Hour by Hour

I approached my professional exams in a very structured way. I was told they took 100 hours, and that resonated with my experience as a ticked them off one by one. Hour by hour. Going from not understanding to sinking in. 

100 hours is fairly chunky. Two hours a week? Then it would take a year. Two hours seems reasonable for a valuable skill. 

The problem is the first 100 hours are often tough because you feel completely lost. We often think that people who are good in the first 100 hours, are going to be the ones who are chosen/good for the 10,000 hours. I don’t buy that. Quite often the generic learning skill set that is needed in the first 100 hours is very different. You need to get through the hard to find the joy. 

My first idea for a book/project was “First Hundred Hours”. To write about my experiences of constantly learning. Get used to, and good at, being bad in the first 100 hours. That was how I got into running. I asked some university friends for ideas. One said babysitting. Unfortunately, I didn’t get many takers – parents are often very territorial despite being overwhelmed. 

Another suggested a marathon. I had never run more than 10km. I wasn’t a runner. In other words, I had never seen if I was a runner. Another friend handed me the book, “Born to Run” which argues we are all runners. About 18 months later, I was standing on the starting line of the Comrade Marathon in Pietermaritzburg belting out a nervous pre-dawn Shosholoza and Nkosi Sikelel’ iAfrika.

Good at being bad - 300m from the finish when the gun went

Zinikele (Cecilia)

I sat on the other side of the pond watching Comrades on an app this year. Two sub-stories felt very real to me. Kerstin and Simone have both written guest posts for Swart Donkey. They were both running at about the pace I ran last year. Simone was supporting then, and saw me just before the final cut off. She knew exactly the right things to say. Kerstin had to make the same tough call I did, telling her friends to go on ahead. Although these two inspirational ladies don't know each other, their dots on my app were side by side for almost 12 hours. They both just missed the very last cut off, after 80km, by the skin of their chins. Makes me wonder how many other people with similar struggles push on in parallel. Ceci and Kerstin described the day...

Cecilia, Kerstin & Elke

Three Hamburg Ladies

By far: we have fought this one out... it was the hardest race I have done in my life and I don't know if I could have done it on my own... 

Kerstin Dirks & Elke Sommerlade supported me up to the point were Kerstin was feeling weaker and told us to go on. it was a heartbreaking moment but this we had to promise each other before in case one of us was feeling bad. 

The hills on the first 45k plus the heat were so hard on me... 'ZINIKELE' 'it takes all of you' says it all...: it was simply hard and people were fighting their way through... luckily in this race there is so much unity and everybody helps each other - I have never seen that in any other race! It felt like a battle together... on the 60k mark the water supply ran out for about 3 drink stops... that was the most frightening moment in this race... 

Elke & I were worried so much about Kerstin and we didn't know that this girl had soldiered on by herself... this gives me the most goosebumps... you are my true heroine in this Kiki 💛!! 

Elke and I had developed a mantra to get through this race: with every step we would say 'easy' - like a military-mantra... just to tell each other we can and to take us to the finish line... there were many moments to give up, but my head would not allow it, luckily neither did Elke... the km's streched and the last hill 'Little Pollies' wasn't little at all... the last ks were the worst as we new we had to run to make it to the finish line in time... it was the hardest race I have done.. I could not enjoy it as we were battling so hard... but having my vision to cross the finish line stamped in my head I truly more than wanted to finish my challenge... it's incredible how your mind can lead you through... 

I am thankful for so many things... but truly thankful to have had Elke on my side... it wouldn't have worked if we wouldn't have supported each other - she more than once took my hand and this is what this race is about: its about companionship.

