I am a million miles an hour before we take on Double Century this weekend and I am struggling to settle down to get it all into a blog post. Some weeks are blissful, flowing and others are like this, where I have eaten lunch in my car 4 times this week driving back from chores and collections. C`est la vie.

So I thought I would jot down some random thoughts which have passed through my mind this week, questions which I wondered about and ideas which irked me a little.

I recently wondered about the fact that people with disabilities have heightened other abilities. So those who may be deaf, or cannot speak, become super strong, or ridiculously good sommeliers (smell). I wondered how far in years to come this would be exploited once genetic doping becomes a reality. Will athletes deliberately have their hearing removed to gain extra power or extra brain power should they be in sports like Chess (yes, a sport) or where an athlete would gain enough to become a world champion.

It’s a question which irked me. I am completely against all forms of doping, cheating, et al. But where do you draw the line? As the lines become more and more blurred as the options open up to would be cheaters, how do we govern our sports to remain clean of these people. Then you have to ponder, for a kid from the poorest family in Russia who isn’t raised with the same sense of morals as you and I – is it even cheating to them?

What is your view?

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Then onto something else – the crutches we carry to keep us busy. Everyday I deal with people who are busy for the sake of being busy. It’s ridonkulously easy to get caught up in this busyness, which becomes the crutch that keeps you moving, perhaps from dealing with your problems, issues which you are in essence, running from. I think Ironman attracts these people who can stay busy all day training, discussing training in forums and with coaches and hanging out with other athletes just talking about training, never dealing with their problems. THIS is a great post on the matter. As the holidays are approaching, I urge you not to fill them with chores, busyness and avoiding the things which have bugged you all year.

They are holding you back.

Break free. Walk without the crutches.

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All to recently, I discovered that I need to be better at asking for help. As someone who loves to achieve (not like – I freaking love this stuff) it’s often tough to ask for help because your success has often come from a set of self-made decisions, so you have success.

As an athlete, it’s important to work with other people. I have read I`m Here to Win in the last week. It reminded me to ask for help, so I am working with a functional strength specialist, a pilates genius and seemingly, soon, one of the smartest people in the sport. It’s not easy for me to let others take control but in ways, that is the lesson for me to learn.

Letting others run with things is the fundamental core of my job. I lead by serving where I am and trust the team 100% that they are doing everything possible. I have almost no control on many of the outcomes and this has been not a breeze of fresh air, but a tornado of crisp west-coast sea awesomeness. I am trying to carry it into other arenas.

Watch this space.

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Kaizen is on my mind this week. Small improvements, continuously. I am at a point in my life where, unless I start a new sport, career or attempt to get as fat as possible, I am going to be making small changes, little improvements. But if I make them continuously and in various arenas, they can add up to a somewhat sizeable gain.

But never again will I enjoy dropping 30sec/km in a block of running, or 15sec per 100m in a week or two of swimming. I won’t take 20min off my Argus time, ever again.

I think so many newbies to all sports forget this vital part. Relish in the changes, the current change, compared to where you were. You are all so obsessed with a future number, where the margins of improvement get so much smaller towards that number, that you forget the amazing gains you are making right NOW.

Stop it. Sit up and smell the freaking roses mate. They are good, filled with craft beer and bacon and may never ever return again. Right now is pretty awesome. Remember that.

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That’s it for now. Time to breathe out, properly. Not much left to do between now and 6am tomorrow morning when I`ll be riding with an immensely talented bunch of guys for around 6 hours, relishing in the moment, dreaming of bacon and craft beer for dinner and smiling at the beauty in the pain.

Practice what you preach. Watch me go…

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I have just been on a 2 day course to improve my work skills. As a project manager working with incredible, yet corporate clients, my job is to take the pressure off my teams in the office so that they can produce the best product, and by that, I mean the best value, for the client.

Simple. We develop in Agile methodology and it’s worth noting the Agile Manifesto and relating that to my sport of choice, Ironman.

