We all know I am sponsored by Rockets Compression and that in the past, I have used a compression sock for Ironman runs. There is a bit of a story to how I got there. I blistered horribly in my first Ironman. I was told to find a set of double layered socks. I found a set, they were amazing and they were compression, knee high socks too. So despite feeling like a tool, I used them in races. Since then, I have found even better socks from X-Bionic and will be going back to running without them. I am completely behind the idea of compression for recovery, but as of yet not convinced they make a difference in the race beyond the looking like a tool part.

I am also not huge on the idea of seeing people walk around in compression socks and shorts all week before the race. As much as I love triathletes, they have some funny fashion habits. Compression everywhere on race week is a highlight and I have yet to see the difference.

Last night I came across what Terenzo Bozzone has dubbed the official rules of Compression Socks. Quite entertaining and quite right, methinks.

Here follows the progression of the self conversation. Enjoy…

A pearl of wisdom. Race with one sock yo, so we know you have a weakness and can lean on it…

Sneaky triathletes, don’t use this excuse.

There we go. If you have to, don the Speedo and crocs and compression sokkies and enjoy.

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‘Don’t hurry. Don’t worry. And be sure to smell the flowers along the way.’ ~Walter Hagen

Editor’s note: This is a guest post by Victoria Vargas of Smaller Living.

We all know that we need to stop and smell the roses and enjoy the small joys in our lives. However, we have to have room in our minds and schedules to engage not just in those joyful moments, but also in reflection afterward.

It’s in the processing and reflection that allows these experiences to become meaningful to us and for us to deeply experience the joys they hold. Downsizing and living smaller helps us do that.

Does that sound counter intuitive? If so, I’m not surprised. There’s a skewed perception in the media today that downsizing is a painful necessity of those in hard financial straits and that smaller living and minimalism are about austerity and deprivation, not joy. That couldn’t be further from the truth. In my experience, the process of downsizing has given me a surprising sense of relief, not just in the results I’ve achieved, but also in the daily engagement with the process. It gives me a sense of freedom that grows with each passing day and a greater capacity to experience the small joys of everyday life.

Learning the Power of Simple Joys

I was hiking along a trail in the Silver Falls State Park in Oregon with my soon to be boyfriend and as we rounded a curve, a breathtaking vista complete with a roaring waterfall came into view. Both of us stopped in our tracks and breathed deeply at the same time, blissed-out smiles creeping up our cheeks. What I remember most was the complete happiness of that moment as we stood together, our eyes alight with the raw beauty of where we were and the companionship of sharing it with each other.

That moment on the trail is one I’m not likely to forget. Just recounting it here fills me with joy. With my previous approach to traveling and living, I likely would have rushed from “hey, cool waterfall” to “what’s next?” Not anymore.

Acknowledging Joy

Joy comes from the realization of how special the moment we’re experiencing is, such as sharing the sight of an amazing waterfall with someone dear to us, a spontaneous hug from a child, our pet’s enthusiasm at our return home, the burble of the coffee maker in the morning, curling up with a new book by our favorite author, or the sound of our name when spoken with love by our inamorato. None of these small joys would be nearly as significant to me had I continued to live my in the frantic, chaotic, and over-scheduled way I did before committing to living a smaller and saner life. Yes, of course, I knew they were special moments, but I didn’t often give myself the time to savor them when they occurred or process and reflect on them afterward. Thus, I lost much of the joy such experiences can bring.

Depth and Joy

“The moments we enjoy most as they unfold, and that we treasure long afterward, are the ones we experience most deeply. Depth roots us in the world, gives life substance and wholeness. It enriches our work, our relationships, everything we do. It’s the essential ingredient of a good life and one of the qualities we admire most in others.” William Powers.

Cultivating small joys was one of my major motivations for living smaller. When we intentionally downscale our lives and possessions, it is because we’re seeking something more in our lives, something more meaningful, fulfilling, free, and joyful. By jettisoning the meaningless clutter and bustle from our lives, we free up the time and space for small joys to arise and for us to fully appreciate them for the richness and texture they bring our lives.