Cecilia

Elke and Cecilia

How does it feel to be sent out of a race? At the very last Cut off? After approximately 80K? With just 8K to go. On the highest point of the track? After 1000 m altitude? Because you arrived 2 minutes to late? PUZZLED. On the one hand you are disappointed and angry about yourself, about the sun and 27 degrees, and of course you dislike this hill - Polly Shortts. But on the other hand you are proud! You haven't given up, you were running through the 5th cut off at 62 K just to go on with the race, you overtook others and stayed focused again, after having made the decision to let your friends go after 35 K. You feel it was an honour to come this far. And you smile in the second another participant offers you a cracker ;) And finally you feel loved meeting your friends after the race, getting all the nice messages from everyone who followed (thx) and a lot of hugs. And additionally you are getting a medal from your friend because she managed to do the back2back. ❤️

Kerstin

Watch Yourself Donkey

I have avoided buying a watch for a long time. I can remember the freedom of giving up my watch. I felt like I had been a little time obsessed. When I studied, I would work for 50 minutes, then have a 10 minute break. Repeat. In exams, I would have 1.6 minutes per mark, with 20 minutes to check at the end. If I was meeting someone, I would always be early. I did think this was useful, and made me productive but... it made time my master rather than the other way around. So I ditched the watch. Just made sure I started early, and avoided corners. Space makes time.

Bubbling Along

I took up running two years ago with the goal of one day becoming an Unogwaja. Last year, I attempted the Comrades. I made the 89km from Maritzburg to Durbs along the road I grew up on, but I was just outside the stadium when the gun went. I slowed down, and enjoyed 'running' into Kingsmead. There are lots of things that went right that day, and lots of lessons learnt. It is easy to only focus on the 'what ifs'. 

Going Dark

The Gun sounds outside the stadium

One of those 'what ifs' was if I had been wearing a watch. I liked the freedom of running wild. Truth is, I had no margin of safety. I was slow from the first kilometre. It was always going to be tight. I told a friend when I was dark and struggling, that I just needed to focus and get in my bubble. He responded, 'Your bubble is too slow'. I should have listened. One day, when my bubble is a bit faster, I will be able to be a little wilder.

Always look on the bright side of death

Before you take your terminal breath

In just under a month's time, I am attempting my second ultra-marathon. The Two Oceans (56km) in Cape Town.

This time I am going to watch myself.

Done Forrest Done

Last One Through

I always focussed on time management with exams. A mentor once taught me a technique. Most of our exams were 100 marks in three hours. I allocated 1.6 minutes per mark which left 20 minutes at the end to check the paper. It also meant I didn't spend 30 minutes on a three mark question. Three marks gets five minutes. Five minutes up, and you move on. Ruthlessly.

When I got back from the Comrades on Sunday, I got to read through the whatsapp messages from various friends and family who had been tracking my progress. I kept them on the edge of their seat because I hadn't left the '20 minutes for checking'. To be fair, I had tried. Up until 16km to go, I had pushed to keep ahead of the sub-12 hour bus. They aim to finish with that little margin for error. 

I fell behind that bus in Drummond just after the half way point. I then saw a veteran of several races muttering that we were all done. I had been running within myself, managing my energy right from the start. More shuffling than running. I had gone through the half way mark at 5 hours and 58 minutes. That was not the plan. The hill up to the half way mark was longer than expected and everyone was walking. So I walked. I should have done the walky runny thing. I was caught by surprise when people started saying that the cut-off gun was going in just 10 minutes. I heard it fire behind me. I didn't know I had been cutting it that fine. So I picked up the pace and got in front of the Sub-12 bus at around the 48km in/ 41km to go mark. 

The last cut-off was with 7km to go, but I had a little wobble with 16km to go. A wobble in my head rather than in my body. Cowies Hill got the better of me and I felt shattered. When the bus caught me, I didn't have the wits to push on. This also meant that I had to manage my time on my own. The problem is I have laughed off wearing a watch. I don't like the stress of being so military about time management any more. I had a rough sense, but had stopped giving any margin of safety. The last 500 metres before the Sherwood cut-offs was an all out sprint. I was the last one through, and had to do some dancing and shoulder dropping as the gates closed around me.

My family watched my dot grind to a halt on the tracking app. That sprint took a little toll and I walked for a couple hundred metres. I then cracked on. Unfortunately I didn't quite make the next cut off. I was about 300 metres from the end when the final gun went.

Exams aren't just about what you know. How you plan is just as important. Next year, I will have trained a bit more (I ran my first marathon a month ago), and I will be wearing a watch! 

Stubborn Little Donkey

I have a problem with authority. One of the reasons I stopped working in the traditional sense is that I struggle with the hierarchy of work. I am luckily a very self-motivated person. I can push myself hard. For that reason, my parents seldom had to discipline me. I hate(d) my older brothers telling me what to do. I seldom disappointed teachers for lack of effort, bar perhaps in accounting. That is likely related. School accounting tended to be about learning the rules.