Individuals and interactions over processes and tools
Working software over comprehensive documentation
Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
Responding to change over following a plan

If I had to imagine the endurance athletes manifesto, it would look as follows:

Individuals and interactions over teams and equipment
Results and Performance over smack talk & speculation
Sponsor collaboration over contract negotiation
Responding to change over following a plan

When I clicked those simple things, a massive pause occurred in my mind. I had to rethink the way I went about everything. I consulted my peer group for the smartest info, worked with a coach, a strength coach and developed working collaborations with my sponsors instead of race reports and negotiation. Today, I got the go ahead from a sponsor for 2012 on just what is says in the manifesto there. Collaboration, Interaction, Change, Performance. I am so excited about the future at the moment because the present is filled with opportunity.

Next year, I plan to race 3 Ironman races. Stupid? Read THIS FIRST. Add in 3 Xterra races, Sani2c, Wines2Wales, 70.3 Buffalo City, 2 Oceans Half Marathon, possibly African-X and who knows what else, right? Does NOT mean I am racing them all to win, but whilst I can, I am going to race as much as possible, before life settles into the routine where it’s not possible to race AS much.

Whilst the pause for the end of the year is approaching rapidly, I urge you to find a space to truly pause before the year resumes with a bang in January. Recharge fully, breathe deep and for a week or two, walk slowly, ride with open eyes and run some new trails like a kid. The pause is coming quickly, are you ready?

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Rapha Continental USA Pro Cycling Challenge Stage 1 from RAPHA on Vimeo.

Another beauty from Rapha. Applause…

Indeed, a day for a broad and dextrous waffle from the host of the blog. A day where he can let his mind wander and let you be the recipient of it all. Where all and nothing may make sense as he returns from a week in a antibiotic hum where everything had that horrible taste in there, somewhere. As I am returning to health, so my mind is returning to creativity. I am exercising lightly again and life beyond the tarmac is just easier again.

This morning I read a FASCINATING article about being your best. It perked me up about the tough choices I have to make daily to be my best. That dreaming is just that and that getting there is much harder. It requires a lot more. Dreaming is no good if you actually want it badly enough. If you are happy enough to just dream it – well then you don’t want it badly enough, do you?

As we are planning Epic Unsupported Tour 2011, I am little obsessed with details at the moment. On a trip where a lack of details means possibly sleeping next to the side of the road being the big spoon to an Epic Unsupported Aussie First Timer as he wonders if he`ll make it back to his wife, I need to go the extra step. Considering the route I have in my mind, which is now plotted 99% of the way on the Garmin Edge 705, I am going deep. The trip is 3 days shorter and only 50km shorter, but this year will be a lot more fun. There is a hike-a-bike section on the last day, which I need to go scout to see if I will have rocks thrown at me by this guy for being overly ambitious about what constitutes “adventure”.

Although this trip will never be open to the public (currently the application includes a set of mixed random tasks involving tactical application of your ability to emulate an Alpaca doing Pavarotti on LSD), this year we will be doing live tracking with THIS awesome little toy. Family, friends and yes, stalking blog readers unite, because you will get random SMS at random times telling you where we are (should there be signal). Taking stalking to a new level, you can also track live, at any time, if the device is charged and in reception areas.

Now stop and read this.

While you`re at it, also read this. See – you`re smarter already.

Let’s celebrate some South African’s doing it in style this weekend: Greg Minnaar for yet another win at the World Cup. Ray Tissink for his 2nd at Boulder Peak 70.3. It’s awesome to see the guys flying the flags on the world stage. If I missed someone – please let me know.

Talking of races, here are two galleries you should look at today:

1. London ITU where collectively, the rest of the field must have slept badly knowing how far behind they are. Ali Brownlee is the best triathlete in the game at the moment.

2. Norseman is on my list to race someday. Along with Embrunman. Yes…you think I am stupid, and yes, you are very, very wrong.

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Simply beautiful those 2 images and the galleries they link to. Opposite ends of the experience – one very solo, one very much thriving with chaos, but both utterly beautiful in terms of the talent and rockstar performances that came from them.

Me, I am currently searching for the solo moments. Not that this is a new thing. I prefer the quiet to the chaos. I prefer to suffer mildly for extended periods of time, rather than suffer harder for shorter periods. I find this to be true in my work, my sport and in my relationships as well. So much we can learn from the sports we choose, or sometimes, the sports that choose us, seemingly.

