Excuses, Excuses...

A busy few months working away has meant more time off the bike than I would like. Popped over to Mallorca in January with the GB Para-Cycling squad, then it was down to Newport Velodrome with the squad for 8 days of intensive track work in February. A couple of weeks at home, then a long drive down to Montichiari, near Brescia in Italy for the Para-Cycling World Track Champs. Took a bike but only managed two rides and could feel the little bit of fitness I had, ebbing away. Still although the championships were hard work, they were very exciting. The GB squad is lottery funded and sponsored by Sky, with most of the Athletes full time and based in Manchester. This level of support is the envy of most nations including the USA who were in the pits next to us at the Velodrome and were constantly scrounging tools from our mechanics. We got on well though, so they were welcome. With 18 medals we topped the table and are the Nation that everyone else looks at, we can appear a little arrogant though! Anyway it’s all about next year London 2012 and everything this year is done with that in mind, points win prizes, the number of points won in competition this year will determine the number of athletes able to compete at the London Paralympic Games. We certainly picked up a few in Italy. It was hard work trackside but being so close to the action was great fun - even enjoyed the long drive back, while the athletes flew home from Verona.

Then it was down to Celtic Manor Hotel for a team day, apparently its £160 to play a round of golf on the Ryder cup course and even though it was midweek there were plenty of takers. Anyway back to that lost fitness! Have managed to get back on it a bit, not got the time for loads of miles so when I do ride I “nail it”. Its hard work but I know it gets results and after 4-5 weeks I can feel a few “green shoots of recovery”. A family holiday and then Switzerland and Spain with the Para boys and girls for 12 days will soon put an end to that.

Enjoyed a morning taking pics at the Ringwood Triathlon recently, I did this race a couple of time in its first incarnation in the early nineties. Organiser Michelle Noble of Results triathlon put on a great race and was rewarded with warm spring sunshine. The course is pretty much the same as 20 years ago and the long drag up Bolderwood drive with the steep bit at the end, caught more than a few out. Winner James Gilfillan looked very comfortable, I know because I was there taking photos of him. I still regularly train on this course and always have to work hard.

London Marathon time again and I have had the usual last minute panic appointments for massage, some of you should have come months ago. Most of the people I have been seeing started training a week or so after Christmas so have racked up a fair few miles. I must wish local star Steve Way good luck, his training has been a bit disrupted this year but he certainly puts in the hard work. Whether he has the form to beat last years 2.19.39, and 17th place I do not know, but I know he will be giving it his best shot - Now that’s something to aspire to!

See you up the road…
ED

Eamonn Deane is a TrainingBible UK specialist in the field of sports massage. To find out more about his work, check out his new website at
www.sportsmassagebournemouth.co.uk

Thin slicing

As many of you will know I spend my working life split between facilitating Leadership training programmes for corporate clients and coaching athletes. I find both areas really motivating as they are fundamentally about helping to develop an individual's potential. Recently I have been working on a Leadership project for a major bank and was reminded about the book "Blink", by one of the participant's performance in some of the tasks we coached them through. In the book, it's author Malcolm Gladwell describes how the human brain is able to take in, what on the surface seems, a very small amount of information and extrapolate it very quickly. A good example would be how a tennis player reacts to return a fast serve, the unconscious brain takes in lots of sensory information from the servers body position and ball toss and seemingly without a thought moves to the position where the ball can be hit and returned over the net. All this happens in fractions of seconds. Gladwell calls this ability 'thin slicing'. He puts foward the idea that the more we have practised and mastered a particular skill the better we become at thin slicing information. He asserts that because our brain, through its learned experience of these very specific experiences, can effectivly short cut through the sensory information and make super fast decisions in fractions of seconds i.e. in the blink of an eye or even faster. We all wonder why Rodger and Rafa seem to have so much time when returning a serve, now it becomes obvious, their abilty to thin slice the information and move even before the ball is hit, means that added fraction of a second seems like a lifetime.