Ironically, I like rules. Games work better with a contract that people agree to abide by. Touch rugby, poker, and many other social games work better when the rules aren’t an argument. What I don’t like is a lack of clarity about the rules. Within known constraints you can be very creative. Fuzzy constraints impede creativity because there is too much umming and ahhing. The wet blanket effect slows things down and kills joy.

In the corporate environment, there is a lot of fuzziness. There is hierarchy but more delegation of responsibility than of trust and decision making. There were lots of occasions when I really didn’t like myself. I can perform under pressure, but I am not a nice person. Not the kind of person I want to be. All the softer, social skills go out the window and I get task focused. It becomes a choice between the task and the person. That in my view is not a necessary choice. There is seldom a reason to rush. There is almost never a reason to put a task above a person.

But the world is not black and white. I could have benefited from less of a desire to control my environment when I ran the 89km Comrades on Sunday. I got angry with about 16km to go. I had the sub-12hour bus hounding me from behind. They took up the whole road. If they caught up, you didn’t become part of the bus. You got swallowed. I was angry with the bus. I was angry because of all the plastic on the road despite the bins. I didn’t feel in control.

I had a buddy with me. One who was far stronger than me. Instead of outsourcing my thinking to him and just doing what I was told, I cut him loose. He wanted to help. I told him to carry on. I just needed to be in my bubble. I just needed to focus. He told me my bubble was too slow. I spoke some French asking him to leave me alone. That cost me the race.

I pulled myself together about 4 km later, but I lost about 10 minutes to my anger. I had been running a steadily slow race, and hadn’t left much of a buffer. I got to the stadium just as the gun went. At the pace I was running, I probably would have finished 2 minutes later.

I slowed down and gathered perspective. The task of finishing was not my goal. This was something much bigger. I had started running to be part of the story of Unogwaja. I had started running to try and deconstruct my identity. How can we define ourselves as ‘not’ the things we haven’t properly tried? I was ‘not’ a runner. I had just run 89km and survived. I jogged into the stadium singing Shosholoza. Savouring the love being poured by the crowd into the runners who had fought their way to the stadium a few minutes too late.

I will be back stronger and more focussed on the things that matter. 

Red Sock Friday

Phil Masterton-Smith

Youngest ever winner of the Comrades at age 19

Friday. I am putting on my Red Socks and going to meet the Unogwaja team as they ride in to Richmond. In 1933, the original Unogwaja couldn't afford the trip from Cape Town to the Comrades. So he cycled 1700km. To run 89km. Masterton-Smith lost his life at the siege of Tobruk in World War II. Three veterans who had fought at that battle promised to wear red socks if they made it out of the POW concentration camp alive. The Red Socks are a story of lasting friendships. Unogwaja is a story of putting aside obstacles. The Comrades is a story of rising to the challenge of life together. On Sunday we run together.

#RedLoveTrain

#34328

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Umsilinga Primary School

Red Love Train

Unogwaja and The Red Love Train coming together from all over the world

You have 12 hours to finish the 89km Comrades Marathon. I would like to finish somewhere around 11 hours 45 minutes. Walking as much as I need to. Just keep moving. I will be part of the 'Red Love Train'. A group from Brazil, Germany, Britain, Canada, Portugal and (of course) South Africa will be running alongside the Unogwaja team. That team of 14 (adding Australia and the US) led by Nathaniel Mabetwa will be cycling about 1000 miles from Cape Town to the start of the Comrades over the 10 days before the race. We will then run together. The race is a part of a much wider project to walk together through life. To see each other. To build a community of which we are all a part by coming together, with respect, and seeing how we can release the energy within us. Not charity. Unogwaja is about light. It is about removing obstacles.

Click here if you would like to donate to the effort

In It Together

One of the primary aims of the Comrades Marathon is to "celebrate mankind's spirit over adversity". Well being isn't the absence of difficulty. My Utopia wouldn't be a world without any stress. We struggle because we strive. We struggle because we care. We cope. For me, that has been what the 89km race from Pietermaritzburg to Durban has always symbolised. The Camaraderie of a vast mass of humanity (14,313 finished the race in 2010 - the world's biggest ultra-marathon)  running together and supporting each other. Uncles. Aunts. Grandparents. Family. Teachers. Friends. In two weeks time I will be attempting my first. I will need the shouts of support. It is not something I could do alone. Neither is life.

