Tag Archive for 'record'

Eliud Kipchoge: when dreams become records

At 38, Kenyan Eliud Kipchoge took nearly a minute off his previous marathon world record with a time of 2h01m09s. He has won 15 of the 17 marathons he has run and two gold medals at the Rio and Tokyo Olympics. Married with children, the same coach all his life, if I had to use a few words to talk about him, I would say he is an athlete who is enough.

Kipchoge is truly one with what he does. He is the one who runs 230km a week, who washes his running uniform by hand in a basin, who lives in a spartan room in a sports center in Kenya, who eats traditional foods from his homeland, who reads Confucius rather than Paul Coelho, who is quiet and runs by following his inner clock that gives him the pace, who writes down in a notebook the sensations of running and how his body and mind work.

He is totally involved in what he does, even though he is a world star. Sponsors and success can easily distract anyone, pulling them away from continuing to do what it takes to achieve their dreams. These habits of his keep him connected to the pleasure of struggling and finding ways to be stronger than the struggle itself. They are the link to the heart of his motivation, which is to take pleasure in what he does and to accept for this end, to live a life in which fatigue is an ongoing and decisive experience.

The one who can make sense of personal growth out of this link between pleasure and fatigue wins.

To understand the relation between difficulty and performance

The relationship between difficulty and performance is still poorly understood, especially when you want to examine the subjective perception of difficulty. “Impossible is nothing” is the motto of a multinational sports company, on the one hand it is not true because we will never be able to run as fast as a cheetah, but it is equally true that “records are made to be beaten” and to do so we must overcome that limit beyond which no one has gone before.

This was the case for Roger Bannister, who on May 6, 1954 was the first to accomplish a feat considered impossible by doctors: running the English mile (1609.23 meters) under 4 minutes (3’59″4). His record lasted just 46 days, the Australian John Landy brought it to 3’58″0, this was possible because Bannister had broken an insurmountable door beyond which there are all passed and summarized his feat with these few words: “The secret is always that, the ability to bring out what you do not have or do not know you have.

The same was true for Reinhold Messner when on August 20, 1980 he became the first man to accomplish another feat considered impossible by science, climbing Everest (8.848 meters) without the use of oxygen, and then going on to climb all 14 eight-thousand with this approach.

The experiences of these athletes seem to support the value of having specific goals as mediators between difficulty and performance. It consists of a person’s belief that he or she will achieve the set goal. Therefore, the choice of difficulty level will depend on how comfortable an athlete is with choosing moderate, high, or extreme difficulty goals and this will depend on how convinced he or she feels in his or her condition.

Eliud Kipchoge moves human limits forward

If the marathon is a metaphor for life; Eliud Kipchoge’s performance is the demonstration that the limits are a cultural expression that can be overcome with work.

You have to lead a life adequate to the goals you want to achieve and what you want to succeed.

Some people argue that unexpected events can prevent this from happening. That is true, but you have to commit yourself every day as if it could not happen.

Excellence does not require two lose the private life, which instead must find a place within the project.

It is said that “if you don’t dream big, you’re not realistic”, we have to teach it to young people.

You have to want everything, knowing that only by working hard and at best you could get it, but nothing and no one can ever guarantee this satisfaction: you have to run the risk of failure having given everything.

Eliud Kipchoge challenge the human limits

Eliud KipchogeKenyan

  • 35 years, 1m67, 52 Kg
  • Marathon runner, 230km week
  • Married, 3 children
  • Olympic gold and world recordman on the marathon in 2h1m39s

Goal: Run the marathon in 1h59m in Vienna in the next few days

Mental Attitude (mindset)

  • Training, passion and self-discipline
  • He writes down everything he does in notebooks.
  • He writes down his feelings to remember them
  • Read Aristotle, Confucius and Paul Coelho
  • He runs with his mind relaxed
  • “Respect a law, that of never telling you lies”
  • “Only the disciplined are free, the others are slaves to moods and passions.”
  • “When I train, I try to feel my body and give more and more. I don’t believe in limits.
  • “You have to have a great conviction and a team that believes in you and supports you. Shoes are also important. And then you have to be stronger than any other runner in the past. Everything is possible”.
  • “Marathon is life. If you want to be happy you have to enjoy life and I enjoy running the marathon. That’s why I smile.

He leads a spartan life:

  • Always gets up at 5 a.m. in Kaptagat (Kenya)
  • The weekend returns to the family
  • He cleans his room and bathroom
  • He washes his knits and socks in a bowl that he then spreads like the others
  • In the afternoon, he drinks a cup of tea and eats a slice of bread.

(Source: Emanuela Audisio, Repubblica e correre.it)

The women surfer and the great waves

Justine Dupont, French surfer, holds the European record for having ridden the wave higher for a woman.

 

Kilian Burgada went up & down from Cervino in less than 3 h

It’s a great athletic performance that Kilian Jornet Burgada did, he went up and down from the Cervino (Matterhorn) in less than 3 hours, beating the record held by the Italian Brunod, dated back to 1995. The Catalan athlete reached the top in less than two hours and fell back with a mad rush between walls, crevices, meadows and sliding on snow in 55 minutes. Burgada also holds the record for the Mont Blanc and now he wants to runs to Aconcagua, McKinkley and Everest. Burgada is a skyrunner and as he himself says, what he likes is the life of skyrunner and not only the extreme performance. There are not rational reasons to perform this kind of performance, it’s the inner passion that drives these people and that makes you love the lifestyle necessary to reach these goals.  They are an example of how varied it’s  the human nature to choose the way to realize ourselves.

Su e giù dal Cervino in meno di 3 ore, l'impresa di Kilian

Great Stefania Cagnotto

Stefania Cagnotto  with eighteen European medals reaches the absolute record of the

Russian Dmitri Sautin (12 gold, 4 silver, 2 bronze continental)

Giovanni Soldini leaves today for the record

Happy New Year

Giovanni Soldini

in search of the records in the two oceans

http://maserati.soldini.it/