The little devil

Just one week to the Cortina-Dobbiaco.
Just one week to the 30km that I am preparing for the last three months.
To be ready and ENJOY a great run among one of the most beautiful landscape in the world.
The "Tre cime di Lavaredo"

And the Lake of Dobbiaco

will be the great environment where I will try and finish my 1st 30km run.

These last weeks has been quite tough. Even though I traveled a lot (and I really mean A LOT) I tried to keep following the training I had to do, to be able and ready to finish the race.
Wake up calls early in the morning to go out and have my 15/18 km before breakfast or late runs have been the normal things in the last weeks. And now...
Last Sunday I had a problem on my knee that made me stop training and that is seriously threatening the possibility to run.
This is the "little devil" that became big. Veeery big.
Who's the little devil?
I call "little devil" the voice that is inside you every time you want to do something different, something bigger, something outside the "normal stuff". Every time I want to be different and to change something I have this voice that tells me... stop doing this Ale... keep on doing the good old way!

That's the feeling you have, when you're 2 km away from the end of the training. A hard one. And everything inside you says "stop, you have done enough".

Training, to me, is also if not MAINLY to be able to resist to these voices. Much more difficult to resist to temptations

The little devil is trying to leave things as they are, trying to stop you doing the extra mile.

That's valid on sports as well as on life.
This is the same voice that stop people going outside the comfort zone. To really understand what they can do and what they are. To do everything they can do (and this can be a lot!)

To make people dividing the "ME" from "I". What I must do (for example because it's my job) from what I really am. In a word, stopping people being happy because they understand what they really want to be.

But beware.
The solution is not being deaf to the little devil. Not covering his voice with other louder voices.

The solution is to learn NOT to follow the voice. Not to keep the status quo and take a step forward.

Don't stop moving forward. Don't listen to your little devil.
I hope my knee will not listen to him too

Have a nice week end

Three hours alone

In this paperless society I am still quite old style.

Looking at my desk I am always feeling guilty for the amount of trees that have been chopped to make the incredible amount of paper that I am using.
But I strongly believe that this is the Paper 2.0 society.
We have to use pencil and paper to clean our mind and write down our ideas. And we have to use paper to print books, especially good ones.
I know, I know... you may say I am so old since today tablets and E-books are there to avoid this but I cannot resist. In a book shop I need to see the book, to feel it, to open some pages and to buy it.
And again this happened this week when, waiting for a colleague of mine in a shopping center, I had the bad idea to enter into a shop.
I came out with four books that now I need to read.
The first one I bought is from Pietro Trabucchi. This is the second book from this psychologist, athlete, professor, writer (and I am sure I forgot something) that is following mostly sports linked to physical resistance: Marathons, Ultra-marathons, Cross country ski.

He is studying the effect of the resilience, of the capability of resist to stress in people that are apparently not gifted with extraordinary physical features but that can do extraordinary things.
I already briefly spoke about him in my Persevere blog.

The type of people we are talking about are Bruno Brunod or Kilian Burgada.

Resilience is the word and to explain it well I think that we must look at its roots.
It comes from the Latin "resalio". This word meant to try and go back into the boat after you have been thrown into the see. This effort to overtake the panic, the stress and go back into the boat is what we should try and improve. Because the good thing is that we can improve that and human beings were born with this capability.

BUT, what made me really thinking, was a brief interview to Bruno Brunod that was quoted in this book (Resisto dunque sono, in Italian unfortunately) that I would like to translate. Clearly I will not be able to pass some of the "italian small details" but also the original version was quite straight forward and simple.