In It Together

Chariots of Fire

I had a grand blog post bubbling in my head as I started my first Marathon yesterday. It was 400 years since the death of Shakespeare. I was running the Stratford-upon-Avon Marathon with my brother as his 40th birthday present. We were aiming for 4 hours. 400-40-4 seemed to have a beautiful rhythm. One that was meant to be. But it wasn't the real goal. The real goal was time with my brother, and qualification for the Comrades. Until two weeks previously I had always been aiming to run just fast enough to qualify. So 6:30 min per kilometre would get me to the finish line with a little buffer beneath the required 5 hours.

Marathon Route

It was both of our first Marathons but my brother has been running plenty of half marathons. He is doing the build up to longer distances properly. 18 months ago I hadn't even run more than 10km. I then got challenged to run a Marathon, and that got bumped up to a challenge to run the Comrades after I had a long chat with John McInroy and got inspired by the Unogwaja story.

Two weeks ago, I ran my first official Half Marathon and I surprised myself on the positive side. I had no idea what sort of time I could run other than from my training runs which were close to the slow qualification time required. A speed at which I could chat. A speed at which I could breathe easily. A speed at which running is comfortable and enjoyable. I had slowly built up distance by long walks and gradually venturing further. No rush. It turned out that with the additional motivation of others on the road, I comfortably ran faster while still breathing properly.

This meant I was pretty confident yesterday. I had upped (downed?) the goal target to 4 hours, while emphasising that qualification was the real aim. But, I would have like to reach the 4 hours. I kept the pace up till around the 20 mile mark. With 10 km to the wheels fell off a little. They didn't fall off so much as slowly, they just refused to turn at the steady pace. My breathing was still fine. My energy was still fine. My legs just started saying, 'Not so much Trev you muppet.'

The last 10km were at closer to 10 minutes per kilometre than the 5:41/km I had been running for 3 hours at. I was still smiling. Mostly. My brother was doing most of the talking though. I am a lucky guy to have someone who enjoyed his birthday gift being helping me qualify. We pushed on and finished with a glorious rendition of Chariots of Fire. My lungs were fine. The exhibitionist in me was still fine. The song choice was fine. It made the slow motion look intentional.

I have a month to go. When that comes, I am going to have 12 hours to finish 89km. If 20km of that is at 10 minutes a kilometre, I need to run the rest at 7:30/km. It will be about preservation. It will be about the Comrades around me. It will be about the race I grew up watching. Not just a run. A story.

I will be part of the Red Love Train. This will be a group running with the members of the Unogwaja team. They will have cycled from Cape Town to the start of the race over the 10 preceding days. Roughly 100 miles a day. All this is not about a cycle and a plod. The team members and the Unogwaja Light Fund aim to release the passion and potential of those who need help to help themselves. To walk with them because people have walked with us. To see them because people have seen us. The focus is on primary school education. 

I write a lot on my blog about Community Building. I have more questions than answers. Like my running, I don't think you wake up one day and decide to head out and run the Comrades. It is a long process. Understanding the obstacles. Slowly chipping away at them. Making sure you enjoy the process. Making sure you breathe properly while doing it. My first marathon didn't go quite as smoothly as I would have liked, but I made it across the finish line.

Time for the next step.

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More Kews

I grew up amongst a few monsters. Their names were Carlton Ave, Dawncliffe Road, and Kew Avenue. The fact that Vista avenue was the choice is like a Republican choosing between Trump and Cruz. My excuse is that I moved age 13, but my block of choice was just 1.8km. Just over a mile. I could be done and dusted with any training I was doing before people knew I was gone. I knew that instead of Vista-Trevor-Carlton (loved that I had my own road nearby), I could brave Vista-Hillside-Cotswold-(Kew-)Carlton, but I left that up to my big brothers. You only added Kew if you were nuts. Even cars struggled with the climb. The hilly nature of Westville shrunk my world to about a 5km radius. The beaches of Durban were 14km away and became a rare visit.

