It's all about the CandEy

Its been sometime scince my last blog, mainly due to studying, of which, I will write about another time.
I have also been training alot. I am having an operation on my scaphoid in the beginning of December and I want the bone to heal really well and very quickly, for me, the best thing I can do to make this happen is to be in great shape for the operation and start training as soon as I can afterwards...........here's to hoping :-)

Star riders at DMP

Wednesdays riders practcing at our track got a great treat when Tommy Searl, Billy Mckenzie and Jamie Dobb turned up to ride.

It was great to see these guys make riding look so easy.

Think about this....

I've started training on bicycle, today being my first outing and I noticed something that is made up from 3 or 4 parts, as follows.

Whilst cycling this morning I noticed how easy it was for me to notice my thoughts and that I would occasionally check on my technique, heart rate, posture and cadence. I consciously checked in on my unconscious mind to check that everything was going okay. I was giving no thought to riding only what was going on around me.

I then thought to myself 'how is this different to my swimming?'
I started swimming only being able to think about getting from one end of the pool to the other and over time I started using a technique that I thought was ok. I was able to think about other things whilst swimming. Mainly, who am I catching and how long can I keep ahead of the other guys who are a lot faster than me. (I may have stopped racing at the moment, however, it doesn't mean I have stopped being a racer!)

On one of my coaching days, the father of the rider told me that he is a swimming instructor and as we talked, he gave some advice on how to improve my technique.
Back in the pool and I am using all concentration on technique and have very little thought to what else is going on around me in the pool and my speed has improved greatly.

This is what I enjoy about coaching.....being able to get riders to use new techniques, at an unconscious level, so that they can concentrate on racing and watching the track rather than fighting the bike and doing their best to stay in control!

Coaching beggins

I've been evaluating my position of 'where I am at' recently and I am excited about what is coming up for me between now and the end of the year.

Firstly, I will have my wrist operated on in December. This will allow me to get back in to coaching and help other riders improve their game.

I've got a trip to America in the middle of September, which, I will talk about closer to the time.

There is always work to do at the track! I am very please with the improvements so far and I look forward to add the rest as soon as I can.

And currently, I have been busy gathering information for our new website, which, has taken longer than I imagined. I have some great ideas for the new site and look forward to having it up and running in the coming weeks.

DMP

Wow! It has been some time since I last wrote.

I have been busy, naturally. The rain has been challenging for us, however, we have coped very well and I am really pleased with how quickly we can move so much water in one day.

All of our ditches were full to the top and because of how the track is built up, we can drain all the ditches empty and away from the track. I am really pleased with this.

This week we have made some small changes to the track, so that, I can now build an Auto track and some Trails sections. I will have these finished in two weeks.

My wrist definitely requires a bone graft and I now face a decision of when to have the operation. If I have it in the coming weeks, I won't be able to do as much work at the track as I would like and be able to start riding in November, or, wait until the end of October and start riding in February.

It makes sense to me to wait until October, however, the discomfort sucks and I am really looking forward to getting rid of the pain.

Balance the wheel with an abundance.

In the past I have blogged about the importance of balancing the wheel. Recently I have been working on my personnel development (one of the seven parts of balancing the wheel) and only recently, I have mentioned, living life with an abundance.

I am beginning to realise that in order to produce special results in one of the seven areas (of the wheel) it is necessary to be producing special results in the other six areas, as well.

I am currently reading 'Tour de force', a book written by a man who followed Lance Armstrong and his cycling friends/competitors. The author is quite amazed at Lance Armstrong's character and that, he is, a very special person. It would seem that he exels in balancing the wheel!

It seems, now, a long time ago since Ashley Scott from Mindracing told me that this was important and it is only now that I am beginning to understand HOW it is important.

I have spent today, Saturday, practicing at my track and have had a great time. The track had been prepared well, as usual and watered really well making great berms. The weather has been awesome, really hot.

I love riding when it is hot because I get to feel a cool breeze blowing through my Thor jersey. Fantastic.