"My mother grew me and other 4 children alone. Since my mother had cattle, we lived above Chatillon in the Zerbion mountain. In our home we had plastic on the windows since glass was too expensive. Until I was 8 (he was born in 1962) I lived without electricity. I was going to school, but I liked staying alone.... I was with the cattle when I read an old newspaper talking about Coppi and Bartali. I was shocked. I decided I had to be a champion as well so I went to the village and bought a bicycle. They screwed me though because they gave me something old and heavy. I realized this afterwards: I started immediately training alone. My basic training was to have a bag with bricks on my back and go up from Chatillon until the end of the road. Then waking to the top part where the cows were... Now many people would like to take the merits of my performances. I think that it comes from my life. Hard but happy. I read that Socrates once said "Let your children always be a little cold and a little hungry if you want them happy". Yes, Socrates said that but I do agree".

To sum up... no resilience can be trained if life is too easy and the sport environment can also help doing that beside giving clear help on the physical side.

It is for this reason and to make my life more difficult (just kidding!) that I am preparing the Cortina Dobbiaco Run.

30 kilometers in a breathtaking environment into MY mountains.

I will be needing a lot of resilience and training. But there is a quite complicated part of this kind of run that people often forget or do not take into account.
I think that the most difficult part in these long distances is to listen to your body and to the signs it will give you. You need to learn staying three hours alone, listening inside yourself. Listening to all the signs and giving yourself the right message to your body.

Let's see...

In the meantime, I wish you all a happy Easter.
Ciao

Resilience

The Wikidefinition of Resilience is the ability of a material to absorb energy when it is deformed elastically, and release that energy upon unloading.
This has been the definition that I studied during my University times.
Then I started working and Resilience changed from being a Material characteristic to being a PERSONAL characteristic.
Books, meetings and presentations made me understand the meaning of this new meaning for Resilience and the importance of this attitude to succeed achieving your targets (see my Post "Persevere").

But last Sunday I have clearly understood what it means.
First Half Marathon of my life. Good conditions, slightly cold (around zero deg.C) and great view of the mountains around.
This has been my "running target" for this year and to reach this I have trained early in the morning or late at night regardless the weather conditions. Well, I tried my best to be prepared and FINISH the race. 
Finish my first half marathon.
750 people were at the startline ready to run 21km (and some meters) around a beautiful Belluno. 

750 normal people and some real athletes ready to prove themselves they could do it. 
That they could arrive or run faster than last year: simply everybody had a WHY to have moved from other cities, other countries even to be there on a freezing Sunday morning dressed with a red shirt ready to run.

And during the race there were difficult moments, bad feelings, things not working fine but also other runners that helped keeping the right pace or giving some piece of advice to help out of the crisis.
The more you're getting close to the end, the more you are alone though.
And then the last three km are the worst. I was tired, my legs heavy and feet soaring. I am definitely not a real runner and I was clearly feeling that.
But, finally I could see the finish line. Go, go, go, slightly faster to finish propely the race.
Then... no, although the finish line was at 20meters we had to do 1 more km going around the town first down and then uphill.
one km, one thousand meters. After having run 20km. I was completely out of fuel.
Resilience is the ability of a material to absorb energy when it is deformed elastically, and release that energy upon unloading.
I was "deformed" (my feet definitely were) and I had to release the energy, the last energy I had coming out of this.
And that was a real understanding of it.
Now I can say that I am an Halfmarathon finisher (1h 54min... not an athlete yet) and that I know quite well what resilience means.

As usual it is a question of setting targets and work to get there with passion and belief. 
No excuses. No "I do not have time". No "I will do it tomorrow".
As usual a question of people and to give them targets that they can achieve even if there is a "last minute problem". 
And, at the end, sit down and appreciate you have reached your target. 
Then set another one.
Need to stay alive. Need to set the next step and work to reach this. Need to enjoy this.

Next step... 30 km. Bellunofeltrerun

This is my next "running target".
I should probably avoid the thousand of calories that we will have during the dinners on next days. I should, I do not know if I will.
Happy Christmas to everybody

Persevere

TOR DE GEANTS

This is possibly one of the hardest races in the world.