Trevs, Trees and Hills

I often tried out for things. I would have been called a 'Try Hard'. I seldom really trained hard. With my body changing so much, I figured maybe I will have become good at something that I wasn't good at the year before. I would sometimes make the reserves of the B team for athletics. By pitching up for practice week after week, someone would fall out and I would get a chance to run in the team. Or jump. Or throw. Whatever team didn't have enough players.

About a year and a half ago, I read 'Born to Run' in which one of the main characters is Scott Jurek. He is like the Lance Armstrong of Ultramarathons without the money, and without the drugs. The interesting thing is that he wasn't ridiculously awesome at short distances. He just enjoyed it, and carried on doing it. His trick was that he didn't do a little less than those who were talented. He did a little more. The theory being that if you want to do well, just carry on running. People slowly drop out.

A friend of mine who is ridiculously spider-like on walls and has ranked highly in both South Africa and the world said he wasn't very good to start. He just carried on. Jurek's best marathon time is 2h38min. That isn't very quick. The world record is 2:02:57. Jurek just carried on running. My friend just carried on climbing.

I don't regard myself as even close to a natural athlete. I have always spent more time on reading and creative pursuits than exercise. I will admit to buying into the western separation of the body and the mind. This can lead to exercise feeling a little like a distraction from work or study. I now believe the opposite. That if you just treat your body as a transportation devise for your head (see Ken Robinson), your head won't work as well. So I am chipping away at the years of sitting at a desk slowly.

Today I ran my first half marathon in Las Vegas. In two weeks time, I will be attempting my first marathon, with my brother, in Stratford-upon-Avon (The Shakespeare Marathon). I really enjoyed seeing the range of people running, and the range of goals. The winner shot home in 1 hour and 10 minutes. More impressive to me are the people still coming home well after Jurek would have finished a marathon. Pushing on after 3 hours. Trying to catch the person in front of them. Just trying to run the next 100 metres before thinking about the following 100 metres. I tried to run while keeping my breathing ok. Feeling comfortable till I got to halfway. I then focused on the runner in front of me... using my breath as my pacemaker. If someone past me, I tried to pass two people. Chip. Chip. Chip. 

On the floor after my first half

My goal wasn't competitive. My time would still make me reserve for the B team, waiting for someone to drop out. But by taking on more hills, more Cotswolds, and with the help of my brother, more Kews, whether or not I regarded myself as an athlete at the start is irrelevant. I will be able to run further, with more comfort, and expand my world beyond a 1.8km block. 

Take the Kews life presents.

Edge of The Lake

Yesterday I went for a run along the edge of Lake Michigan. I was wearing dodgy camouflage print leggings a friend bought for me when I went on a Yoga course in the cold of the Austrian mountains. I was wearing white rugby shorts that are definitely long overdue replacement (I haven't played a rugby match since 2001). I was wearing long red socks as a way of connecting to friends all over the world (see Red Sock Friday). I looked silly. But it didn't matter.

The run was beautiful. Patches of melting snow shone under a blue sky. I could run on the edge of sheets of ice and get child like pleasure as they cracked. It always amazes me how in a city of so many people, there can be such stillness. The occasional runner came past. A cyclist every now and then. But otherwise I had quiet.

Sometimes thoughts get trapped. You may think for an hour, but the thought takes 30 seconds and then repeats itself 120 times. What I love about these long, quiet runs in nature is that the thoughts tend to work themselves out. The spin cycle stops. It calms. 

And when thoughts are calm, we can focus on the stuff that matters. We can give problems the time they deserve, but no more. Life is more than its problems.

Thank you Chicago you little beauty.

A Little Further

I started doing Yoga in 2009. When I tried to touch my toes, I missed by about half a metre. I had only been working at a desk for just over half a decade, but I was not in... good nick. A few years later, and now being a Yoga Teacher who helps other beginners, I don't feel too bad. Seems most desk jockeys can't touch their toes. They say desks are this generation's cigarettes. We are meant to move.

One of the things I love about yoga is the feeling of going a little further. Just a little. When I am practising regularly, almost every session takes me slightly deeper into the posture. My breath feels a little more comfortable. I come out feeling a touch more relaxed. Even in my very first class I learnt how to relax enough to shave a centimetre off the distance to the floor. Do a little.

