Now, a flea in the wild can jump so high compared to its body size that it is the equivalent of us jumping a house. You take a few fleas of the same type and shove them in assorted sizes of boxes and leave one outside of the box. The fleas will jump around inside their boxes for a while, bashing off the roof. Over time, they'll learn how high they can jump so as not to batter their heads off of the top of the box. Once this has been learned, once you take them out of their box, they'll never jump higher than that again. Their mate who was left out, he's still jumping around happy as Larry, but the others are now limited (that's how they'd train them for flea circuses by the way).
We continually do this to ourselves, build mental boxes around ourselves, limiting what we will be able to achieve. People around us can keep us in the box like the flea, so we are trapped, unable to jump as high as we could. For every person who has wholeheartedly supported and encouraged me along in triathlon there has probably been two or three at least who have been negative, ranging from the dismissive 'Good luck, but really, you're a bit mental ain't you' to the downright condescending and rude "why would you ever want to do that, you must be crazy, you'd never catch me doing that". For a long time I was my own worst enemy. I thought I couldn't do any of these things, that I'd never be good at sports, and that my brother and sister were clearly STARK RAVING BONKERS for entering Monaco 70.3. But unlike the flea, we can break through the mental ceilings we have constructed and undo the mental conditioning we have been put through. Out of the box, you can jump higher than you believed, then realise you can jump higher still.
With my first sprint under my belt, I still thought my brother & sister were bonkers for doing the 70.3, but I was starting to understand why they did it. Once I got talked into signing up for Lisboa, it all snowballed. Once I finished Lisboa and started getting some faster times at sprints, I then had a choice for 2012, aim long, or aim fast - take an Ironman distance race or focus on once particular distance and get better. For me, the challenge was to go long.
Hell, if I had the time and inclination, I believe that I could train for and complete a Deca Ironman event (though the one where you do 38km swim followed by 1800km bike followed by the 10 marathon distance sounds more like it rather than one a day for 10 days - you've got to plan your sleep & food breaks in!).
This is not the way for everyone, but find the challenge that suits you, that pushes you onward to a better physical and mental condition and you have succeeded.
I mean, look at what you can achieve if you set your mind to it:
42 year old ex overweight chainsmoker wins first UK Deca Ironman event
This guy can't use his right arm for climbing, but refuses to give up & so pushes himself up routes most people can't do with two hands
These guys travelling by bicycle from London to Australia
Aaron Fotheringham with Spina Bifida landing the first double backflip in a wheel chair
Step out of the mental box and you have no ceiling to limit you. The world is at your feet.
Tonight's blog is brought to you by
The Shaman: Move Any Mountain
S Club 7: Reach
Machine Head: The Blood, The Sweat, The Tears
Pantera: A New Level
Paradise Lost: Yearn For Change
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