Self-development – Craig Strachan

On running and pacesetting

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A year ago I started paceseting for races in Cape Town. My first race was the UCT 10k. I drove a (somewhat empty) 60 minute bus, and arrived in 59:10. Over the past year I have been a pacesetter for 20 races with a total distance of 704km (ok so I love numbers; I freely admit it). Even though it has only been a year, pacesetting has taught me both about running in a bus, and about running in general, and now my busses are a lot more full. Here are a few tips. I hope they help.

When running in a bus

Know the plan

Most pacesetters post their race plan on the WP pacesetters group a day or two before the race. If you are planning on running in a bus look out for their plan, or ask the pacesetter when you see him or her on the run. Most pacesetters have a different strategy for the race. For example for a longer race I like to do a run/walk strategy right from the start, but some pacesetters prefer to run the first half and then follow a run/walk strategy. Both are valid, just different. If they approach a race different to your style, join a different bus or do you own thing. And if you’re on a bus and it’s not workout out for you, rather leave the bus.

Don’t stick too close to the pacesetter

Yes I know you want to run with the pacesetter and you don’t want to get left behind, but please not too close. I have almost been tripped by people running directly behind me. I have had people rubbing shoulders with me for long stretches (literally rubbing shoulders). Just a little breathing room makes it a little easier.

Offer to help

When you pass a water table (especially in a big bus), grab a few waters and pass them to the people on the inside. If the bus drives asks for water, offer to grab it.

Pacesetters are human

None of us get paid to be a pacesetter. We do it for the love of the sport and to give something back. Sometimes we mess up, and somethings things just happen. Some examples:

On Cape Town marathon without any warning I cramped at the 40k mark, so I limped in to the finish, but thankfully my co-driver Buks brought the bus in spot on time (the only time I have missed my target).
I’ve had a marshal on a 15km race send the runners on the wrong route. This made the course about 1k too long with a 2km uphill to the finish that was meant to be a 2km downhill to the finish.
I’ve had a 10km race that was only 9km. On that one my 60min bus came in at 53 minutes which (relatively speaking) was spot on time. If we mess up, move along and enjoy the next race. We are doing our best.

Have fun

The bus is a little running community. Have fun. If you bus is singing songs, sing along. If they’re chatting, join in. The camaraderie is what makes the miles go by so fast when you’re on a bus.

On running

Here are some things that I focus on as a pacesetter, but they also help me when I’m running for my own goals.

Have a plan

Screen Shot 2017 05 04 at 10 05 41 PM The first time I was a pacesetter my plan was to just run and come in on time (in short I was winging it). I did, but as I mentioned above, with a mostly empty bus. That is because the UCT route is quite hilly, and winging it wasn’t good enough. Some things to think about in your plan are going slower on the uphill, speeding up on the downhill (how much?), taking into account that you will be more tired towards the end, noting that your GPS watch won’t match exactly to the km boards and making provision for walk breaks. A pacing chart makes a huge difference (now whenever I race I have a chart of my planned splits per km). In Cape Town we are lucky, because one of the pacesetters, Rassie, is a wizard at creating excellent pace charts. On the right is an example of one of his charts (he usually posts charts for the bigger races in the WP pacesetters group).

Now I always run with a pacing chart, even when I am not formally pacesetting. But you still need to work hard on the day to stay on track.

But be flexible

At the Milkwood 21k, the wind was howling. There was a long 5k uphill into the wind in the second half. So I had to on the fly consider how I was going to account for that while keeping the folk in my 2 hour bus on time. My solution was to push a little harder in the first half to get some extra time for more walk breaks into that wind. The bus came in spot on time. If you’re running behind how are you going to catch up? If you’ ahead are you going too fast, or are you ok to bank that for slightly longer walk breaks later on? Is the wind howling in one direction?

Make time to walk

I am convinced that plenty of walk breaks makes for a faster run. Both my marathon and 2 Oceans Ultra marathon personal best were achieved with plenty of walk breaks (starting at the first water table).

Know the route

If you know the route, you know the scary steep hills, the long downhills, and great smooth sections where you can cruise. That makes it easier to both plan your walks on the steep bits (you loose less time), and it helps to know what’s coming up. On West Coast Marathon there is a really steep hill just before the end, but it helps hugely to know that it is only 600m long! Ideally you will have at least driven the route, but if you can’t (I’m running Athens in Greece in November and I won’t have a car), you can still study the route, and look at Strava profiles from other athletes’ previous runs.