This theory makes a lot of sense, we know as humans we all live in our own world of perception, experiencing life through our own very specific filters. We all make assumptions about the world we live in or we'd never risk never making it out of bed in the morning. Imagine waking up and trying to decide if the ground was going to be there or not! We assume it is and get up - well, at least its never failed me thus far. When we meet or work with people who have mastered this in an area of life we are interested in it can be a fascinating experience. I have been struggling with an injury for a couple of months, and this week I went to see my physiotherapist, Tim Cruise-Drew. He specialises in working with runners and triathletes, so he has the experience of seeing and treating probably a couple of thousand of athletes across his career. This helps him to thin slice the information he is seeing - its the tiny, inperceptual details that he is aware of, that other physios may not pick up or misinterpret, that make the difference to his ability to identify the source of the injury. Thanks Tim, your insights are making a difference already!

Its what I call the difference that makes a difference. How does this relate to an endurance athlete's performance? According to Gladwell, there seem to be lots of ways that thin slicing works - here are just a couple of thoughts. A few seconds can be the difference between a podium position and 20th place. Think about how much faster you have riden a bike course after you have done it a few times. Depending on the course the difference between riding it for the first time and and the second can be many minutes. The more we learn about the course the faster we are able to thin slice the information we recieve from it and the faster we can go, seems obvious... right? What about the times when you have just gone with the flow in a race and suprised yourself with your performance? Sometimes those thin slices of information provide what we might call a gut reaction. If you'd have stopped to consciously analyse what was going on you might have talked yourself out of it. I remember chatting to an athlete that ran a marathon and on his way broke his 10k, 10 mile and half marathon PB, on the way to his marathon PB. When I asked him about it after the race he told me he had forgotton his watch and just ran as fast as he felt his body would allow him. I am not suggesting we all throw our Garmin's away - just become aware of the potential of the thin slice :-)

To be a successful Athlete, you must understand your ‘Why’…

Recently I have been engaged to design a leadership programme for a ‘blue chip’ corporation and as part of that I have been undertaking some interesting research on what drives our behaviour. This led me to thinking about ‘Why’ I decided to become a coach, as it’s something that I am often asked by athletes and business professionals alike. My answer is that I truly believe that sport is a gift for lifelong learning, health and happiness. It’s because I hold this belief that I feel it’s my calling to assist and guide people to be the best they can be. I hope it will enhance their lives as it has mine.
Have you ever thought about ‘Why’ you do the things you do? Finding your ‘Why’ or purpose can be a tricky thing to identify and that’s one of the reasons that many of us don’t give it much time. When we are faced with difficult and complex things to consider, sometimes it’s just easier to accept that’s just the way we are. I would suggest that if we really want to be great at what we do, we need to understand ‘Why’ - even if we find that hard to explain in words.
It’s the ‘Why’ or true purpose that gets us out of bed in the morning and into the pool or onto the turbo trainer. Most of us are able to articulate ‘what’ we do and ‘how’ we do it, but when it comes to our purpose we end up saying stuff like, it feels good, or I get a buzz out of it. Some of us will talk in terms of ‘outputs’ - from ‘getting in the top 10’ to things like ‘managing our weight’ - but I tend to think it goes a bit deeper than that. I believe it’s linked to how we like to see ourselves, and even what we believe to be our true identity.
If we think about this in neurological terms, working out the ‘what’ and the ‘how’ is tackled in a different part of our brain. It’s processed in the computer like Neo Cortex which rationalises and labels these thoughts with language, enabling us to find a form of words to explain it. The ‘Why’ is developed in a different part of the brain - the limbic system - this is where we develop our emotional responses. It is less familiar with language and tends to evoke what we might call ‘gut’ reactions, the intuitive responses when something feels right or wrong, but is hard to explain.
Having a better understanding of our purpose can help garner the level of commitment that’s required to become the best we can be. It manifests itself in the highest performing teams and individuals. It can be observed in the standards they set for themselves and this in turn drives the training and practice schedules they put in place. Understanding our purpose can deliver a constant source of drive and inspiration so it’s worth spending a little time to think about ‘Why’ it is we do what we do. To paraphrase a great leader that truly understood his purpose Martin Luther King said ‘I have a dream...’