Tomorrow is a public holiday. I am doing a full day of training in prep for O till O. Long, slow mileage across 3 sports. Should. Be. Fun.

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“Above all, be true to yourself, and if you cannot put your heart in it, take yourself out of it.”- Hardy D. Jackson

I am sick and at home today, finally having given in to the sinus infection doing the rounds after a 3 week valiant fight. Today I wanted to share this, because when I am sick, I am always looking towards where to improve processes to avoid this. Today is the first time in 5 years I am on anti-biotics for being sick (having stitches and it being mandatory to take them doesn’t count). I want to make it 10 to the next round, if ever again, but I need to be in tune with my passions to make that happen. I found this article on Zenhabits. It spoke of igniting your passion. An absolutely essential part to any life of real meaning. An essential block to happiness. Read on…

For the past 8 years I’ve run experiments on myself and others to better understand what makes us come alive.

This has taken me on ultra-marathons, to the tops of mountains, the bowels of bookstores, around the world and in front of some pretty fascinating people on some very deep soul searching. Finding passion and helping folks do work that embodies it has become a bit of an obsession of mine and has turned up some interesting results.
It turns out passion is not as elusive as we think. Just like daily exercise leads to a more fit and healthy body, there are habits that lead to fire in your belly. If we are to cultivate such a lifestyle we must act accordingly.

1. Surround yourself with passionate people. This is the foundation. Most people don’t believe you can do work you love because they’re constantly around people who hate their jobs and don’t know what excites them. This has to change. Those around you have everything to do with your success and your belief of what’s possible. You’ll either rise up or sink down depending on who’s next to you.

Passion is contagious. You must have an environment that embodies it. You need a support crew who believes what you believe. People who dream as big as you or bigger. Not only will they give you ideas but they’ll condition the belief that doing what you love is the norm. They fuel our passion and make the unthinkable possible, even normal. You’ll begin to expect the same of yourself.

It’s crucial to get this right. It’s why Leo and I get out on barefoot runs in San Francisco every week or so and why I’m on a quest to document 1,000 people across the world living their dreams. We all need encouragement.

Look around you. Do the people you see inspire and motivate you? Are they doing epic things? Do they love their work? Learn how to make genuine connections with new people doing interesting things. Check Craig’s List, MeetUp, coffee shop bulletin boards, Chamber of Commerce, Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn. Find people in your own town and online. Befriend them. Make them a part of your life. Get out on adventures together. Schedule a weekly dinner or drinks just to talk about what’s exciting. Environment is everything.

2. Create space. If you don’t give big ideas room, they’ll never show up. Purpose and passion are no different. Lack of space creates pressure – the ultimate killer of creativity. And nothing requires more creative juices than passion. Start small with five minutes each morning. Schedule downtime. Start walking to work instead of taking the bus. Don’t multitask. Get out in nature. Just be, let things flow and see what comes up. Give yourself permission to dream. Passion thrives in emptiness.

3. Help someone in a way only you can. We all have natural strengths and talents that can dramatically help those around us. What comes easy for you is no doubt challenging for others. We tend to take these for granted, often hardly noticing our own gifts, and rarely share them with others. Passion comes from using those on a routine basis. Ask yourself, What do people thank you for? What do people routinely ask for your help with? Most people’s passions help others in one way or another. Perhaps for you it’s knitting, teaching children math, cooking a good meal or leading a yoga class. Devote time each day to sharing your talents.

4. Keep a journal of what inspires and excites you. Let your thoughts run wild. Most importantly, keep a running list of what inspires you. Books, magazines, movies, people, products, music, stories, careers, everything. Most people have a brush with passion almost daily, unfortunately we’re often too busy thinking of our 97-item todo list to take in the education. Anytime something catches your eye or excites you, open up your journal and get it onto paper. Over the years you will have a running story of how you might enjoy spending your time.

5. Challenge the norm. Ask questions. Don’t take things as gospel just because that’s how they’ve always been done. Don’t aimlessly listen to those around you. Question everything you’ve been doing and are about to do, especially if you don’t enjoy it. Is it really what you want? Is it in line with who you are? Perhaps there’s a better way. There often is.