Plenty of riders turned out to practice and I had a lot of fun in each of my three motos. The first ride was supposed to be a warm up and after a handful of laps I was beginning to push my speed a little and felt good. The second moto I had fun chasing down some of the faster riders in our group, however, I had the most fun in the last moto. Whilst I started off wanting to keep my heart rate around 165/168, I noticed a rider close behind me. I upped my pace and was still being closely followed and this lasted for the full 20 minutes, it was great having someone on my back wheel for the whole moto.

Looking at the information on my heart rate (HR) monitor, I can see that for the last couple of laps when I made an extra effort, my HR went up to 188 and stayed there, for roughly five minutes. This is two beats higher than my maximum HR.

I am pleased with this because in the last ten weeks I have only ridden 5 times and shows that my training in the swimming pool has been working well.

When I got home from riding the weather was still really good so I went out for a cycle ride for an hour and ten minutes with an average HR of 128. This will act as a good recovery ride and remove any lactic acid which might have made me feel stiff and achy tomorrow morning.

Important races at DMP

After qualifying at the British championship last weekend, I decided that I was unsafe for racing.

My wrist feels just too weak, to hold on properly.

I am going to see a specialist at the end of the month.

In the mean time, the track has been busy and we have been making preparations for two big races we have coming up, on the 16th/17th and the 23rd/24th, we will be closing the track on the Wednesday in between these two races which will be noticeable as it has been along time since we have closed the track whilst the weather is great ( the last time being for the British championship in1997).

It will be a great opportunity to do does extra track work and tidying up. After this race I am looking forward to making some small modifications to the track to allow for some additions to the facility.

Eat well, keep fit......

I have enjoyed a weekend, in Manchester, with my family, celebrating my brothers 40th birthday.

I really let my hair down by having one or two drinks (with alcohol in!) and mostly by eating lots of rubbish food (processed and full of sugar!). As I watched people around me really abuse themselves (in my opinion) with, booze and food, I noticed with ease that there was a lot of fun going on with happy people at the party. I also noticed that I was having a great time even though I felt slightly guilty that I was abusing my body with a couple of drinks and some cakes!

I am just so rock'n'roll!!! Haha

This has reminded me of a saying I once read:-

Eat well, keep fit and die anyway.

From this saying it is easy to think 'yes, why should I be healthy?' , however for me, it is a saying that means what it says ' eat well and keep fit'. Even when I finish racing and my fitness level loses it's importance, I know I will carry on training as I do now because it's just away of life for me.

This is great!

Fun

My training is going great at the moment. I have mentioned, previously, that my training is based around fun.

I understand that the word 'fun' can have different meanings to different people, so, when I go cycling, I love listening to the chain running through the gears (when I have the volume turned low enough, on my mp3 player), I love feeling the cool wind against my cycle jacket and the pressure that goes through my feet in to the peddles, I love checking my current heart rate and to be able to look at the world go by, as I train, is all fun.
When I swim, I love concentrating my technique and thinking about how many breathes I take each length, I love being able to hear my heart beat, lungs fill and expel air, whilst under water and I love to see my hands grab a whole lot of water, making bubbles as I push really hard through the water.
As for motocross, I love seeing things go passed me really fast (and that is, as I go past things!)
I love feeling the throttle on the stop and the brake lever being pulled in as far as possible, I love the smell of 2 stroke engines and the sound of either, 2 or 4 stroke motors.

All these things I have mentioned I regard as fun, however, the one thing I find more fun than anything else, is the effort, I really enjoy giving it my all and getting out of breath.

Keep healthy!!

Never Give Up

Listening to the Bob Procter CDs, he recalls a speech made by Winston Churchill. In a nutshell, he stood up to the podium, waited a few moments and with everyone's full attention on him, he said 'Never give up.........Never Give Up..........NEVER GIVE UP' and then got down from the podium and walked out the room. I think this is a fantastic demonstration of many things, such as, confidence, self belief and courage, among many other character traits you can think of.

