What Matters

I've been watching my board from afar this past week. Not really getting too stuck in as I've got plenty in my schedule with wife, work and training.

One thing has caught my eye -- two threads -- 5,000 hits, say 10 seconds per hit -- 50,000 seconds or 13:53:20 of elapsed time. Neat, I bet that's not far off the average time for an Ironman. Anyhow, I haven't read the threads in detail but someone must be.

If you are trying to improve at anything in your life -- then do yourself a favour... stop. It's all a mind-jack and you're better off stretching, or filing papers or cleaning out your garage. Do anything. Debating won't get you there. Action will get you there.

The companies with the best business plans don't always succeed. Plans don't mean anything if you can't execute. To achieve something, we must first learn to do one thing. I'll write about One Thing in due course. Haven't quite worked out how to explain it. Swimmers are really good at it.

We've got to take action to get anywhere. Kicking around how many angels can dance on the head of a pin won't get us any closer to our goals. In fact, it moves us further away because often we need to work pretty darn hard just to stay in the same place.

We don't need a perfect plan -- we simply need to do a reasonable plan consistently. This applies in all things. If we can persist and enjoy doing what it takes -- we've won regardless of outcome and our outcome is much more likely to be positive. The most dangerous competitor is one that is willing to do everything to beat us but has a low attachment to outcome. Beware of the quiet smiling ones!

Often internet boards remind me a lot of the library at university -- the secret to good grades is not hanging out in the library -- the secret is actually doing some work. Training is a bit like that...

Anyhow, I would like to share a story. I've been thinking about some of my favourites over the last little while and I'll share them as I get time.

John "No Van" Mergler is a guy that I met three years ago at our first Epic Camp. An expat Brit that lives in Australia. I think he's a pilot, I'm notoriously weak at getting personal details out of folks -- that's OK, my wife is good at that.

I don't know much about John -- he's a quiet guy, I'm a talker. It's tough to learn about others when you talk a lot. I'm working on that.

Here's what I do know. Two weeks before Epic Camp, he was diagnosed with a stress fracture. Now if John was typical, then he would have sent off the "sorry g & scott" email that we normally get from someone at the last minute. John's a long, long way from typical.

What did he do?

Well, he recognised that he wasn't going to be running much at Epic so he decided to do a 1,000K bike week BEFORE he even turned up. He then backed it up with a 1,000K to open the camp -- quite a bit of that quietly grinding away beside me on the front.

In the second week of the camp there was a day when the entire camp got into the van due to the combined effects of gale force headwinds, rain and fatigue. Well, not everyone, Baron stuck with me and (after 4K in the pool) we rode 8 hours to Dunedin. Not five minutes after we arrived, Mergler rolled up with a SMILE on his face after solo'ing the entire second half of the ride. Blew me away. As a "celebration" we all ran off the bike. If you don't "get" this story then just hope you don't have to race against John much.

He qualified for Kona that year.

I normally see John in Hawaii. We have a quick chat about what he's been up to. A soft spoken guy, not one to brag about the thousands of Ks that he's done to become decent.

This year I didn't get my chat. I was wondering if he'd even qualified. The day after the race I got to see him... up on-stage collecting 2nd place in the 45-49. I was really happy for him.

Guys like John, they don't enjoy kicking our asses.
Guys like John, enjoy doing what it takes to kick our asses.

That's what we're up against and that's why he was smiling.

Happy posting.