We had a great time in Tassie, walking the Overland Track over six days.
All credit to Tasmanian Walking Company for the guides and delivering such a fabulous trip.
Maybe 12 days hiking in New Zealand coming next year…
The last one for me. It was a great way to end it.
Jurgen Klopp, Jose Mourinho, Sir Clive Woodward, Carlo Ancelotti, Sir Steve Hansen, Dave Alfred, Phil Jackson. These are the best of the best.
And the list goes on with Pep Guardiola, Xabi Alonso, Sir Alex Ferguson.
Who’s your favourite?
The examples of top coaches across the world in all sports are living, breathing textbooks.
Their life histories show similar traits. Many were ex-players. Some were winners but some didn’t get far at all.
Their former players show them respect and admiration for the things they achieved together in almost all cases.
Taking time to study their history gives us blueprints we can use for our own lives.
They always had a plan.
They had goals for their teams. They wanted the titles, trophies, domination.
They deliberated on every detail, leaving nothing to chance.
They rarely took chances, but sometimes situations in games forced their hand.
And when they did, their players responded. The players knew their job within the system they were playing in and they succeeded.
These sources of learning are invaluable.
Sports isn’t everyone’s cup of tea but the lessons are plentiful and applicable to most aspects of everyday life.
Picking up a biography of a top coach or watching interviews with them on YouTube gives huge insights we can all learn from.
I’m going through a patch where my body keeps breaking down on me and it is infuriating but part of the process of getting older. I run when I can and like to train for short races but my lower limbs are feeling the strain and it’s not as much fun to run, even in training, with constant pain.
If you’re a runner, you will understand that training with pain of some kind is inevitable as there is normally some small niggle or ache that develops or comes and goes as you continue through your session. But there are those that just won’t go away, and I have one of these at the moment.
Treatment of the issues at the heart of the problem is the only way to solve these kinds of issues. Strengthening of the muscles in and around the area of injury is also crucial and so it’s usually a longer journey to recovery and avoidance of any relapse than just a quick rub-down from a physio.
I’m just glad to have some active friends and relatives in Sydney who can hook me up with the right treatment and so I will be there as soon as I can to get back on the path to good health and some more racing. It’s the first day of spring today so I need to make the most of this southern hemisphere weather!
The daily grind can really get you down. Commuting followed by the same old faces in the office and the same old problems in your job leads us into the ‘living for the weekend’ mentality. Add some bigger personal goals to your life – challenges to your everyday existence of any kind, physical or mental – and use them to drive your life forwards and basically do more, live more.
My challenges are quite often related to sport. I have a challenge in April next year to ride 50 miles on my bike on a very hilly course in a race in West Wales. Now, I’m not a full-on rider so it’s going to take a lot of work to get fit enough for this. And I’m also not all that strong in the legs so hills just stop me stone dead, so the work is going to have to be really hard to make sure I can finish this thing.
The point I’m making here is that this bigger challenge – bigger than the everyday stuff we all have to do – is getting me focussed and making sure I train hard and put in the work to make the ride a success. It might also lead me to do more racing and get my legs strong enough to go up some bigger hills. Maybe even the French Alps one day. Who knows?
Set yourself a challenge and see where it takes you. Until you try, you’re never going to really know what you’re capable of. Use it to give you focus and create some energy and drive to achieve.
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Ian Mountford is a global recruitment expert and strategy coach providing motivation and guidance to entrepreneurs, wannabe or fully-fledged. He draws from his own experience of building businesses from the ground up and spending many years helping clients to consistently achieve their goals and aspirations. Ian works with clients face-to-face and internationally.
In 2012 I managed to cause some nasty damage to my right knee. It had been weakened over years of running distances up to the marathon on hard roads and a lack of any strength training to build muscle to support the joints doing all of the work. I had completed Paris marathon for the second time and was coming back to prepare for the Amsterdam half marathon at a small 10k. I was doing some simple stretches afterwards and the meniscus in my right knee ripped and that was that. The specialist I saw told me at the time that I should avoid running from that point on as it would advance the onset of all sorts of nasty pain and I did not a lot more from then apart from the normal efforts of middle age men to avoid not fitting into their clothes.
I started doing some very specific strength training about six months ago and have worked to build up the muscles that support my knees as well as some other rehab work on a shoulder injury. I’ve also developed my hamstrings, glutes, back and all of the muscles that keep you moving forwards at a little more than fast walking speed and I thought I would have a go at running short distances again and see how things felt. I’ve been very frustrated by not doing something that I have always loved and I looked into stem cell treatment to grow back the meniscus but it’s prohibitively expensive and I had mentally let any thoughts of running again fade away. I didn’t start the strength work to be able to run again but I’ve talked to a few people who know about these things and they have all said that I should give it another try. Start out light on softer surfaces and at easy pace, then see where it leads.
So Katherine and I moved to Warrington a few weeks back and Katherine has recently started to run with a couple of 10k’s under her belt now and is progressing very well. Katherine looked into what was happening locally when we got here and she came across ParkRun from a friend’s recommendation – a 5k run where you can sign up, turn up and run for free every Saturday morning – and the next thing you know I am on the start line with Katherine. We ran our first one together in about 30 mins and had a lot of fun. I was very cautious and watching every step for knee pain or any problems but got none at all and was very happy with being out there again and running.
I’ve been giving it a little bit more of a test over the weeks on the treadmill and it has responded well – still no pain and some decent speeds. I wanted to have a crack at pushing the pace outdoors and so we went back to ParkRun last weekend and put the hammer down. No real preparation other than a handful of 15 minute treadmill sessions and I got around in 24.16 with no pain and followed up with another 8 miles of walking around the golf course. Very pleased at being able to get it done again and not setting any goals past keeping the knee strong and pain free, but very happy. I ran 20.20 when I was running marathons in under four hours more than ten years back so it will be good to see if I can get back to this kind of speed so we will see.
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Ian Mountford is a Strategy Coach providing motivation and guidance to entrepreneurs, wannabe or fully-fledged. He draws from his own experience of building businesses from the ground up and spending many years helping clients to consistently achieve their goals and aspirations. Ian works with clients face-to-face and internationally.
What do you think makes your race day special, memorable, and makes you want to come back for more?
As we head into the final quarter of the year, with dark nights, christmas present lists, next year’s summer holiday plans, etc, it’s time to think about targets for next year. They don’t need to be sporty ones (although mine mostly are – I do a lot of sport) but they can be anything you like. They can be a real help in motivating us to do something new, improve ourselves, find a new hobby or interest, meet new folks – whatever you fancy, really.
What are yours?
I’d love to hear from you. Even you lurkers out there, too. Come and join in, let us all know what you’re up to…
Mine? Well, the biggest one, anyway – Paris Marathon next April in a new best time for me that’s a long way off right now – 3.15. I’m going to throw everything at it!
Ian Mountford 