ED's Exploits - 10 days in Mallorca with the GB Para-Cycling team

I have just spent 10 days in Mallorca working with the Great Britain Para-Cycling team. The primary aim was to build endurance before event specialization work on the track at Newport. Weather was lovely, nice and warm and sunny and no ice. Most of the athletes put in over 30 hours on the road with steady state riding, hill repeats, and interval work. They even had a couple of turbo trainers set up on the Hotel Patio, doing kilo repeats looked just as hard in the sunshine as it feels in my garage. Two of the guys on the squad lost limbs in Iraq and Afghanistan, there were a couple of hand cyclists who were doing 6 hour rides, very humbling and inspirational but they just got on with it. Training involved two sessions a day, perhaps 3- 4 hours on the road in the morning, followed by intervals in the afternoon or efforts on the Turbo. There was no sightseeing or any of that stuff, when the athletes weren’t riding they were relaxing and refueling. That’s the great thing about training camps, being able to concentrate solely on your training. There are none of the little distractions that you get at home, so all you have to do is Train and Rest. This is actually quite hard! There were quite a few Pro Teams on the island including Team Sky; it’s quite funny seeing them all out as a team, especially when they have a little group of club cyclists hanging on the back. Actually it’s quite motivating, a bit like training on the same pitch as Tottenham Hotspur.(insert your team here) In between all the hard work I managed to fit in 10 hours myself - the Spanish were wearing wind stoppers and overshoes the Brits were in shorts a and short sleeves, cold weather is all relative. The weather was nice and sunny and the roads were quiet and what traffic there was, was pretty patient, alas it could not last.

Here’s my key bike work out for the month:

Find a 5km climb, bathed in sunlight
Warm-up- 15mins
Ride hard and controlled to the top, you need to last the distance so do not go off too hard. Time your effort
Descend to the bottom (recovery) Turn and repeat, aim for the same time-ish as first effort - Repeat
Soft Pedal home, preferably through orange groves
Shower, Sip recovery Drink, eat relax in spa before next session!

Meanwhile back in the real world, this session can be done on the turbo in the garage. Have fun!

My daughter joined the RAF last week; all the ladies have to do two weeks extra basic training, working on core stability. Apparently they find it really hard to march in their boots, due to lack of fitness. There is a high incident of pelvic injuries, so she is spending the first two weeks doing Yoga and Stretching! She has signed up as an Air Traffic Controller but will probably come out as a Pilates Instructor! What would Winston say!?

See you up the Road…

ED

Eamonn Deane is a TrainingBible UK specialist in the field of sports massage. To find out more about his work, check out his new website at
www.sportsmassagebournemouth.co.uk

ED's Exploits - Don't Look Back

Well the end of season break has come and gone and I have already started some more structured training. I have always liked to plan the week/month ahead as I find it allows me to concentrate and just get on with it, without having to think what I am going to do. Of course at this time of the year it’s all about base building, stamina work. For the bike, traditionally that has meant getting the miles in, while that is still the case, more and more I favour more specific endurance work. Using a heart rate monitor or watts to measure specific work is a much better way of working and it is less time consuming. It is, perhaps, not so much fun, going out on the bike for 4 hours and “see what happens” is a good crack, so I tend to do a bit of both, structured in the week, go with the flow on Sundays.

It’s traditional to look back at this time of the year and I do wallow in a little nostalgia now and again, especially after a beer, so here is a review of my year:
January: Ice & Snow
February: Snow & Ice
March: “I am going well”
April: “I am not going as well as I thought!”
May: Crashed
June: “Oh England”
July: Italian Mountains = good form
August: A WIN!!
September: Tried Hard
October: Older but not Wiser
November: Surprisingly good training
December: Christmas shopping online is not right, so why do I do it?...Mmm and back to Snow and Ice again!