330km with 24.000mt positive altitude range

These two figures give you the idea about what is this running race.
Yes, you must run!
And this year 706 people from all over the world started this challenge and 383 finished it within the max time.
I have started looking at this type of races (just looking though) after I read a nice book. Again in Italian...
PERSEVERARE E' UMANO (Pietro Trabucchi).

This book is about motivation or, better, self motivation. Pietro Trabucchi is a psychologist that is active in the study of sport performances. He's been following as a doctor, but also as an athlete, some of the most phenomenal "extreme runners" (it is a shame that nobody knows them) like Bruno Brunod or Jean Pellissier.

I am not a Psychologist. In reality I really could never understand Psycology even though in my life I must behave often more as a moral support than an engineer or a salesman (or maybe a salesman MUST be a psychologist). I found in that book, though, quite some communalities with my ideas.

The key point is MOTIVATION, DRIVE.
This is the real difference that is making us developing. To persevere in what we think is the right direction.

Clearly this means that:

1) we have a CLEAR target
2) we know what we must do to reach this target

Too many times today we continuously change our ideas or our strategy simply because we are proceeding through trial and error.

NO CLEAR TARGET, NO DIRECTION, NO CHECK POINTS.

What is even more important is that, according to Trabucchi, we are today living with some myths that are completely wrong:

1) Talent
2) Luck
3) External motivators

This is clearly valid for sports but we can also consider this true for your working life.

Some people are today using these myths as excuses for not being able to reach their targets.
I am not saying that Lionel Messi is not talented. I am saying that EVERYBODY MUST SET THEIR TARGETS and fight to reach them.

Are people doing Tor de Géants different or more talented from who's doing the "Camino de Compostela" (800km walking)? NO, THEY HAVE SIMPLY A DIFFERENT TARGET.

We are today confused by this continuous competition area.
This is giving bad input to people. In the Tor de Géants race the target is, first of all, to FINISH IT.

BE A FINISHER.

Try to get close to the limits and not be afraid of being scared is something goes wrong. Just be scared, check where you are and correct the mistakes.
Then start again with great personal motivation and focus on the target.

Are Coaches useless? Clearly not. But they can only show the direction.
TARGET and PERSONAL MOTIVATION is something personal.
In sport and in life.
Sometimes being a finisher is much important of being the champion.
Expecially if you have managed to reach your targets according to your plan.

Have a nice week end.

Opportunity

My last Blog ended saying that I found the way to do meditation.
Everything started because of something wrong. I wanted to go out running and the Ipod was out of batteries.
To that date, running was for me trying to keep fit and listen some music. Running=Ipod.
It always seemed impossible to me go away from that equation.

But that day everything changed.

I started listening to my body, myself breathing. And that was my mantra. IIIIIIIIIIIIIIN OOOOOOOOOOOOut. I could finally clean my mind. IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIN OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOut.

That was great. Being able to clean my mind listening to my body. This is the great thing of a meditative (not competitive) running.
My "running passion" started from there. It started from a need (as most of the things that really work) and developed into my hobby.

And thanks to the hobby I found how much running was similar to my job.
Few points that will clear this concept
1st: You must know the "battlefield". Not knowing the track or the circuit will bring you to a bad distribution of your effort
2nd: You must know who you are and where are your strength. To properly distribute the effort you must know where you are good and where you can push
3rd: Control: listen to your body to see where you are and see if you can reach the target.
4th: Understand your weak points: look where you can improve and work on that weaknesses
5th: In a race you must know your opponents: never try to follow the others. Always run to the level that maximise your strenght according to who you are (and who you want to be).

This is what people should do if they need to go and look for OPPORTUNITIES for their business. Before investing any second (REMEMBER that time is the most valuable resource that we have) try to understand the battlefield, the competitors and your strenghts, understanding which is the problems you can solve.

I read a great book (in italian) that gives a nice description for that. It is the Art of war modified for the managers.
I am sure that there is also a similar version in English but, for the Italians or who speaks Italian, this is quite nice.