6. Scare yourself – Live outside your comfort zone. Passionate people thrive off uncertainty. If you aren’t doing things that give you a few goose bumps you’re either not learning, dying or bored out of your mind. None of which are good. Do something at least mildly uncomfortable daily. This could be as small as making a phone call or sharing your art with someone. Be vulnerable. There’s a pretty direct correlation between pushing limits and epic living.

7. Find the right reasons. If a passionate person gets fired, they brush it off and get excited about the opportunity the lost job must be presenting. You can’t control what happens but you can control your reaction to it. What challenges have come up today? How could you reframe them? The juiciest possibilities often have the best disguises. Notice them.

8. Learn something new. Become obsessed with learning everything you can find – new skills, approaches, ideas, you name it. If it interests you then it’s important enough to get in your brain. We have to fuel what excites us. Grab a magazine or book that interests you and read a few pages on the way to work or before bed. Passionate people almost always have a book within reach. Ideas can be found anywhere. Start looking. Be a sponge.

9. Start at blog. Surprise, surprise, right? But blogs are much more powerful than most realize. They’re a simple way to explore and share the thoughts and beliefs you’re excited about and for people to immediately see and provide feedback. Don’t worry about whether you’ll make money from it or who will read it. That’s not the point. The point is to constantly fuel something that interests you.

For years my wife has loved to cook vegetarian meals. Then last month she started a simple blog and the most fascinating thing started to happen. Her cooking changed from something she simply did, to something she eagerly shared and talked to others about. She suddenly had an audience to teach something she cared about. People started to thank her and cook her meals. Now she wants to do something more with it. Maybe private cooking classes or a recipe book.

This would have never come if she hadn’t taken her interest to the next level. It didn’t have to be a blog. That just happens to be one of the easiest ways of doing it these days. Seriously start a blog. It takes a few hours max. Write about what excites you and nothing else. Publish it for the world to see. Do it daily or weekly. Give your passion room to breathe.

See what happens.

Your life’s an experiment

Everything you do, everything you try, everything that does or doesn’t work out, whether you like it or not, it’s all an experiment. It’s up to you to decide to learn from it. That’s the ultimate daily practice.

Test how you can help people. Test what excites you. Test what you like. Test what scares you. Realize that if you do what you’ve always done, your results are never going to change.

Living a life of purpose and passion is just that, a way of life. Those who wake up excited aren’t just the lucky ones, they condition themselves to experience and deserve it.

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How incredible was that. Find the original HERE.

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Swimming upstream into a river of molasses this week. There has simply been very little time to get to writing. Sure, it’s an excuse, but it’s the one I will stick to this week as friends, quality time and work simply took priority. You are important and I will be back next week with everything owing to you (thanks for all the email reminders).

Have a great, calm quiet weekend. I am off for a short break from the city to hopefully return with refreshed energy and the oomph required for what promises to be another incredible week.

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When I look at my to-do list (the long one – its broken down into bite-size chunks to avoid vertigo) and the fact that it involves so much that does not include swimming, cycling, running or a combination thereof, I wonder why I push so hard at times. I wonder if it`s all adding up to something greater than myself. That is the hope, surely?

Every day I log onto this site and I am expected to write something inspiring or something absolutely truthful that makes the audience ponder. I realise that this expectancy is something I place on myself and it comes from a place that says “What is your message” and “Be the brand”. There is ongoing pressure to perform on the field, to write amazing pieces and come up with great strategies to get the marketing exposure that sponsors have an expectation for when it comes to setting goals for the value they input into my life. All this on top of the fact that I logged 150 hours of normal work last month. That’s excluding reading, studying, etc. Just work that I can account for. Add training volume, sleep, eating, preparation for training and really, beyond the tarmac, there is quite a tight schedule going on.

I am by no means alone here. We all juggle, we all compromise. We all put together the best day we can, day after day, with the circumstances presented to us and the choices we have to make from the moment the alarm goes to the moment we doze back to slumber. Beyond our training lives, so much is going down.