I first got involved in triathlon right back in the early days in the eighties. My first race was the European Short Course Champs in ‘87 at Milton Keynes. 1,200 m swim, 30 mile bike, 7 mile run, I think - no standard distances in those days. The water was 54 degrees, it was freezing. The continentals were allowed wetsuits but in those days the Brits were not allowed to wear them. The British Triathlon Association, as it was then probably thought they were not “sporting”. In any case I did not own one, so just did it in my Tri-Suit, and it was bloody cold. I seem to remember not many people behind me when I eventually came out of the water. Amazingly the police had closed the A5 dual carriageway for the bike leg, so it was easy to warm up on the fast flat ride. A few minutes before the start, I would happily have been anywhere else than beside that frigid lake. A few minutes after the end of the run I did not want to be anywhere else in the world. No? I don’t understand it either, but I was hooked!
I always like to get out on the bike for an hour or two on Christmas morning, I like to earn my lunch and it always tastes better. It makes me feel a little smug as well, knowing I have done some training when others may have not. Come the season it does not make the slightest bit of difference, but I keep on doing it anyway. Boxing Day usually involves the tandem and some beer, probably undoing all the good work of the previous days ride. Ho Ho Ho!
That’s enough nostalgia for one year; I am looking forward to the spring and some warm sunshine! Be careful on that ice, “If in Doubt, get the Turbo out”.

See you up the Road…

Talent V Practice..Nature V Nurture the debate continues

There have been a lot of books published over the last few year's on the existence or not, of natural ability in sport. Books like The Talent Code, Bounce, Outliers and Mindset to name but a few, they put forward the argument that it's focused practice, hard work and the right opportunities to coaching, training venues and training groups that ultimately creates an elite performer. Some dismiss any notion of talent and stress that it's all about the coming together of these external factors, along with the intrinsic motivation and commitment from the individual.

While I agree whole heartedly with many of the assertions of these books, what of genetics? Doesn't this have a part to play? It's very easy to over simplify what is a complex subject. When we start to look at different sports we start to find some commonalities that practice and opportunity does not answer. If we look at Rowing or Basketball the sports naturally favour very tall athletes. How many of the current GB rowing team are under 6 feet in height? Very few if any. That's not to say its not possible for a person under 6 foot to make it, it just makes it less likely given the competition for places. Equally Matthew Pinsent made a great rower but would struggle to make weight if he were to take AP McCoy's place as a jump jockey!

That said, no athlete on the planet can make it to an elite level without an extraordinary amount of hard work and dedicated practice and taking a whole host of opportunities that come their way. Maybe these are some of the things we miss when we declare Roger Federer a 'genius' for hitting that incredible shot between his legs. We forget that he has hit the best part of a million balls every year for the past 20 years and dedicated his life to hitting just that kind of spectacular shot. Its a bit like watching a great stand up comedian, it seems like every sentence is off the cuff and incredibly quick witted, instead of a really well crafed routine, that has been delivered hundreds and hundreds of times.

How good would we be at our chosen sport if we dedicated 20+ hours per week of purposeful practice for 10+ years? How many languages would we be able to speak, or musical instruments could we play, my guess is quite a few more than we do right now. But what else would we have to sacrifice to get there? Nothing... because those few people that choose this path don't see what they are doing as a sacrifice. Its a natural consequence of becoming the best they can be. It's like falling over when you are learning to ski - it's all part of the process.

Carol Dweck author of 'Mindset' is convinced that encouraging children to believe in what she calls a 'growth' mindset will ultimately have a huge effect on their performance, in all areas of their life. Her experiments have revealed that some children believe their physical and mental abilities are 'fixed' by nature while others hold the growth mindset, believing they have the capacity to develop their physical and mental abilities without barriers. The results when they come up against percieved 'barriers' are remarkable, and John Ford's old addage "if you believe you can or can't you are right" still holds true of human nature.

Keep going friends. Improved performance is only as far away as you believe it to be.

The Nature of Reality

Saw this lovely little anecdote from Micheal Neill and wanted to share it..

You are in an art studio filled with painters, standing at their easels. Although you cannot see it from where you are standing, they are all looking in the direction of a small platform in the center of the room and painting what they see.
As you walk around the room, you notice small and sometimes vast discrepancies between what people are painting on their canvases. Arguments break out in parts of the room as to whether or not the model for the painting is more one color than another, taller or shorter, uglier or more beautiful than rendered.
You begin to become curious about what it is that everyone is painting, so you make your way to the center of the room and discover to your surprise that there is absolutely nothing there. The emptiness of the center is palpable.
Suddenly you realize the reason that everyone is painting things differently isn't their point of view from what part of the room their easel happens to be placed - it's that what they are "viewing" is only a projection of their own thoughts.
Its a great way of undersatnding why our the Human world is such an amazing and creative place to explore and why sometimes its equally scary and totally bonkers!