As I think of this and other pieces of knowledge I have gained, I realise that, I will achieve my goal and this will only happen when I am ready. When I have become the type of person that is capable of being a champion at the highest level. Currently, I have only been capable of being the winner of the Icelandic motocross championship, this is something that I really enjoyed doing and I am proud of.

I am making space for myself in our universe for this to happen and as the picture becomes more clear, I realise that I have curtain items that I need to fulfill before this space appears for me to become the head of my game.

Unconscious Collective

I want to write about an experience I had a couple of days ago, which relates to an earlier blog regarding MY car park space.

I needed to speak to my insurance broker regarding an item we had discussed for myself, some time ago. When I called, he was unavailable, so, I left a message with the receptionist and asked her to pass it on, telling her, he knew what it was about.

He called me back within fifteen minutes saying 'that was really spooky'. He had been reading my file and was chasing the item up, when the receptionist told him that I had called and that I said he knew what I wanted to talk to him about!

Now, think about it, have you ever had a time when you were thinking of a friend, and they ring you up?

This is what, I think, the unconscious collective is and the more I experience it, the more I believe that it is possible to get what you want, if you are willing to notice your thoughts and listen to your inner self.

Have a listen!!

Unconscious habits

A few different things have been happening recently. Whilst I have had my cast on, I have created some great ideas for the track. Massive ideas that will take, may be, a couple of years to get exactly what I want, and, like my racing, has taken a hold of me. This has meant that I have needed to rethink my training plan and approach to the business. My training is based around having fun.

I love cycling - Monday - Up to 1 hour
I love swimming - Tuesday to Friday - Up to 45 mins
I love motocross - Wednesday & Saturday(or race day) - as long as possible

Kate, the kids and myself, went out for something to eat the other night and whilst we were talking about someone we know, I recalled something I had learned from the book 'The 7 habits of highly effective people'. In this great book there is a chapter about how we spend our time, and like our friend, I used to have the same habit. It would be the 'all or nothing' life style, I would have lots of deadline jobs, that I had to have done yesterday and then, when I had decided I had done enough work for the day, I would go home to do nothing other than sit and watch TV and think about how many jobs I HAVE to do, whilst sitting there, doing nothing!

The effective habit that is promoted, in the book, is basically to spend as much time as possible preparing for jobs, doing jobs that are important and not urgent. I now seem to spend more time doing little jobs, for a longer period of time (i.e. from when I get up in the morning, to when I go to bed at night). I now, feel like I do hardly any work and I get far more jobs done than ever before, with a better quality of workmanship.

This is great.

I am grateful, for this conversation with Kate, as I now realise, that this has become an unconscious habit.

Live life with an abundence.

Over the weekend, my family have spent time with my parents, at the seaside. We took our caravan, stayed at a campsite and spent our time, during the day, at a beach hut, where my mum and dad had planned a treasure hunt, for the 'Pirates and mermaids' party.

Now, my kids and my sisters kids (7 of them under the age of 7) loved getting dressed up, however, what I witnessed was that my parents and their friends, who are retired, enjoyed dressing up far more than the kids! It was great to see and since retiring, my parents seem to have decided that now is the time to live life with an abundance.

Through reading books of personnel development, I decided that, what ever your age, NOW, is time to live life with an abundance.

Have fun.

Avioding resource depletion

Over the winter period, I am really pleased to have attracted lots of support, for my racing this season. As I get more support, I realise how much more I need to achieve my goal, for example, having someone to maintain the bikes and practice with me and using the best bike parts, such as, factory suspension. This is all a part of avoiding resource depletion, which I have discussed in earlier bloggs.

I have got many ideas for my track that I will be putting in place over the next coming months. Doncaster Moto Parc will be providing many services for a wider sector of off-road motorcycling, which will consume a lot of my time. This is where having someone to maintain the bikes comes in. Somewhere across the board I have to reduce my time in one area to improve the services I want to provided in the business area of my life.

All I am doing is adjusting how I balance the wheel (as I've mentioned earlier). I am choosing to to spend more time in my career sector for a period of time, which, will require that I keep checking that I am still giving, in the other six areas of my life.