Understanding what is important in our lives allows us to rid ourselves of the rest without remorse. As Cal Newport recently wrote in a guest post here on Zen Habits, “ … when you know what your life is about it’s easy to sidestep all that threatens to clutter it.” Time, attention, and most especially, the ability to go deep into our experiences—all gifts of minimalist and smaller living—are the critical ingredients for a life to be rich with simple joys.

So how can you create and enjoy more small joys in your life?

1. Allow some breathing room in your schedule. When we rush, we barely acknowledge what is happening around us. I can’t remember ever hearing someone say they had a joy-filled day because they were rushed and stressed, running from one thing to the next.

2. Be present. Being present, a common theme here on Zen Habits, is absolutely essential for experiencing and appreciating the small joys of life. Instead of always thinking of the next thing on our to-do list or itinerary, being present allows us to recognize and enjoy those small moments of joy as they arise.

3. Stay with the moment and fully experience it. Pay attention to the details.

4. Remember this. Remind yourself at the time of how it makes you feel and what about it you want to treasure. Think of these moments like little GPS way stations, points in time and space that you want to commit to memory.

5. Go deep. Great joy can be experienced from even the smallest, seemingly inconsequential thing by going deeper into the experience and not just flitting along the surface of it. Go deep with it, relish it, and store that moment away in your memory banks. These small joys are the moments that make up a meaningful life.

6. Make a note of it. Journal about it or consider keeping a Joy List and jot down these small joys as they happen in your life. When the world starts coming on too strong, taking a few moments to refresh your memory of the small joys in your life can bring a calmness, centering, and contentment back to your day.

7. Cultivate moments of joy by doing the things you love. Nothing picks me up and makes me more joyful than tooling around town on my bicycle with a cool breeze in my hair and the sun on my shoulders. Something about it makes me feel free, childlike, and gleeful (ringing the little bell mounted on my handlebars is a happy bonus). Take the time to understand what speaks to your soul and make joy dates with yourself to keep that feeling in your life.

8. If you’re traveling, send the joy home on a postcard to yourself. At the start of your trip, pick up a handful of postcards and stamps and keep one or two with you at all times. When something you want to remember, some small joy, occurs, you can jot it down and pop it in the mail to yourself to be waiting for you when you return. I picked up this habit some years ago from a travel memoir by Alice Steinbeck called Without Reservations. One of my favorites I sent myself reads:

“ Dear Vic, Remember the deer that stopped not two feet from you this morning while you were having coffee on the yoga deck? She looked you right in the eye and then bent down to nibble on the plants without concern. Don’t forget the magic of that moment: the soft shine in her eyes as she gazed into yours and found you to be good company.”

It’s easy in the days and weeks that follow the whirlwind of travel to start losing those magical details of your experiences. Keeping a journal works well for some people, but many find it hard to maintain when on the go. Sending a postcard to yourself with just a few lines scribbled on it lets you capture the moment with minimal fuss and relive the joy again once you return home.

9. Share small joys with loved ones that live far away. One of my favorite daily rituals is my evening Skype video call with my boyfriend. It’s often the shared smaller joys and pleasures that stay in my memory afterward and that bring us closer. Likewise, although we live more than 2,000 miles apart, my mother and I often call each other to share some little joy we experienced— like a recent call from her to tell me about the sweet nest of baby birds she discovered in a flowerpot on her porch. Reach out and share the little joys of your life with your loved ones that live distant and you’ll find your relationship with them stays more nourished, loving, and positive.

10. Gift small joys to those you love. If you know some small thing brings a loved one joy, find ways to gift it to them. Does the sight of a cheerful jelly jar with daisies make your lover smile contentedly? Then have it waiting for them at their place at the table when they sit down this Monday morning. Does an early evening walk make a child in your life prance with happiness? Then do it. Take the time and give them your full attention on that walk, stopping to stare at the cool but creepy grasshopper or skip rocks across the water. Intentionally giving small moments of joy to members of our tribe is an amazing testament of our love for them and brings us more joy in return.