There are relationships and family, friends and hobbies, interests and down-time, partying and eating. The list goes on. Beyond the tarmac is the majority of our lives. It’s the core of our lives. The 30min run we may get in the morning does not form the basis of our time, yet so often its the number 1 differentiating factor in our day being average or being awesome. I see this every morning as my amazing girlfriend puts together the motivation to get up and get out the door for her ritual runs.

She is not the same without them, yet some mornings there is an internal war with herself going on to get her out the door and yet, when she reflects later, the 12 hour day she clocked was made 10 times easier by the first 30minutes of her day. How she sets her day in motion has a compound effect on her happiness for her entire day. Beyond the tarmac is often a success because of the simple choice to get outside, and a powerful choice at that.

What do we say about ourselves? What is our message?

How much better can we make this message by getting to bed earlier, waking earlier and getting out the door for 30minutes in the morning?

The warrior in me may want to go sub 9 at Ironman South Africa next year, but what about the work goals, the goals for Pure Planet Racing and for my awesome family, my incredible girlfriend and my rockstar mates? Those are all warrior goals too, they are fights in their own right involving compromise, choices and being true to what I believe in.

I have to run a very lean crew of people around me who trust me, believe in me and value the life I am striving for. There is no space for energy suckers in this camp. I know many of you are facing the same situation and I applaud you for making the tough choices in life.

As warrior poets we take to the tarmac to improve our lives, instill a calmness that gives us strength in our daily tasks beyond the tarmac which are far greater than the simple task of going for a jog in the morning or riding your bicycle in the dark, while the world sleeps.

Beyond the tarmac we are shooting for the stars while we build the foundation for that rocket ship by cutting out the clutter and compromising on “normal” in order to achieve “impossible”.

Beyond the tarmac you are an inspiration to others because of the simple task of putting together a plan and sticking to it in order to achieve a goal on the road somewhere.

Beyond the tarmac, you are a hero.

Your time on the road is your anchor to that. Your wings. Your weapon.

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Some truths I know about all of us:

We think too much.

We do too little.

We talk when we should listen.

We shout when we should whisper.

We work when we should play.

We consume when we should be saving.

We worry when we should be letting go.

So go out there and:

Do

Be

Laugh

Play

Jump

Listen

Do it now…

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I am in a phase of writing about cycling, I realise. I am finding something quite pure about riding my bike in the last while. The simplicity and the lessons in there. Perhaps it is the lessons. Just today, I sat with a long lost friend, discussing life and the immense challenge he faced a year or five ago, thrown in the deep end in a position he knew very little about.

It was tough. Monstrously tough. He drew back on the long rides, the long runs, the short runs when they sucked, and the lessons learned in all his time spent committed to his cause, to perfecting the journey. He applied the lessons to the tasks at hand and proclaimed to me that indeed, sport is the rulebook for life. It’s all interlaced.

Team Sky – 2010 Paris-Roubaix Recon from Josh Caffrey on Vimeo.

Still want to ride cobbles?

So back to the last few articles, about riding, about the work done, about the lessons learned and taking the lessons forward to make good decisions in a compound manner.

Back to the ways in which we learn to fight for a better life, so that we can move with more agility, with more grace, with power versus force, with less haste and more speed. Few races draw the attention of the world as much as Roubaix. There are many reasons for it and I won’t delve into those today. Few riders that the world has ever seen display all the things I have been talking about quite like our Spartacus. Please enjoy his grace, his power, his speed.

Fabian Cancellara wins Paris-Roubaix [HD] from markus|neuert ★ cyclefilm|com on Vimeo.

If you are looking for someone to copy, look no further.

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The last 2 days I have had to go out and ride my bike along what can simply be described as some of the most beautiful coastline in the world. At my house, there is an absence of wind, almost at all times. It’s deceptive, as there has been a gusting wind blowing other side of Camps Bay, on both occasions. This morning as I was attempting to ride easy into a gale headwind, I remembered this set of videos I came across yesterday which had me longing for more Epic Unsupported Tour. The same ethos applied. Keep pedalling, no matter how tough it’s getting.

Here is the first video:

Rapha Rides TOC – Episode 1 from RAPHA on Vimeo.