A Little Adds Up

Now I am trying to apply my Yoga approach to training for the Comrades. This morning I took a train trip to visit my brother. My brother is awesome. He discovered a love of running a few years back, and said he would pace me for an attempt at edging my distance record forward. My pace goal was not ambitious. I am trying to go at almost the slowest I am allowed to go in order to qualify. We headed out at a comfortable 6:30 minutes per kilometre. At this pace, you can chat. You can look at the scenery. You can breathe comfortably.

And like my Yoga sessions, I edged a little further. Today, I ran 30km in 3h15m. The farthest I had run was two weeks ago at 27km. The farthest I had run a year ago was 10km. 

A little adds up.

-- I am running the Comrades with the Red Love Train in support of Umsilinga Primary School ---

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Parallel Joy

We run along parallel to many sources of joy, meaning and fulfilment if we define ourselves to narrowly. If we aren't able to overcome some of the barriers built of a lack of awareness or discomfort. If we aren't able to get to experience the other side. 

I tried some Capoeira classes last year. It was a wonderful experience that I definitely want to get more of. The teacher described the place where the beauty of Capoeira lies as a dance between the forces of gravity pushing down, and our strength pushing up. Each movement up goes down first. Each movement down starts by going up. There is a flow. When the forces equal each other, there is a lightness. Music. Poetry. 

I am training for the Comrades Marathon. At 89km long, there are going to be a lot of forces flowing through my body. It is famously difficult and yet famously open to everybody. You qualify by running a Marathon and entering before they hit the limit of 20,000 people. I grew up on the route. We used to cheer the leaders as they flew by. Bruce Fordyce and Frith van der Merwe were childhood heros. Fordyce winning every year for the first decade of my life, bar 1989. In 1989, van der Merwe obliterated the woman's record and finished 15th overall in a time of under 6 hours. Most people aren't uber athletes. Their cheers were a mixture of awe, sympathy, support and a transfer of any will power possible. They are parents, uncles, aunts, friends, colleagues and teachers who are waking up early or going for runs after work. Transforming their bodies. Slowly building up to finishing the race in under 12 hours. On the road almost twice as long as the legends.

Bruce Fordyce and Hosea Tjale (Comrades Marathon)

The Capoeira feels relevant as I slowly build up. I have been doing it very slowly. Following the advice that your breath is your best coach. If you aren't breathing comfortably, you are running to fast. As my muscles strengthen, and my joints get stronger, there are passages of running where that balance of gravity and my force seem to be in sync. When I am comfortably moving along. Breathing easily. Outside. Floating.

Wandering the routes around where I live, it feels like as my body slowly builds resilience, I am also growing into the area. Not quite like hoping on a train under the ground. I run past unusual shops. I recognise side streets. I discover alternative routes. Where I live becomes more a part of who I am, in the same way as I am becoming a runner.

Beyond some discomfort, lies a broader you. A stronger you. A you where the ups and downs of life find lightness of being.

Meant to Move

I always wanted to run the Comrades Marathon one day. One day, but not too soon because I thought running a very long way was nuts. The Comrades Marathon is 89km long. It is an ultra-marathon run not only by ultra-athletes, but by thousands of ordinary people. I grew up along the route. Every second year, I witnessed the mass of people jogging, walking or clawing their way past Westville (where I grew up) with the last 14 kilometres to go to Kingsmead in Durban. On the other year, they would be running past with more energy, but a full 75km to go, up the Hill to Pietermaritzburg. Growing up in Kwa-Zulu Natal, growing up in South Africa, means the Comrades Marathon is part of who you are.

But 89km? That is just mad. I thought I would wait till I was older. I knew there would be damage done, but it was a trade off. Something I really wanted to be a part of. Almost a pilgrimage. I once got to shake Nelson Mandela's hand at the end of the Comrades. I practised a line that felt incredibly inadequate as I waited. I have forgotten the words. What I remember was how big he was, and that his response was something along the lines of, 'No, it is you who are an amazing man.' He then went down a line of people creating further life-long memories. The Comrades always felt like something I needed to do.

