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

It's a kind of magic

"The sculpture is already into the block of marble. The artist must only free it."

This is what Michelangelo used to say in the 15th century and this is what he managed to do ONLY freeing the sculpture from the marble block.

Nice one, isn't it?
We could say that also nice paintings are trapped into the pencil or the brush and the artist's task is "just" to take them from there to the canvas.

But how?

These are both paintings. YES! Even the first one that looks like photography.

The painter in that case is Diego Fazio a.k.a. Diego Koi while the second one is, as most probably all of you recognized, Pablo Picasso.
What's the difference then? Not that the Picasso woman got stuck while going out of the pen, but the WAY people are using their talent and skills is different. What's behind these skills is always difficult to understand. And it's not only the 10.000 hour rule saying that takes roughly ten thousand hours of practice to acheve mastery in a field (see "The Outliers" by Malcolm Gladwell)

They are, in my humble opinion, both mastering their field.
They are just showing that in different ways coming from:
- their life experiences
- their ideas
- their skills

To better understand this, let us look at photography.
I am so lucky to live in one of the most beautiful mountain areas of the world: The "Dolomiti Bellunesi"

What's behind these fantastic pictures? Is it just being in the right place in the right moment? (thanks to Federico Musashi)
Is it a question of luck or of being quick at taking out the camera and shot?



Well not only that...

The GREAT RESULTS are always a mix of:

- Training
- Skills
- Passion (love your work)
- Preparation

7 minutes of difference are crucial to take the picture you want to take and you must probably camp for days to take it as the weather conditions as always unpredictable.

In this quick discussion about artists and talent we forgot about some important things though.

How many failures they had? How many times Michelangelo hammered the wrong point? How many Picasso sketched something he didn't like? How many wrong takes are behind a breathtaking picture?
But also, who were their mentors or guides that saw their talents and gave them the directions? 

None of these artists has stopped trying and improving and none was scared or discouraged by the mistakes. They all love what they do and this is the fuel to keep their passion.

This is not only valid for artists though. It's also true in our everyday life!
Whoever manage people has a big responsibility not only for the company they are working for but also for the people they are managing (not to mention the responibility we have for our children).

If you manage people you must understand their talents, mentor and support them when there are problems or difficulties.
Everybody is a nice sculpture trapped into a marble block. It's just a question of be freed.

Have a nice week end

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

People always get used to beauty, though.

I always thought that people get used to beauty. And today, surfing the internet, I found that also a good writer, John Green has the same idea.

And this is also what I thought last week, when, unfortunately , it was everything but a beautiful day.
It was raining and that was one of the typical days in which you start understanding that summer's over and now it is time to start wearing your raincoat.
We decided to go to a new museum. The MUSE in Trento.
Designed by a great Italian architect, Renzo Piano, this is part of a bigger former industrial area that has been completely transformed called Le Albere.

This is at the foothill of the mountains and, in its modern development, it is designed not to take the scene to the majesty of the Dolomites (the mountains that are in that area) but to properly mix with the nature thanks also to the high quality of the finishing that is minimising the consumptions.
It is using local materials, the same wood that you can use in the old houses built in that area. And the same wood that was used in the Paganini's violins and in this fantastic speaker set.

Everything was build with the same concept:

-use local materials
-create something that is not "shouting" but that is well placed in the environement.

Everything not to take the attention out from the natural beauty that is all around and that, after a while, people do not see anymore.

This is where I live. That's what I can see (almost) every morning. (Not today... unfortunately it's raining for the week end, again!)
There is no artifact, no human product that will be able to compete with the natural beauty of these mountains.
So, the only possibility is to produce, to build, to create things that are helping the natural beauty to be well appreciated.
This is normal for me. I often do not even see what's around as I am also used to that beauty.
But I am lucky enough to have guest from all the world and they are opening my eyes, often closed and looking at the daily problems.

And thank to the people that give respect to this natural masterpiece, people like me should remember that we need to always give the importance to this.

Is this art? It probably is. Not the art as we commonly think about but still art. Something that we must take inspiration from and not destroy.

And most of all, art that we must Always remember to properly appreciate.
This year is the 50th anniversary of one of the most tragic events that happened in this area. The flooding of a massive area on the Piave river. This is the tragedy of the Vajont Dam. You can have a look at the story clicking on this link.

On 12 February 2008 UNESCO cited the Vajont Dam tragedy as one of five "cautionary tales", caused by "the failure of engineers and geologists".

We should always remember this.

Never try to win the Nature. Just help the Nature being appreciated.


That's all for today. I just want to finish with a link to a TOP GEAR episode. This is my favourite one. Jeremy Clarkson is presenting one of the most Amazing Italian Cars. The ALFA ROMEO 8C. Pure art.