I am going to be doing these crazy trips for a long time. This one has inspired me to capture it, like these guys have, with a road ride sometime this year. If you are a production company and you are reading this, I would love to show off South Africa in a very professional manner, as Rapha have (by the way, one of my favorite brands in the world), all by bicycle. Please contact me. If you could see the areas we went through recently, it blows the mind away.

The concept of group suffering is not new to me. It’s not new to many people. There is something extremely rewarding and peaceful about riding a bike for a mightily long distance. There is something about going minimalist on the kit, the crew, the food, that brings you back closer to how you are supposed to be. It shows you just how much your body is capable of. It’s a special place when you discover that. Nobody can ever take it away from you. No material object can ever give you that personal confidence.

Rapha Rides the TOC – Episode 2 from RAPHA on Vimeo.

Rapha Rides the TOC – Episode 3 from RAPHA on Vimeo.

So back to this morning, where I was riding into this headwind, knowing that if I went any harder, I would just tire myself and hate tomorrow’s session. So I plodded quietly into this gusty headwind. I found a metaphor for life in there. Sometimes you just have to plod, without really knowing when the wind will turn. Eventually, the wind always turns and if you have a headwind all the way home, chances are, you had a tailwind going out.

Tough times, suffering, pain, they eventually all go away. Sometimes you have to go beyond the call of duty, to finish the task. Sometimes you have to stay the extra hour, work from home at night or make the point to disappoint someone in order to get to your goals. That is life. It’s a part of the headwind.

Rapha Rides the TOC – Episode 4 from RAPHA on Vimeo.

Once the wind turned with about 8km to go this morning it was plain sailing. Almost like there was no chain on the bike it was so easy. It was euphoric and worth the effort of being patient and applying the “off” button to the ego when other riders passed me earlier, riders who I could ride faster than, but who’s plan I was not on today.

As my fretten always says, just keep swimming. Eventually the beach will come. Eventually the wind will turn. Suffering will stop and all that you want will turn towards you with gusto and claim you like a bear hug. You will understand the reasons, the patience will make sense and you will find your ellipsis…

Rapha Rides the TOC – Finale from RAPHA on Vimeo.

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To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting. ~e.e. cummings, 1955

Wow, what a week that has passed. Consumed with something I will be able to share with you a little later today, I am happy to say that I haven’t put anything hugely motivational down this week. Instead, I have been living it out there, where not all of you can see what is going on. My inspiration has come from amazing people in my life who are fighting for their jobs, their lives, their health and their hearts. They fight with a humility that we should all strive for and when I wake in the morning I think of how they go about their days, so simply.

I am striving towards, as I have always said, a life filled with adventure, meaning & love. Oh, and music. What’s life without music that touches you? I have to fight for this and I know this. I choose to fight smart, because I am not the strongest guy out there. I am aware of the limits I have and I work on those whilst exploiting the areas where I am strong. I had the privilege of having James Cunnama stay with me for a night this week. He is testament to this. Currently ranked No 1 triathlete in the world on the official rankings, he has risen from the bottom and this man (no longer a boy) has had to fight and fight. He had serious weaknesses, and a few years later, they are all gone. The shift in his mind though, the biggest change since I last saw him. Definitely the product of success. Beautiful to see.

The busyness of our lives doesn’t allow us time to pause and appreciate the people we have around us. Adversity often awakens us to the treasures that are far more important than money and material possession: our health, our family and our friends.Sudden financial losses teach us that we shouldn’t base our happiness on money. An illness teaches us to be humble and lead a healthy life. A sudden loss in the family makes us appreciate the cycle of birth, life and death. Such things may seem superficial, but you should learn from adversities if you don’t want them to control your life.

”I was complaining that I had no shoes till I met a man who had no feet,” Confucius

I love this clip. The fight in the hardest race in the world. What do you risk? What are you willing to fight for? How far does the rabbit hole go once you throw your body down there? You gain the sense that the team is there to support the guy who is willing to risk everything. Surrounding yourself with a team of people who support your best interests – such a key fact to life.

The fight is something that is always there. It will always be there. Gear up, study how it’s done smartest, not hardest. Have a great weekend out there.

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