Ben Saunders - Polar Explorer, Motivational Speaker

The Full Dose

I took part in the Mountain Mayhem 2007 24-hour mountain bike race this weekend as part of a team of four - we entered the "sport" category and weren't particularly competitive/serious about the whole thing, but it was a wonderful weekend of training, mud, sleep deprivation, mud, Red Bull, mud, energy gels, mud and hot dogs. Teams race as a relay, with (theoretically) one rider on the track for the entire 24-hour period.

I raced in this event last year (over a slightly different and far drier course) and felt far stronger and fitter this time round. So much so, in fact, that I'm now considering doing a solo 24-hour race later this year. My technical ability was still useless - my mountain bike has been gathering dust for months as I've cranked out big training mileages on my road bikes - and though I floundered on some of the tricky sections, I'm worried that I've finally caught the marathon-racing bug.

There's a compelling piece by Keith Bontrager on why something that sounds like an awful way to spend a weekend is actually so rewarding:

"That ability to endure, and the perspective that you acquire on facing hardship makes you stronger and tougher in a lot of ways that are unrelated to cycling, if you get the full dose. It’s an odd feature of modern life that we need to find ways to do this during recreation, though there are certainly advantages to making it discretionary rather than a fact of daily life. But avoiding this sort of physical effort entirely seems to make us go haywire, mentally and physically. Tempting as it is (if you’ve got the money), humans, as a species, do not do well for long as bliss ninnies. We seem to adapt well to the stresses that racing serve up. Preparing for and succeeding at 24 hour racing is a very good way to get a decent dose. There are others. Pick your poison – it is good for you…"

{ Filed under Training on June 27th, 2007 | 4 Comments }

An Open Letter to Airlines

How about letting me use my frequent flyer miles (of which I now have a few) to buy trees instead of more flights?

Yours &c.
Ben

{ Filed under Random thoughts and reflection on June 12th, 2007 | 5 Comments }

Better

Inspiration for the start of a new week, from Mark Twight's fabulous book Kiss or Kill:

"Memories and hope are not so different; one is 'having done' the other is 'to do.' Neither constitutes action. You are what you do; thus, if you do nothing, you are nobody. If you once did great things, you think you are great. You coast along on dead, preserved laurels, lifeless and wasting away.

I spent 12 weeks on crutches after knee surgery. During recovery I surrounded myself with wannabes, pretend-to-bes, has-beens and never-will-bes. I met people who wasted their talent or were afraid of it. They taught me why I hadn't become a good climber. Like them, I was afraid to succeed, scared to commit. I didn't want to be any better than anyone else. Eventually, I sickened of people, myself included, who don't think enough of themselves to make something of themselves - people who did only what they had to do and never what they could have done. I learned from them the infected loneliness that comes at the end of every misspent day. I knew I could do better."

{ Filed under Inspiration and motivation on June 3rd, 2007 | 20 Comments }