I was made to think a little about how we define success recently. Usually you'd think the process is pretty simple; set your goal, make sure its measurable, perform and see if you make the grade or not? Of course life isn't that simple. That was brought home when I was searching through the
internet trying to find out what was happening on the
Ironman World Champs in
Kona over the weekend. I was particularly interested to see how Philip Graves, a 20 year old from York and the youngest male competitor was doing. He'd got
a lot of publicity in the build up to race as he's a genuine talent on the bike and some were tipping him as an outside contender.
It turned out that he'd had a fantastic swim (4
th out the water) and started the bike like a demon, taking the race lead. But around mile 50 the wheels began to come off
metaphorically speaking of course. His eventual bike split was a long way behind the leaders and his finishing time for the whole race well over 9 hours, much slower than many had predicted. From afar it all looked a bit of a disaster and some web pages hinted that he'd been taught a lesson etc....
It was interesting to hear a little post race interview on
imtalk with him that put a very different slant on Graves performance. He seemed genuinely up beat, as he said he got to feel what it was like to lead the world champs, he also picked up a prize by Timex for the fastest initial bike split and as he said perhaps in 4 or 5 years time he might be able to get the bike record. Graves of course could have paced better and perhaps come in 30
th instead of 50-0dd and been anonymous during the race, instead he got out
in front of the world's best and learned an awful lot for future
Konas.
On a personal level I've got my first half marathon coming up in just over a week and I've no idea what time I'm going to manage and what should equate to success. I went to the track today on a rainy
Sheffield day and again didn't know what to expect. I'd just returned from a weeks holiday in Cyprus staying at a fine hotel with amazing buffets of food every night. I'd managed quite a bit of running and swimming in the sea but my legs felt as heavy as my belly. It was a nice lift therefore to find that I'd made good running progress; repeating a session I did a month ago of 1600m reps and managing each "mile" at an average of 12 seconds faster than last time. Secretly this is what I'd wanted to do, but didn't really want to admit it to myself in case I was setting too high goals. Ive an equally ambitious time in mind for the half marathon and hoping I'm hoping I can surprise myself again. We'll see in just over a week.
The hard work... struggling into the Cairngorms on an 80 mile an hour day.
The business... getting stuck into the West Buttress of Beinn Eighe
The dreams... looking up the West Central Gully of Beinn Eighe, Fowlers legendary route and probably the hardest "Gully" in Scotland. 
The Reward... dawn colours close to the summit of the Ben after an early start.
Photo Mick Ryan
In fact I did my first set of ice axe pull ups for this season last night. It's easy to forget with the run of great weather we're having that first winter snows are probably only 4 or 5 weeks away. The other training tool I've been using is a pair of Mizuno Wave Harrier Fell running shoes but as they are an embarrassing bright yellow we'll skip a photo of them.