Hospital visit

My visit to hospital went as I had planned. There is no need for a cast any more and the scaphoid bone remains broken. I have ridden a little and my wrist feels fine, however, I need to seriously consider surgery to heal the bone to prevent the arthritis getting any worse than it already is, I am very unhappy about having to make this decision.

I think I should see this season out and then have an operation during the off season. This is my initial thought and could well change!

The doctor also pointed out, whilst looking at the x-rays, that I have had many other injuries in my hand, of which to me, I have been unaware of. Many times when I was racing in the Grand Prix I would injure myself and ride through the pain so I could keep on racing. I wonder how many more breaks I have had without knowing?

For me, I think adrenaline is a wonderful thing when racing, it makes hard to realise you have hurt yourself, whilst you are in the thick of racing. Wonderful!

Technology

I´ve been out riding at my friends today (on bicycles that is). I have borrowed his bike, as I was without mine. Petur was riding his full suspension bike and I was riding a full rigid bike which is a few years old. Whilst, I was quick to appreciate, the benefits of having no suspension (my power went straight through my pedals to the wheels, compared to Peturs bike), I also missed the benefits of even having a little travel in the front forks. The vibrations over the off road sections made my wrist feel a little uncomfortable.

Yesterday I had a wisdom tooth removed and I agreed with myself that after having the tooth out, that I would have a sleep for a couple of hours, so that I could heal the wound in this time. Although I had stopped the bleeding, I was still in quite a lot of pain and by being busy I was able to forget about it. However, after waking today and feeling much better, I made time to remove the pain with a technique Ashley Scott has told me, completely. I moved the pain from my jaw, up in to my ear and out the hole. I had moved the pain out of my body and it has now gone.

I will use this technique again!

My parking space

The Bob Proctor CDs I've recently been listening to, describe how there is only one unconscious mind and we can all tape into it at any time and he gives an example, of which I have used before and did again today, only this time it really made me smile.

I had a meeting at the bank this morning and I like to park on the road side, just outside the bank. There are only five or six spaces and on the same road a little further down there are some more. These spaces are usually filled as it's in the middle of town.
Before I set off I said to myself that there will be a space on the road where I want to park and I had the picture of the spaces in my mind. When I got there, there were no spaces and I wondered if I had made a mistake by not being specific enough.
As I turned the van around I looked at all the spaces and thought to myself 'which car looks like it may be leaving at any time?' none of them did. After a quick look I decided that I would drive past the cars in the place I wanted to be. I didn't understand how this had happened. There was supposed to be a space and as I arrived at the place I wanted to be, the car which was parked in the space, drove off.
Fantastic, I got my space and it was the best one!

On my way home from the bank, I was thinking about a friend who I haven't spoken to for some time and wondered how he was doing. He called me this afternoon to say Hi and tell me what he's been up to.

So, is there only one unconscious that we can all tap in to or is it just coincidence?

The learning process

With recent setbacks, I have been a little disappointed with myself, as a person. I have gained so much knowledge in the last twelve months, regarding personnel development, that I thought I was doing really well in my preparation for this season. As it turns out I feel like I am pretending to be a person that I have not yet become.

After speaking with Ashley Scott, he explained to me that there are different levels of learning, of which, I can understand when comparing it teaching new motocross techniques when coaching. Our brain can process approximately seven chunks of information per second and when riding a bike we will use quite a few of these chunks just controlling the bike, i.e. using the throttle - 1 chunk, changing gear - 2 chunks, standing up - 3 chunks and also consider both brakes as well.

Now, imagine just being told about a new technique and it requires braking at a different time, standing and holding your body in a different position, before you know it you've used all your chunks of information up and it becomes difficult to adapt the new technique, however, with practice the new technique becomes an unconscious habit and becomes apart of how you ride a bike.

I guess, for me, it is quite hard to actually see if new mental techniques have become an unconscious habit, because unlike a new motocross technique, mental skills aren't visible to the normal persons eye (if they are unaware of the techniques being used!), this is one of the great advantages of recording data, as for physical training, it provides feed back. I can re-read my blog and see how I am doing!