Tempus Synchronisatum

The human's dilemma. Time. The ultra distance athlete's dilemma also. The first thing is mastering your body, your mind, your emotions. Most of us don't get this yet, but once your attitude, your emotions, your behavior, your breathing are under control, you already save tremendous amount of time. This happens simply by expending less energy. Less emotional energy, less brain energy, less breaths, less heart rates. 

EMOTIONS

Don't think of emotions as something like a weakness, something like softness. Do not associate emotions with "being emotional". Emotions are intelligence. Emotions and feelings are energy and this energy can be either harnessed or wasted. If you have read books or listened to podcasts with Wim Hof, with Shi Heng Yi, Daniel Goleman and other thinkers, even Jordan Peterson and Tony Robbins, you would see how they are also believers and exploiters of Human Emotion. Emotions unfortunately also are controllers. Controllers of human biochemistry. This is where everything can turn either right or to nothing. 

Imagine a regular phenomena. You eat your quality lunch at work at 13pm, followed by a good coffee while chatting with your colleagues and having a good laugh. You are in a great mood and a motivated state to go and workout post job.
However, your boss comes in twice during this 13 to 16h period, giving you orders and treating you inappropriately with no reason to it, probably due to his ongoing divorce. In the meantime, the freely available water fountain breaks down, so you have to drink tap water. Your PC slows significantly, because of high internet traffic this time. Your planned session need 90 to 120minutes, but you stand still in non moving traffic on the way home. The house is a mess on arrival, so you need a good 10 to 15 minutes to arrange it. When looking for your training clothes you loose another 5minutes, as they are not where they supposed to be. Maybe you even snap a shoe lace when tying up your sneakers.
Wow a chain reaction of bad happenings. There are people in this world in way worse situation, daily for decades on end, with 3 children and a second job, but still can put in 15 to 30 hours of training weekly. Others, simply either give up on their dreams or fall in to dull mediocrity. 

The thing is, that when you get discouraged, you must turn it around. You must act up on it. You must do what you want to do in your dreams. Your actual biochemical state can be switched by warming up your body with basic movements. With breathing. In the meantime you can workout some emotional knots in your head. Possibly you can solve some problems already during your warming up and focus on the main set of your training. If not, maybe you'll have a long slow distance run. 

When you get your emotions under control, by slowing down the world around you, by breathing, by cold showers, by a lot of deep thinking, by putting yourself into the shoes of others to search for understanding, you'll free yourself. This way, you will save energy. Keep it for the real situations. For the necessities of life. You won't waste it anymore. In life there are only 4 - 5 necessities. You can put the Survival guide into your mind, to focus on those. Shelter, water, fire, food. Family, Passion ! Eat, drink, protect yourself against the elements, keep your family close and follow your passion. As Wim Hof says, "Are you happy, healthy and strong ? The rest is BullShit !" . He is totally right, isn't he ?

Time Management - Acceptance

Time management and thinking about time as it is, is also crucial. You just don't know, when you'll have time available and when you won't . However if you were not prepared, you would not be able to use it when it presents itself. Possibly for 2 months the waves will be coming from all directions, swallowing and drowning you. Either you try swimming and exhaust you yourself, then drown, or just thread lightly, keep afloat and swim hard when the storm has gone. If you had 45 minutes only, take it. If you had 5minutes only, take it. This will allow you to suddenly bump up your training when time presents itself. On the other hand, if you did nothing, you'll start from zero. Back in the sofa state. 

I don't like to brag. I however had a couple of very hectic years in the last decade. This year I did the same as in the last 5 ones. We came out from winter and I never rode a bicycle once during this 5-6 months period. My friend from Ireland that I welcome every single year arrived in May and we went for a 170km bike ride. I never faded, had no muscle cramps, I used up no energy, drank like normal, ate like normal and felt like I was riding all winter long. It doesn't happen with no preparation and maintenance. You can't say that my 5 hours of weekly running was making me ready for a 10h bike ride up on the Steep Hills of Col d'Eze, Col de la Madone, Col de Chateauneuf and so on. Time management for 2 decades now that keeps me ready. 

Emotions will save you time and energy. You cannot control your emotions. You can handle however, how your body and mind reacts to them. There is no bad and good. There are consequences. You react incorrectly to an emotion, not even an atom in a sand in a desert will care. However, you will not be the human you want to be. If you allow your emotions to wonder, but react to your own will, you'll be free. This is science and not just religion. You loose somebody, you are sad. But when you act like not said, think about honoring the person passed away, by putting your best effort into life. By acting as an honorable person. By thinking in positives about your recently lost relative or friend and you bring up positive experiences with him. In very short period your bio-chemistry and mind state will change. Instead of being sad and working on it, you are not sad anymore, but you accept and honor. You just freed up your mind from a burden of negativity. Instead of asking yourself, "how will I do without her right now ?  " , you ask what "would she want me to do ? " or "what could I do on my own to honor her and make her happy ? ".
Then of course, you must think of yourself too and slowly transform these questions back to your own self. This is very important. You cannot live in the shadow of past emotions. This is a whole another subject though, however, keep this in mind. Whatever emotions you have, keep them in check. You'll save time and energy !

 

Dorogi Levente

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Time, Ultra distance athlete, Body, Mind, Emotions, Attitude, Behavior, Breathing, Energy, Intelligence, Harness, Wim Hof, Shi Heng Yi, Daniel Goleman, Jordan Peterson, Tony Robbins, Biochemistry, Time Management, Acceptance, Family, Passion, Survival Guide, Shelter, Water, Fire, Food, Warm-up, Cold showers, Deep thinking, Understanding, Chain reaction, Bad happenings, Training, Slow distance run, Discouraged, Biochemical state, Storm, Sofa state, Preparation, Maintenance