Unleash the Monkey Army

It's been a little while since I last dropped a log in the blogosphere. Partly because I have got myself into something (legal) which has tickled my fancy and caught my interest (although in truth, many things do at first gasp!). More importantly though it is because I have little to say. Controversial isn't it! Don't get me wrong, the mind has continued to whirl. I have not stopped observing the world around me or the people in it. I just have not had anything I felt was additive enough to be brought up or felt strongly enough about to say anything which would effectively merely underscore a point that had already been made or was obvious enough to all but the most slow-witted (no points for spotting the assumptions in play here!) I know that this reticence, often put down to shyness in the young, and ignorance, stupidity or passive-aggression as we age, has held me back. The general look of surprise or prompted contemplation in response to something I do say speaks to t...

I used to know a doctor, a GP to be exact, who when presented with a patient saying "doctor, it hurts when I do x" would respond "well, don't do x then". Now, this was not the sum total of clinical practice but it it seemed to be a frustratingly large piece of her soft tissue/joint injury management. Now, for years, whenever this bubbled to the surface of my mind I would dismiss it with still fresh frustration. As is my wont, I have re-evaluated in recent times, especially during and after the recent POSE running clinic with @PoseRunning (have a look at Naeem's Twitter feed or website at www.runningengineer.com ). My motivation for attending was down to the lack of enjoyment I derive from running, knowing that it can be a bit of a blindspot for me and a thought that there must be a better way of doing it. Couple that with a curiosity and a knowledge that seeing other coaches in action is never a waste of a coach's time and your have the p...

One of the roads to clarity on Monday's mental meander is to think before posting! But possibly more helpful is, in amongst some of the other ideas, is to think about "Dodgeball" (yes, the 2004 movie) for a second. "I found that if you have a goal, that you might not reach it. But if you don't have one, then you are never disappointed. And I got to tell ya...it feels phenomenal" Self-sabotage. In Peter Law Fleur's case it is appears as more explicit in the not setting goals and then not working towards anything. For many more it is a far more insidious authoring of our own demise. Hold on, before you get too upset, let me clarify - few people actively set out to lose (and those who tend to get accused, prosecuted and fined for match-fixing) but nonetheless, we're setting ourselves up for a fall. In terms of missing training defeat is not the objective but by taking the field under-cooked or as a group of individuals you are stacking the deck agai...

I can't hear what you're saying because your actions are deafening. As a player, captain and coach I've always struggled to get my head around players telling me that they wanted to progress and then not turning up to training. Or turning up but going walkabout, if you follow me. Struggled because, well, frankly, I did not really care whether they wanted it or not. If told that they did not then I could either manage my expectations or selection accordingly. The ambivalent, who blow hot and cold can be managed. Those who blow one temperature for the most part can also be handled. But those who sell the desire dummy are a pain in the brown eye. The concern for their progress, potential and the team is the slippery slope. It's easy to not train because it's cold, or because it's raining, or because it's your dog's birthday or because it will be bloody hard work or it might expose a weakness. Most of us have been there at some point. And if not in the...

In the car this morning I was reflecting on a few conversations I've had of late (so that I could put any actions to one side and clear my mind for the weekend) and it reminded me of something I wrote last year. "The past is a Wagon Wheel" - we swear blind that it was bigger in the past. I'm still comfortable with it as an analogy but I think I missed something in it. While it is true of the good things we reminisce about with fondness, it is also true about the bad things in life. Those mistakes that are not fatal hang around in our mind for years (or can do, I won't assume absolutes). They cast a long shadow. Sometimes it is little more than shade, sometimes it's a cold, dark, sunless valley. I suspect, like the good things in life, the more they are replayed the bigger they seem. We add colour and intensity and more recent things can seem but pale imitations. And these things can be like an invisible hand on the tiller, subtly nudging our heading as w...

I was asked to comment on the suggestion that running can be the fool's gold of fitness. It was a fairly easy request in some respects as I have on several running related ventures gone on the record as saying "running is for stupid people". No I blame that on discomfort as a product of distance but in my training practice I certainly adhere to the less offensive approach of not commenting on intellect and just reducing the amount of running I ask of others. But why? This is one of those occasions when I can think about what I do and talk to others about it. Just the other day, somebody came up to me at my dayjob while we both doing something else and started a conversation which ran something like this: "You alright mate?" "Not bad ta, you?" "Not bad. Look, I need to start running again, what sort of distance should I aim for to begin with?" "What? Erm, sorry, what are you shooting for?" "To go running but I'm not sure w...