(and again) have fun

Yes we love to chase our own goals and to get a PB. But ultimately we are there to enjoy the atmosphere on the route, to experience the camaraderie of our fellow runners, and the amazing crowd support. But if you’re not having fun, you are missing out.

And finally thanks to everybody that runs with me, without you I wouldn’t have a bus, and a huge thanks to Paul and the amazing guys in WP Pacesetters that have taught me so much about running and pacesetting!

See you on the road. My next races are Slave Route, and CT12 – look out for my flag there!

What I talk about when I talk about running

Images Haruki Murakami is best known as the author of “Norwegian Wood”, and the “The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle” – and many other books. If you haven’t read his books I highly recommend you check them out. But recently I discovered that he is a long-distance runner as well and has written about his running.

I have just finished “What I talk about when I talk about running”, and It is excellent. As a runner I related completely to his journey, his challenges and successes, his apprehension and self-doubt before races, and the acceptance of the unpredictability of marathon-length races.

The philosophy he bring to running – that you need to be as healthy as possible to be effective at what you do, and how maintaining health (in his case by running and doing triathlons), needs to be balanced with what you do. To be mentally sharp and focused requires a healthy body.

He says:

To deal with something unhealthy, a person needs to be as healthy as possible. That’s my motto. In other words, an unhealthy soul requires a healthy body. This might sound paradoxical, but it’s something I’ve felt very keenly ever since I became a professional writer. The healthy and the unhealthy are not necessarily at opposite ends of the spectrum. They don’t stand in opposition to each other, but rather complement each other, and in some cases even band together. Sure, many people who are on a healthy track in life think only of good health, while those who are getting unhealthy think only of that. But if you follow this sort of one-sided view, your life won’t be fruitful.
Almost everything he had to share could have been written by me, or for me. Although I am convinced that any long-distance runner would feel exactly the same.

It is a short and easy read, but a book to be dipped into, reread and digested over time. To get full enjoyment from the book you probably have to enjoy running, but there is plenty to learn regardless of what get you up in the morning.

Speaking off the cuff – a resource

You often hear me speaking about the value of impromptu speaking, and why learning to speak off the cuff is as important as learning to speak prepared.

Here is a great resource; an entire website dedicated to the art of “table topics”, or speaking impromptu.What I like about the site is that he gives you a lot of templates, or outlines you can use for practising unprepared topics.

Here is an example:

Split Personality

Number of participants: Two

The majority of the information we convey doesn’t come from what we say, but from how we say it. Bodily gestures are a large part of this. The goal of this template is to separate these different aspects of communication between two people. One participant does the talking, the other does the gesturing.

There are two ways to use this template. Either one participant talks, and the other creates the corresponding gestures, or one uses gestures, and the other talks about what the gestures are indicating.

Doing this effectively requires a reasonable amount of cooperation from the participants. It can weaken the delivery if both participants end up gesturing (once you do it, it can be a difficult thing to put down temporarily!). This should possibly be made clear to the participants.

It’s interesting to see the different ways people can take this, sometimes you may have one participant controlling the flow of the entire topic, while others will work together to figure out how the talk or story will evolve.

The purpose of this template is to give people the chance to carefully consider what their gestures are saying to an audience.

Thanks to Andrew William’s for creating the resource.

Are you planning for the unexpected?

In the last month, two people that I know have lost substantial amounts of data that was stored on their laptops. The first was due to a laptop that was stolen at a conference, the second due to a drive failure. Both of them are experienced computer users, and both are educated about the importance of regular data backups.

Neither of them was keeping any backups. Why? Because they didn’t think that it would happen to them. They were taking a risk, and not expecting the unexpected. This doesn’t just happen to computers; it happens everywhere.

How long can you survive without a job until your car or house is taken away?
Are you keeping yourself competitive and employable?
Are you looking after your health?
Do you have an emergency fund?
Do you backup your computer?

What contingency plans do you have in place?

How much effort are you prepared to put into your passion?