Then about a year ago, I had two books recommended to me that changed my view on running 180 degrees. Together, Born to Run and Eat & Run make a strong case for running being very much a part of a healthy lifestyle. Not just short runs. We are meant to move. Done properly, with the correct style, and the correct diet, running is a potent transformative medicine. A way of maintaining lifelong health. It is our destructive sedentary lifestyle which leads to running hammering the knees and being a regular source of injuries. Doing nothing, sitting at a desk or on a couch for hours and hours, and then running, is (unsurprisingly) not a good idea. It's the couch and desk that are the problem. Not the running.

So I have been slowly building up my walking and running mileage with an aim to do this year's Comrades Marathon. Last week I broke my walking (49km) and running (21km) distance records. I have no idea how long it took. I didn't time myself. Part of the idea ventured by McDougall and Jurek that resonated with me is to listen to the body. Almost a yogic approach. Run as fast as you can while still being able to maintain a comfortable conversation. In yoga, the idea is you should never push yourself so hard that you lose control of your breath. Your breath is your best coach.

Today, I am on a long walk day. I am still listening to 'The Wealth of Nations' as I walk along the Thames. A walking marathon with a lunch break to write. I am still amazed how relevant Smith's commentary is 240 years later. It gives insight into Colonialism, Government, Business and how good ideas spread and bad ideas die.

My understanding that running was a bad idea deserved to die. Bring on 29 May 2016!

Purpose, Process and Perspective (with Rob)

Rob Grave is a great friend I met at university. We had a chat...

Trev: 

A few years back I was lazying on the couch when my curly haired house buddy kept coming back from a run. I had recently moved to London and so had been using the excuse of finding something indoors to do to keep active. Rob wasn't one for excuses and so would head out whatever the weather. It was harder to carry on plopping on the couch when his royal buzzy energiness came back so obviously feeling good. I didn't overcome my aversion to the cold, but I did sign up at the yoga centre down the road. A life changing decision.

Rob:

A great decision indeed. To acknowledge something equally positive from you during that time - it didn't escape my attention how much reading you did, and how your thirst for knowledge was unquenchable. Is there any similarity between yoga, running, and reading? For me, these all generate joy in a person for a number of reasons. At their simplest, they are something to do and can drive away boredom (a deep fear of mine). But look harder and they all serve to fulfil multiple goals, including fitness, friendship, and learning. I think working towards a purpose is a key to happiness.

Trev:

Purpose is important, along with process. The end and the means. My reading habit actually came shortly before the yoga started, so perhaps there was a connection. My late twenties were a challenging time. I had realised how dependent everything I thought was on luck of the draw. Where I was born. Who I came across. Reading was a way of taking more of an active part in choosing the paths. The head, the heart, and the body are not separate. If you aren't fit, you don't think straight and you don't feel great. And relationships suffer.

Rob:

We are very lucky. Here we are working on the last block of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, and at this very moment there is a refugee crisis on the front page, with people struggling for safety, food and shelter. Can our theme of the head, heart and body connection, be expanded to a connection between ourselves and other people? The system is probably bigger than we think. In the same way that improving fitness can improve our mood and mind, I think that any development to the less "lucky" parts of the system could, like a rising tide, uplift the whole.

Lucky

Trev:

It is probably the single biggest take away from the time I have spent studying 'happiness and learning' - Perspective. Most of the people I know are already happy. We have niggles we are working on, but we always will. Widening the lense has an incredible ability to deepen the meaning. There are billions of people living in extreme, absolute poverty. People pushed out of their homes by war. Realising that working on their happiness is working on our happiness is very similar to realising that just sitting on a couch reading is going to solidify you into a blob. Even if the book is amazing. You have to get up and move.

Rob:

Spot on. The action, the "doing", that's what this is all about. A realisation on this came to me during a recent daydream around the Homo Naledi discovery. My thoughts were that in our primitive selves, the person who worked the hardest or the smartest was the one who got access to water, was safe at night, hunted or grew the best food, and basically survived and continued the species. In my head, I could equate modern day work to our primitive survival efforts, and it made me feel very positive about going to work as a deep connection to the species.