Small joys are available to us in the pauses between the outer actions that fill our lives. They are the depth in the moments lived fully with complete attention. This is what smaller living is all about, cultivating simple joys in our days while stepping outside of the schedules, deadlines, and chaos that make up so much of modern life. Joy comes when we take the time to thoroughly relish something wonderful we’re experiencing, no matter how small or insignificant it may seem to others. For me, simple joys seem to be the most durable and memorable.

Ask yourself, what’s one small thing you can do today to bring joy to you or someone you love?

Got it? Lovely.

Now go do it. I`ll be back later with a full post.

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The thousand yard stare. Defined as best as I have ever seen it. Isn’t it just beautiful. Broken through every barrier he had set himself, that dude. Congrats…

The photo comes from this race after reading this race report and I have to admit I have already emailed the organisers for a 2011 entry. The race looks like it`ll fill every single boyish adventure bone in my body. It requires really fine gear selection, fantastic planning and really, a measured effort beyond what I may have. It’s also a new challenge and forms part of my whole 2011 plan, which involves new challenges.

2011?

Yes, my 2011 is all set out and ready to rumble. Races, financial plans, work goals, limiters and a bucket list of items and places. I have been a busy boy behind the scenes. I want to hit the ground running January 1st, not wake up like the rest around March…

On that note, I will post 2 posts later today, one about Urban Ninja caps which are available in 2 weeks and the other is a Hawaii themed party pack which I want to sell off to help me buy food in Hawaii. Simple as that, costs are not covered entirely and I want to put it out to the community and see what I can get back. It’s valued at R15 000.00, for starters. See you later…

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So the big miles are over. As of today, I am prepping down for Kona & Maui with earnest anticipation of greatness. I am super fit & super tired, people are staring at my funny tan and telling me I need to put on weight. WOO HOO! The miles are done and I now am fine tuning the engine. There are already questions to what this entails, so here we go, in no particular order:

1. Sleep
2. Sleep
3. Sleep
4. Race Pace Specific Workouts (RPSW for those who love acronyms) start now as well.
5. Making sure all the kit is in the bag and ready to go. New kit is still coming in thick and fast from all over. TOYS!
6. Testing new kit i.e. riding with race wheels, aero helmets and in race kit as well.
7. Chiro, Massage, Muscle Activation, potential other weird prodding and poking. The team around me works hard in the next few weeks.
8. Watch what I eat. Currently its 10:22am and I have been staring at my packed lunch since just after 9am. I am hungry, A L O T. This is based on the last week’s metabolism, but I want to squeeze every inch out of how lean I can get healthily before race day, so I am going all in, without going full retard.
9. Watch lots of Ironman DVD’s for motivation.
10. Read motivational endurance sports material.

It’s all a little obsessive, but hey, this is the World Championships.

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Today is just a short, fun post. Yes, it’s a list. But hey, I am tired, so you get a list. Deal with it. The five biggest lessons I have made in my trips, discoveries and crazy exploratory exploits are, in no particular order:

Fear not the fall – If you don’t fall from time to time you are not pushing the limits of what’s possible for you. Push the limits where the soil is soft, and there is not a 1000 foot drop-off to the left, capeesh?

Pack light – On our Unsupported Tour in 2009, I packed the lightest. It was a blessing and I have even thought of ways to pack lighter for this years trip. Sure, I smelt a little by the end and my clothes needed a proper wash, but hey, it was rough out there and everyone was too tired to care. Packing light is always right. I truly do NOT need everything you are taking with you. I am constantly finding ways to travel lighter, better and with less clutter, in all areas of my life.

Take a mate – when the proverbial truly hits the fan, a mate is there to finely balance the weights of HTFU and STFD. True story. Besides, who else is going to validate the absolute awesomeness that went down on that time in that place with that dude and this rotweiler?

Eat smart – Take the most calorie dense food you can. Bulky food takes up space and relates to packing light. Take stuff that makes or mixes easily or serves a dual purpose. Rehidrate is one of those products that is essential to travel. It’s muti for so much as well as being essential for moving forward. Make risotto cakes and take nougat – slow release high density foods.

Walk slowly – Have a slow down, look back at where you have come from and when you have to walk, do it slowly. Smell the air, the plants, the soil. Look around you. When going fast, make sure to do so with gusto but when going slow, slow all the way down and appreciate where you are.