I was listening to an interview with Malcolm Gladwell recently on the Radiolab podcast in which he was speaking about the performance of Jamaican athletes when he was growing up. He made a comment that part of the reason for their performance is that they trained harder than anybody else.

When Darren la Croix won the 2001 World Championship of Public Speaking, he said that he did not want any of the other competitors to be more prepared than him – he wanted to out-prepare all of them, and he won.

When I was in school, I studied music as one of my matric subjects. In my final year, I would probably practice about 2-3 hours a day, and I was a far better pianist then than I am now. It was because I was putting in the time to prepare.

Tiger Woods is such a great golfer partly because he puts in approx 6 ½ hours training every single day, as well as about 2 ½ hours in the gym . I have no doubt that if I put effort into golf every day for a few years, I would be a mighty fine golfer as well. Maybe not as good as Tiger Woods, but a lot better than I currently am.

According to Fortune Magazine,

“The evidence we have surveyed … does not support the [notion that] excelling is a consequence of possessing innate gifts…. that nobody is great without work…There’s no evidence of high-level performance without experience or practice.”

Ok, so the bottom line is that you can be excellent at just about anything that you choose, but you will need to put in the effort to get there.

How much effort are you prepared to put into your passion?

What image are you projecting? 10 tips to selling yourself

Be on time for meetings. If you are late, you show a lack of respect and self-organisation.
Respond to messages. Even if it is just a one line to say that you received the message, let the sender know that you are onto it.
Dress for the occasion. You don’t have to wear a suit and tie, but dress appropriately for the occasion. Whether you like it or not, first impressions count a lot, so make a good one.
Only make commitments that you can stick to. If you cannot stick to a commitment, don’t make it. Have you ever been promised that a job will be completed by a particular date, and being annoyed that it is a week late? Have you ever overpromised. Rather under-promise and over-deliver.
Smile
Greet people by name. It shows an interest in others.
Always have business cards with you. They should neat and presentable. Simple cards are not expensive to print, and home-made cards can look tacky. Get them professionally printed.
Be positive.
Listen. People like to listen to themselves. Let them, and they will think how great you are at conversation. Understand your customers’ needs before responding with a solution.
Remember rule #6 – don’t take yourself so seriously (there are no other rules).

Are you an expert communicator?

Expert_2 I have always believed that to get ahead in life, you need to be an effective communicator, regardless of what your field of work is. You need to be able to communicate to:

your peers
your boss
your clients
your prospective clients
your service-providers
your subordinates
your partner
your children
your parents
your …

There is an interesting article by Dustin Wax on Lifehack, "How to be an expert", in which he speaks to this.

Dustin says that

"expertise without the ability to communicate is practically pointless",

and you need to

"learn to use whatever technologies you need to present your expertise in the best possible way",

and

"an expert should be able to explain to you exactly what they?re doing and why".

It all boils down to the ability to communicate. No matter how knowledgeable you are, your knowledge is worthless if you cannot communicate. Here are a few ways to improve your communication:

Practise
Get coaching
Watch and listen to great communicators
Join Toastmasters
Get to the point
Listen to others

Good luck

(image source)

Many Little Steps make a few Big Steps

Steps_2 About six weeks ago, I had minor back surgery to sort out a problem with a slipped disc. A large part of the rehab process consisted of resting, with limited stretching and exercise.
Over the first few days, my routine was relatively unchanged, I spent the majority of the day in bed. I only got up to eat, shower or use the bathroom. I tried to spend more time out of bed, but I could not – I was frustrated by the perceived lack of progress in my recovery.

I didn’t see any progress between Monday and Tuesday, or between Tuesday and Wednesday, or between Wednesday and…ok, you get the picture. However, when I looked back from Friday to Monday, I started to realize how much progress I really had made. On Monday I was in bed for 23 hours a day, while on Friday I was only in bed for 22 hours (one hour is a big difference after back surgery), and I had cut my pain medication in half.

By the next week, I was only in bed for 20 hours with the occasional pain pill, and the week after I was in bed for about 15 hours a day. Now, I am in bed for my regular 8 hours a day, I am back at work, and I am completely off pain medication. Over the weeks there was huge progress, but hardly any from day to day.

So, when you are working towards a goal, how often do you abandon the journey because you are so focused on the your progress that you don?t see the progress over the weeks? Do you get frustrated because you don?t see any weight loss from day to day, or because you aren?t running further each day? Do you realize that over a week you have lost weight, or you are running further, faster and with less effort?