Trev:

The world we knew also wasn't abstract. Water, Safety, Food, Warmth are all very tangible, visceral, in your face measures of happiness that require immediate attention. As we move up Maslow's hierarchy we get to more fuzzy, relative measures of happiness. It becomes more a case of comparing how we use our time to the other ways we could have. In the mean time, we also disconnect from those at the bottom still building the base of their pyramid. Those moments of connection, to the species, to the environment, make me worry less about the relative happiness of my particular bundle of bones. The question becomes what to do about it.

Rob:

So now we're getting to a point where we agree that doing something, like running or yoga (the process) is good and builds happiness. We're also agreed that connecting with and improving the lot of those around us is also good. This leads me to the difficult conclusion that the ultimate purpose is therefore to be a social worker? Didn't the Dalai Lama once simply put that, "The Purpose of life is to help others". This jars with the capitalist inside me that wants to become rich and famous. What am I missing? How can the two goals become one?

Trev:

Social Workers are real champions. We sit debating the finer aspects but with aligned goals. The harder stuff can't be solved with cheque books or philosophy. Even wealthy places with a strong pyramid base have beggars and mental health challenges. Those are hard problems requiring all of us to work on our emotional intelligence. When ideas clash, the one that matters to us more ends up winning. Then we make up reasons to justify it. I think the only way to not 'miss stuff' is to build in time to step back. To get perspective. Must be why the Dalai Lama lives in the mountains.

Rob:

I think you've just established a third reason why running and yoga are so good at building joy. It's because they often provide a moment of calm when the noise of the day is forgotten and some perspective can be gained. And funnily enough, the closer to nature you do any of these activities, the better this perspective gets which is why people have yoga retreats in the Alps, and do trail runs here on table mountain. Purpose, process and perspective. These runs are punctuation marks in the essay of life which help to give it meaning.

Table Mountain Perspective

Guest Post by Rob Grave

• Smile and Go Seek

Seeing Your Potential (Sediqa)

We all have those friends on the periphery of our circles. Friends of friends who come up so often, we have no idea why we aren't friends, or haven't had much contact. Fictitiously, let's call them the Beremy Jortz of the world. One of my Beremies has been Sediqa. Fortunately, my friend Stu persisted (for 5 years) in trying to convince me that Twitter wasn't just an sms to the world. I have made some great friends through Twitter, and some of this involves 'following friends of friends'. That would be weird in the real world. I imagine all sorts of Black Scorpions and Jumping Jortz getting very intermingled. Clearly we are better off in a world where we maintain our private spaces. Interesting people tend to hang out with interesting people. 6 degrees later and everyone is interesting. Sediqa doesn't use her real name on Twitter, so I won't provide a link unless she does... We wouldn't want you meeting or anything. If you did, you'd be lucky. She's awesome, and I am jealous of Stu for having her as a real life friend.

I clearly have nothing in common with Beremy... except friends

Seeing Your Potential
by Sediqa Khatieb

A few weeks ago Trevor asked me to write a blog post on "Happiness". This is what I've come up with. 

I've spent the last 9 months hustling.

Hustling, a word I use to describe doggedly chasing down my dreams and aspirations. To continue undeterred, even when you've been rejected a dozen time. To overcome self-doubt and relentlessly pursue your idea of happiness.

I am hell-bent on making 2015 the best year ever. To do this, to ensure that 2015 would be the most memorable year of my life, I had to set BIG, SCARY goals. Most of these goals involved running.

I fell in love with running in my late twenties. It wasn't an instantaneous love affair. I did not tie my shoelaces, pound the streets for 5 measly minutes and think, "This is great! This is how I'd love to spend EVERY weekend. I'd love to leave parties early just to ensure that I have a good night's rest before a race. I'd love to spend hours on the net, researching how best to fuel my body." Running was tough in the beginning. It still is.

But I persevered. And I developed a deep appreciation and respect for my body. I marvelled at how strong I've become. Hills that first represented a major obstacle were now scaled with ease. And I watched as the minutes on the stopwatch changed. I was crossing the finish line in less time. There was solid, visceral evidence that I was getting faster, better. All the hard work, all the sacrifices, all those early morning runs were paying off. And I couldn't help by wonder, "What else am I capable of?"

So I set myself some big, scary running goals. And I chased after them. Doggedly. And every time I achieve a goal I say, "I think you can do better. I think you're capable of more." And it's nice. It's nice to see your potential.

Sid... seeing something