Have a great weekend. My uber special personality will be back next week. In the meantime, click the banner to your right and vote for me in the Blog Awards. Your pet would vote too, so come back tomorrow and vote again, capeesh?

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Why do athletes of all disciplines and all abilities get up before the sun rises to hone their skills? Because their better, is better than your better. Full stop.

Had some hectic discussions with my legs this morning. I am almost midweek into the biggest week of training for me, leading into Ironman World Champs in October. 5 weeks to go, perfect time to ramp the mileage something stupid on the bike, just for a week. Throw yourself into the deep end and come out a little leaner, a little harder and alot more tired. For the guys and girls who want to know what this involves, its 5 hours a day, every day in the week, backed by 2 x 7 hour days over the weekend. Yes, that’s a 37 hour week, which is double my average week. Because I have a full work week too, I am training 2 bike rides a day to make it possible in the week. To further make sure you understand, the overload week has ZERO intensity over AeT across all sports, has an updated eating, sleeping and recovery schedule as well as more packing of bags and washing of gear than you could possibly fathom.

I don’t advocate you do the same thing, in these volumes, but it is interesting to note that this would be a fairly typical week for a pro Ironman athlete. By the end of the week, I will be near impossible to communicate with, eating more food in a day than you would have eaten this week and still, somehow, be able to put together a 6 hour ride on Sunday. It’s taken me years to get to this point, so don’t just go out there and do it.

That mild hummmmmm that sets in when true fatigue gets going, that is starting. It’s been there all morning. Faintly. By weekend it will be there permanently, loud enough to feel like I am plugged into a mild electrical circuit. Ah, the joys of camp.

So the questions arose, about 3/4 way into the ride this morning, when I was hungry and was about halfway up the last hill of the day.

Rewind a little, I have to admit that the 90minutes I rode in the dark this morning were blissfully amazing, quiet and fun to bomb down descents at 60km/h in the dark with one light leading the way. At one point I sat up, hands off the handlebars and up into the sky and let out a scream of pure awesomeness. Ok, back to the ride, and THAT question.

“Your training has been great, why are you pushing so hard this week?”

That was the one that brought me back to a video I had seen, which is the video above. Why was I out there? Because my current better is far better than my previous better used to be, to start. I see the exact same traits in the people around me, most noticeably lately, in The Housemate. The dude has been living this video lately. Hats off to pushing the limits to whats possible, personally. He seems to be able to shatter himself and put the pieces back together into a picture slightly better than it looked previously, repeatedly, at the moment.

When people ask you the question of “why” I believe this is possibly the perfect answer. Here are some more people who will tell you that their better, is better than your better.

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The athletes who I coach know that I am a big lover of consistency. I am 100% into the concept. It teaches you discipline and makes it easier to stay in routine, taking some of the thought process out of training. There is merit in just doing your sessions almost without thinking at certain parts of the year. During base phase specifically I may make some of them run 30min for 30 days in a row, swim 3km for 30 days in a row or ride 60min indoors (with ME work) for 30 days in a row. Crazy and not high volume individually, but there is just something that comes out of a phase like that which lasts an entire season.

We are creatures of habit and consistency allows us to build good habits as well as remove the bad ones. It takes much longer to break a habit than build one, so often its more important to NOT be doing something than particularly doing something else. For myself, the following areas require the most effort to find consistency, but once its there and built in, they are quite easy to maintain.

1. Regular sleeping hours: I tend to want to watch my favorite shows at 9:30pm which means to bed at 11pm, which is far too late. I end up short on sleep and the rest falls apart. I am a far better human being if I get regular sleep.

2. Eating habits: Once I am on the food plan its pretty much always there, but its getting onto it that requires attention. If there is ice cream in the house, I will eat it EVERY day. Generally the start of any healthy eating period involves a few days of eating all the crap that’s around, followed by a few days of “penguining” the fridge, looking for crap that’s not there, followed by buying new, good food and the habit kicks in.

