priceless

A dynamic thematic interlude. The breath of power inhales focus and exhales fear. All power is contained in the present moment. You can visualize past powers as victories and you can project future power on the heads-up-display of your psyche, but it can only be manifest as energy in the now. Further, your energies of the past have morphed into the energies of the now, and will continue to do so as long as your are aware and prepared to fight. We can clean our output and offset the ravages of time as a result of this practice. 

I know it is hard. It is asking a lot. We could easily allow the slide to continue unchecked until we hit rock bottom and our ambulatory functionality is nothing but a series of obscure memories. The way we were. This morning my back and butt felt like I was 112 years old and riding that distance at anything other than at gunpoint, preposterous. But we showed up, got started, spend twenty minutes warming into the set and before you could say jeepers creepers, there we were hammering out sets of high number hill repeats. 

Breathing deeply in the practice. Measuring and managing the flow. Going further. Creating physical adaption. Using our time together for the benefit of all. Trying new techniques, testing novel concepts, theories and, in one example, experimenting with the outlandish.

We took it to max. We had the conversation. We debated. We listened to the internal feedback and applied it to the external response. We called, it (us) answered. We whispered and the soul fired back a quick and authoritative hallelujah. Truly hosanna on the highest. 

Stuff like that happens when we go places you've never been. Facing those nasty poisonous reptilian demons isn't for the faint of heart. Heck, Indiana Jones didn't like it either! Takes some huevos. You gotta WANT it. You have to want it bad. There is nothing else in this zone. Just you.

You now. Seeing the you of tomorrow. We asked about the value of confidence. What that might be worth on today's open market. How the effort required to accomplish these impossibly difficult sets enhances your confidence in yourself. Across the board. At home, in the workplace, racing, functioning socially. 

We'll continue this important work through December. With the goal of hitting the 2013 ground at full gallop. I think there is some value there. Perhaps we can take a cue from the genius behind the Master Card campaign of a few years past and call it PRICELESS. 

Because that, dear friends, is its true value. You investing in you. 

Test