302 times in 16 days

What is so fascinating in watching 8 men run 100 meters? Or watching a hammer-throw event? Technique, performance & “moves” are nice. But we don’t really care how perfect was the breathing tempo or the number of strides - its all about COMPETITION. It can be running, boxing, wind surfing or anything else, the closer & tougher the competition, the more we like it.

Competition is one of the most powerful motivators (on the upper part of the list right next to “fear” & “greed”). Who would be the first to get the bomb, who would make more sales this year, who would get more electors in the primaries.
Competition generates those additional drops of magic juice that do not exist in normal/training situations. When “playing” transforms to “competing”/”betting”/”i-will-kick-your-ass” game, those magic juice drops come up. And than it becomes a totally different ballgame.
And the 2nd best thing after participating in a good competition is watching one.

The Olympic Games provide us over 300 competitions in the next 2 weeks where 10,500 athletes would compete to get their gold/silver/bronze medal.

Below is an amazing video showing its not always about medals, sometime a competition over 4th place can become very painful…



"It's at the borders of pain and suffering that the men are separated from the boys."

Emil Zatopek

Father’s love

Week 14 behind me, 52 weekly km and the first 30km long run of the season. After eight weeks of increasing mileage, week 13 is an easy recovery week which following it starts a month that would take me to the 60s (km/week).

Below is a clip on Rick & Dick Hoyt, known as “The strongest dad in the world”, an amazing example of a father’s love to his son and of the power of determination;
prepare the tissues…

At Rick’s birth in 1962 the umbilical cord coiled around his neck and cut off oxygen to his brain. Dick and his wife, Judy, were told that there would be no hope for their child’s development.

The couple brought their son home determined to raise him as "normally" as possible. A group of Tufts University engineers came to the rescue, once they had seen some clear, empirical evidence of Rick’s comprehension skills. "They told him a joke," said Dick. "Rick just cracked up. They knew then that he could communicate!" The engineers went on to build — using $5,000 the family managed to raise in 1972 - an interactive computer that would allow Rick to write out his thoughts using the slight head-movements that he could manage.

When the computer was originally brought home, Rick surprised his family with his first "spoken" words. They had expected perhaps "Hi, Mom" or "Hi, Dad." But on the screen Rick wrote "Go Bruins." The Boston Bruins were in the Stanley Cup finals that season, and his family realized he had been following the hockey games along with everyone else. "So we learned then that Rick loved sports," said Dick.

In 1975, Rick was finally admitted into a public school. Two years later, he told his father he wanted to participate in a five-mile benefit run for a local lacrosse player who had been paralyzed in an accident. Dick, far from being a long-distance runner, agreed to push Rick in his wheelchair. They finished next to last, but they felt they had achieved a triumph. That night, Dick remembers, "Rick told us he just didn’t feel handicapped when we were competing."

For the past twenty five years or more Dick, who is 65, has pushed and pulled his son across the country and over hundreds of finish lines. When Dick runs, Rick is in a wheelchair that Dick is pushing. When Dick cycles, Rick is in the seat-pod from his wheelchair, attached to the front of the bike. When Dick swims, Rick is in a small but heavy, firmly stabilized boat being pulled by Dick. More here