3. Cleaning consistency: When my living area is relatively neat (I am never 100% tidy to other people’s standards, I am just not that prioritised on it) it takes me 3-5min in the morning to clean, which is easy and voila, I feel better. When I let it slide, it takes me ages at the end of each week to get it done properly.

I have to admit that when those 3 things are good, I can pretty much be nice to people, train regularly and count on consistent energy levels. What are your 3? People with families will have totally different ones, I am sure.

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An interesting topic which has come up a few times lately is stillness. Some will say “me” time, others will call it quiet time, stillness, solitude, etc. For me currently, it’s a whole whack of time as I am training on my own almost 100% of the time. Not out of choice. Purely because others aren’t quite into the long stuff I am doing at the moment.

Even within these extended periods of being alone, it’s not that often that I am not thinking of something or focusing on something to do with keeping going, raising or lowering heart rate, watching for cars, glass, potholes etc. I am continuously coming back to Ellipsis and how it relates to that stillness I try and give myself each day. 5 minutes can be enough, other days I might need an hour. Really its a complete lack of thought and movement. I do it to find my quiet power, which can only come from a quiet mind.

Once I have that quiet mind I find that the people around me are calmer too, so really it has a knock-on effect, this stillness. It requires practice and a bit of dedication to master, but the effects are profound. I found a great article on it here and it went like this:

“Silence is a source of great strength.” ~Lao Tzu

Post written by Leo Babauta. Follow me on twitter .

It’s a busy day, and you’re inundated by non-stop emails, text messages, phone calls, instant message requests, notifications, interruptions of all kinds.

The noise of the world is a dull roar that pervades every second of your life. It’s a rush of activity, a drain on your energy, a pull on your attention, until you no longer have the energy to pay attention or take action.

It’s an illness, this noise, this rush. It can literally make us sick. We become stressed, depressed, fat, burnt out, slain by the slings and arrows of technology.

The cure is simple: it’s stillness.

Pause

Take a minute out of your busy day to do this little exercise: pause in the middle of all you have to do, all that’s going on around you. Close your eyes, and sit still. Breathe in, and breathe out, and pay attention to your breath as it comes in and goes out. Just sit still, for about a minute.

This stillness might seem like inaction, which we’re taught is a bad thing. It’s lazy, it’s passive, it’s against our Puritan work ethic. And yet, this simple inaction can change our world.

Stillness calms us. It gives us a small oasis of quiet that allows us to hear our thoughts, that allows us to catch our breath, that gives us room to breathe at all. It is the antibody to the stress and rush we feel daily.

“Activity conquers cold, but stillness conquers heat.” ~Lao Tzu

The Strength of Stillness

Stillness has a calming effect on the world around us as well. By becoming still, we cause others to pause, to pay attention. Our quiet also quiets others. We set the mood for those who work and otherwise interact with us.

When we rush and set a frenetic pace, it stresses others and inspires them to rush frenetically too. Stillness has the opposite effect. It slows the world down, allows us to focus, gives us time for contemplation, for what matters most.

It takes strength to be still when others rush. It takes courage to be different, to go against the stream. But while others might think us weird at first, that’s OK. Sometimes it’s the weird ones that make the most difference. And soon, as our stillness inspires others to find stillness of their own, we won’t be the weird ones — we’ll be the ones with wisdom.

It takes strength to find stillness when the world around us is a chaos of activity, but it’s a strength that’s in us, and we need only to find it. Paradoxically, it’s stillness that will allow us to find that strength. Be still, look within, and it’ll be there.

Finding Stillness

It’s pretty simple, really, and you don’t need me to tell you to do this: to find stillness, you just need to take the time to sit still, every day that you can.

Find a time in the morning, when the world is still fairly quiet, to sit still. Don’t do anything, don’t plan your day, don’t check email, don’t eat. Just sit, and learn to be comfortable being still.

In practice, we’ll gradually find that comfort, and we’ll become good at it. If mornings are no good, find time during your lunch break, or after work, or just before you go to bed.

Find a place to be still. It can be a chair in your house, or a front porch, or the roof. It can be a park bench, or the beach, or a path in the woods. Let this be a ritual that you come to look forward to.

