Suunto M5 Arrives for Testing

We took delivery of Emily's new Suunto M5 last night, and it's looking pretty sweet!  It's their new model that uses a simplified approach to training, so that's always a good thing.

It's more sleek than the T6c I use, so Emily is already liking it.  It comes with an HR strap and the capability to talk to foot and GPS pods, and then you can download and upload your workouts to places like Suunto's social training platform, Movescount.

How to Create the Path to Wisdom using Value, Confidence, and Discernment

You see value if you have confidence in something.  For example, if you are confident that organic food is better for you than junk food, then you see organic food as much more valuable, regardless of the price.  When people question or try to mock you for it, you have no problem standing your ground and explaining exactly the value of eating organic. 

Confidence is a great attribute.  It can take you much farther than uncertainty.  When you have trouble defending your position or making a choice, look into what you really value about that issue.

Along those same lines, there is a strong connection between wisdom and discernment.  Wisdom sounds more like something you attain someday after you are all wrinkled and walking around wearing a wizard's hat.  Wisdom is actually more like a concept, while discernment is the action of applying wise choices.

You don't have to be a Zen master to be wise.  All it takes is seeing value and making a confident discernment between choices.

Who's up for some organic apples? 

Enjoy!

Get Better by Facing Your Fear Daily

Every day, you should decide what you fear most and take at least one step towards it.  The picture above is from when three friends and I did the Ragnar Relay, which actually requires a team of twelve.  Ragnar is a 200 mile non-stop relay run, and doing it with four people seemed like suicide.  To get it done, I became the best runner that I had ever become in my life and the guy in the background got into amazing shape after years of desk jockeying like most of us.  Attacking our fears made us the best we could be.

I was running this morning and thought, "What's my biggest fear right now?"  You should ask this daily because what you fear most is usually what you want to do most.  It wouldn't be a fear unless you are thinking about it constantly, and you're thinking about it because you want to do it.  Do it, and the sense of accomplishment will transform the rest of your day.  My biggest fear?  To run along the freeway in the dark.  Why was it a fear?  Because deep down, I wanted to break out of the boredom of running the same boring loop around my neighborhood again and again.  I needed adventure.

Happiness is the elimination of boredom.

I had a choice.  I could turn right and continue the loop or I could go straight and head out onto the highway.  

I went straight.

There's a part of the Ragnar relay where we had only half a lane coned off for safety and ran straight into oncoming traffic on a highway in the middle of the night.  Loaded up with Red Bull and Tylenol, that was probably the most awesome thing I've ever done.  And once you do something and learn that the risk is actually much less than you thought, it's not that risky after all.  

Running down the side of the highway near my house is actually pretty safe, with a huge shoulder and rumple strip to warn of cars drifting.  I could always escape danger by a good margin by listening and then getting off the road if needed.  This morning, I never even needed to.  My fear was completely unfounded.

Think about what you are afraid of most and take a step towards it.  You might be surprised at what you find.

Play Mario Kart on Your Bike

Idle hands are the Devil's playground, and it looks like the bikers in Portland have a lot of time to kill.  Mario Kart symbology appeared overnight on a stretch of bike lane, turning a daily dance with traffic into a video game.

Everyone starts assuming that the city will scrub the pavement of fun because, well, that's what bureaucracy is all about.  Actually, the first step of bureaucracy is to make the word "bureaucracy" so hard to spell, people give up fighting it before they really start.

The real gem is 27 seconds into the video, where a Too Awesome to be a Commuter Cyclist (or T.A.C.C.) shuns the bike lane entirely while dressed in full racing kit, undoubtedly using his ride to his shift at the Apple store as a TDF stage simulator.

Earn More Time with Creative Procrastination

Many of us are highly skilled procrastinators. We trick ourselves into putting off work by thinking that we really need to read that magazine again or spend more time "Twittering it up all over the place". Believe me, I know what I'm talking about. The sad thing is, we end up shooting ourselves in the foot. You wasted another hour while the real work still needs to be done and you didn't gain anything except reinforcing a bad habit.

As endurance athletes, we need all the spare time we can get.  So, if you're a great procrastinator, here's a cool trick:  Procrastinate against the things that waste time.

Huh?  How does this work?  Is quite easy, actually.  First, let's acknowledge that you are indeed smarter than some "trick".  But then, realize that sometimes we can use the smarter parts of our brains to "trick" the dumber parts (the parts more on autopilot) to do what we need.  Example - You don't want to forget your ID on your next bike ride, so you put it on the seat of your bike the night before so you can't leave without it.  Many people play these kinds of tricks on themselves all the time.  I put stuff by my front door so I can't leave without it the next day, sometimes directly in the path of the door so I physically can't open the door without picking it up to take it with me.

If you change your view on things a little, it's very easy to see that getting Project A done now gives you more time to with Playtime B.  I was talking with a friend just last night and he calculated that biking to work actually gave him more time to be with his family even though it did take a little longer than driving his car.  It counted as workout time, time he no longer needed to do on weekends or in the evenings.  Smart view!

Ok, so now that we understand that it is a time-saver to get the important things done first, now what?  The final step is to swap that sweet feeling of putting things off from one type of work to another.  It's important to remember that all work is work, you body and mind doesn't really know the difference.  That's why when you do something that you were putting off, you wonder why you were putting it off in the first place because it wasn't all that hard anyway.

Here's how you do it:  When you are choosing between two tasks and one is surfing the internet and the other is writing that TPS report for the boss, literally say out loud, "I'm gonna put that surfing off 'til later." in your best Matthew McConaughey procrastinator voice.  It works and it starts building a really cool habit of procrastinating against stuff that is eating up your training and with-family time.

In the end, we are our habits.

Give it a try and enjoy!