It is so easy to get caught up in the detail, and to forget the bigger picture. Each little step, no matter how small is a step forward, and without those little steps, you are not going to manage the bigger steps.

Here are a few steps to help you to focus on the bigger picture. Do this whenever you feel like giving up.

Decide what your goal is (remember SMART)
Commit yourself towards working towards that goal
Plan your milestones towards reaching your goal
Look back from time to time
See how many little steps you have taken
Realize that many little steps make a few big steps

Now, with the back surgery, I didn?t really have an option except to move forward, but when you do have the option of dropping out of a programme because you are frustrated at the perceived lack of progress, remember to keep the bigger picture in mind, and remember that if you persevere, you will move forward, and you will achieve those goals.

What attitude are you taking into this week?

Cape_point_3

Today, I went for a cycle from my house in Muizenberg to Cape Point and back. Just as you cycle into Simon Town you can see across False Bay to my house – a distance of about 20km.

My first thought was “oh no, look how far I still have to go.” Then I thought “hang on, I have an opportunity to cycle another 20km of some of the of the most beautiful coastline in the world.” I had a fantastic cycle back. Imagine how my cycle back would have been if I had gone with the first attitude!

What attitude was you going to take into this week? Are you going to look forward to the opportunities the week will present to you, or are you going to negatively approach the week, and desperately hope to survive until Friday? The choice is yours.

Remember, as Zig Ziglar said

“Positive thinking won’t let you do anything but it will let you do everything better than negative thinking will.”

Have a great week!

The GROW model

The GROW model is a coaching model that describes a very simply process that can be followed to help you work towards and to achieve your goals.

GOAL

The first step is to understand what your goal is. Understanding your goal gives you a concrete objective towards which you can work, and the freedom to start doing so.
Make your goals SMART – goals that are Simple, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Time-based. This removes the pie-in-the- sky aspect of goal setting, and turns them into something that you can actually achieve. Having a goal such as ?I would like to lose weight? is difficult to measure and hence difficult to achieve. How about changing it to ?I would like to lose 5 kg by December 2007??

Without goals comes a lack of focus, and with no focus it is very easy to drift through life – just living from day to day, wondering why you are not achieving anything in life. How much harder is it to move forward without understanding where you are going?

REALITY

The next step is to look at the current reality. Where are you in relation to your goal? Have you almost achieved your goal? Are you a long way away? Do you need to break the goal into smaller, more achievable goals?
It may require a detailed and honest analysis of where you are, But having a deep understanding of where you are provides a very solid foundation of understanding what needs to happen.

OPTIONS

Once you understand your goal and your reality, the task is to find out how to start to move the reality towards the goal. At this stage in the process, you examine what options are available to you. This is where the planning takes place.
There may be a single course of action, or there may be multiple options from which to choose. This is a good opportunity to go into some creative brainstorming, or to perform a SWOT analysis on the various options that are available to you.
Remember that at this stage you are not deciding which are the best options – that is for later. You are simply deciding on what the possible options are.

WHAT

At this stage, we have examined the goal, we know where we are in respect to the goal, and we have examined the various options that we can follow to reach the goal.
The final step is to examine the options, and to decide what the best option is to reach your goal. Note that you are not looking at the easiest option, but the best option. IE: which option is going to move you closest towards your goal?

WORKING THE PLAN

Working throught the GROW model provides a very simple yet powerful framework to support you in achieving your goals. However, the work really happens not in the planning, but in the working of your plan.

While working your plan, keep in mind how you are progressing towards your goal. Keeping examining what is and is not working in your plan. What might have seemed as a great option (the WHAT) might not have been the best choice . So try to have the flexibility to make adjustments when it becomes necessary.

WHERE TO USE GROW

The GROW model can be used in almost any aspect of your personal or business life, including health, wealth, team goals and career aspirations. Basically, GROW will work anywhere in your life that you are working towards a goal.

Good luck, and continue to GROW.

Historical note: There is a lot of uncertainty as to the origins of the GROW model. Several sources cite several different authors. To the best of my knowledge, it was created by Graham Alexander and brought to the fore by Sir John Whitmore.