A selection of notes, quotes, ideas and musings from the month of March 2024.

Gratitude is a balm for bitterness.

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• Complaining
• Trying not to complain
• Feeling proud you’re not complaining
• Losing interest in the idea of not complaining

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We can’t just do what we want… that’s just juvenile. But we probably have many more options open at any moment than we think. – Robert Moss

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A dream: I’m in conversation with an energetic, retired businessman. He encourages me to act my age. He says, you don’t get it, soon you’ll be my age and you’ll wish you took advantage of what you have. The next day, I realize this man was a tennis player at my club. He’s nearly twice my age but often runs me off the court.

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98% of the time when I talk about cycling, people are like “you do what? The other 2% of the time I feel like a complete amateur.

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A DNF pulls the rug out from under your ego. When you’re improving and getting good results, you hardly notice. But when you’re bonking and getting passed, suddenly you start questioning yourself. Why am I here? What am I doing this for? You kick up a big fuss because things aren’t going your way. This can be a healthy antidote to the inflation of a string of PB’s.

When we are little and we don’t get what we want we scream and cry. When we are adults, we scream and cry in our heads. When we finally get what we wanted, suddenly that voice goes very quiet. Our mind can be like a child who has been very rude, but suddenly gets the ice cream they want, and is now acting like there was never any problem.

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“When an inner situation is not made conscious, it happens outside, as fate.” – Carl Jung

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The death spiral of bonking:

• Come on legs, move.
• Denial. I’m not going to bonk.
• Come on legs, move.
• Trying to fix the issue. Water. Holding my legs differently. Concentration games.
• Finally giving up the games and accepting whatever is happening
• Come on legs, move.
• Repeat

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Am I a cyclist? Is that part of my identity important? Maybe what’s important is not that you are or aren’t a cyclist. It’s more important to recognize that it’s a concept. It’s a bit of clothing that can be put on or taken off if you like. There is no forcing. There is no obligation.

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Nothing against alcohol, but I feel physically better after cycling 170km and getting heatstroke than a weekend of drinking 

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Flossing is about getting food out of our teeth. Next time you floss, think about flossing out three meals. As you floss, remember what breakfast, lunch and dinner were and get them out of your teeth.

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Daniel Goleman describes anger as a destructive emption. No matter how skilled and self-aware you are, it’s always going to be dangerous to deal with anger – it’s caustic. For some people, dealing with anger is like a toddler playing with a gun. Others are more skilled, like a soldier or policeman. Therefore, the more skilled you are, the more responsibility you have to get your anger under control. We would never blame a toddler for mishandling a firearm, but a soldier should know better.

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Rather than focus on the subject of work, we should focus on attitude and how we approach work. When we are unhappy at work, we tend to blame the work, the content. In my experience, I’m bringing the same person to work, so if I’m unhappy, no job change will help.

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Morang (the name of my street) is an ancient aboriginal word meaning ‘sky’ or ‘cloud’. 

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Triathlon is an extremely left brained activity. It’s all about timing. Sequencing. Logic. Caution. Optimising. Planning. Scheduling. It doesn’t take any imagination to be good at a triathlon.

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An older man is handed a participation medal. He says “no thanks, I’m too old for that stuff.” A younger woman places her participation medal on her three year old son who receives it with pure delight. Maybe that’s the right age for a medal.

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It’s easy to scoff at the suggestion to ‘think positive’, as if we can manufacture happiness out of thin air. But how exactly is that different than how we manufacture suffering out of thin air when we worry about the past and the future?

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Two major things people get wrong about discipline (paraphrased from C.S Lewis):

1. People think discipline is about renunciation or abstinence. It’s not. Instead of restricting and cutting things out of your life, think temperance: Going the right length and no further.
2. There’s many reasons why one might give up meat or stop drinking alcohol. But the mistake we make is to start saying these things are inherently bad, or judging those who do drink beer or eat hamburgers.