From this small place of stillness, calm will carry to the rest of your day, radiating like a soothing force. You’ll be calmer throughout the day, and learn to find little pockets of stillness everywhere: when you first start your workday, when you are ready to sit down and create, when you’re about to eat, when you are ready to exercise, during a meeting, even.

Practice, regularly. Practice, and learn. Practice stillness, and the stillness becomes a canvas upon which you can paint the masterpiece of your life.

“Let us be silent, that we may hear the whispers of the gods.” ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

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We can rehash about last week Friday’s post here and the madness and how it’s all just a part of life. I could also tell you that you probably haven’t placed your vote today, but get to that after reading this post first. I have been wondering about the madness of it all this week, especially as I was doing my absolute best to physically break the treadmill on Monday and Wednesday (note to self: treadmills hurt) and then again when I got home last night after slowly falling apart in the last 400m of my swim last night (3rd packed bag for the day – woo hoo!). I wondered if there was anything beautiful in it all, the suffering made look good? What is it in us humans that we love watching the faces of people in that moment where it hurts like hell but the competition is ripe like the smell of a trapped miner in Chile after a week or two underground.

Take this photo for example. You see a Thunderbear in full release. The guy is so excited its palpable in the photo. Its not pretty. I would imagine the noise that came from him was Chewbacca-esque and sounded like it was being played backwards in slow motion. Here is what you don’t see…

This is a guy who would only record the training he did “in the zone” – he did not measure warm-ups and cool downs. He ran with an ice glove, in full longs after years of research in chambers being pricked and prodded to work out he had a cooling problem – fatal for Hawaii. He worked meticulously at his running for years after being the strongest biker in Ironman. You don’t see that. You cannot imagine that the release is a part of all that. He didn’t even win – this release is a release of overcoming, which is why its one of the most beautiful madness pictures there is.

Hawaii is pretty, right? This picture is 28km into the run at Ironman Hawaii. In battle in the right of the picture are Craig Alexander and Andreas Raelert. You can’t see Chris Lieto ahead somewhere. They are chasing him. There is nothing to distract them in this picture. The Energy Lab is stark, its ugly, its bare and raw and its hot and windy in there. It’s a place which saps energy from you like a hungry swarm of mosquito. Ironman is a lonely sport. If you can’t work that out in this picture…

Again, in the Lab. Potts has on granny socks and has a waterbottle perched in his bum and at this point is making the 2km stretch (uphill) out of the Lab. He has recently lost his father-in-law. On his right show, the name of his father-in-law reminds him to keep going. As he approaches the finish line, he removes his shoe and points to the name. It’s been a break through race for Potts. He has his reasons. Have a dig into the emotion and find your power when you are out there.

One of the most powerful photos for me. You see Lieto, just been passed for the lead at World Championships. His face shows utter despair, his entire year he has only thought about winning and suddenly he is hanging tight for second. Fellow pro Lovato has stopped on the opposite side of the road to watch his mate being passed and you can see in his face that he knows its over for Lieto. Crowie looks only forward, I think his face shows he is running scared, that he is at his total limit as well. His form though, perfect. It an ugly picture if you`re a Lieto fan, a beautiful one on being the pro’s pro if you are a Crowie fan.

+++

The story behind the story and the beauty in the madness. Go out there and find it this weekend. It’s out there. Find the wild eyes and the scary moments. Turn them to work for you and don’t look back. Just keep the pedals turning, the arms moving and make sure to keep the nutrition going. You are so much more than you know…

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Ever felt like that? You have an absolute crisis and nobody around you can even begin to understand what you are on about?

Cant understand the crazy data on your powermeter?

Your coach not making any sense?

Struggling for reasons to get up and out and run in the dark before work, and your significant other is just not understanding she/he needs to kick you out of the bed?

Take solace in this: It happens to all of us. We all appear lost in translation at times. There are times when I look in the mirror and the voices in my head don’t even make any sense. There are times when my legs really just don’t want to do the work anymore, when they are pleading that they are sinking to the brain, but the brain is too busy listening to the following songs or telling the legs to shut up, like Jens Voigt says.

and then always remember…

that it all for today… have a good one.

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