Kayak & Ski - a mid-life crisis!

Commitment I’m slowly reading a fantastic sports psychology book The Pressure Principle by Dave Alred. He’s coached the British Lions, the two Johnnys (Wilkinson and Sexton), the golfers Luke Donald and Padraigh Harrington, the England cricket team and more. The book is about handling pressure – particularly big pressure moments – that Wilkinson drop goal at the Rugby World cup final in 2003, the final round of the Open or, in my case, the night before an important assessment or looking down a steep couloir trying to relax enough to commit and make that important first turn. It’s about commitment to the moment, not letting the body’s natural fight or flight reaction tighten your muscles and your mind so you can let yourself do what you know you can do, what you have trained for, worked hard for. So many of the sports I do are dynamic, they require that sort of relaxed, focussed physical and mental commitment: Skiing is obvious. You have to commit and let your body...

Some quotes to ponder over:- 'For believe me! — the secret for harvesting from existence the greatest fruitfulness and the greatest enjoyment is: to live dangerously! Build your cities on the slopes of Vesuvius! Send your ships into uncharted seas! Live at war with your peers and yourselves! Be robbers and conquerors as long as you cannot be rulers and possessors, you seekers of knowledge! Soon the age will be past when you could be content to live hidden in forests like shy deer! At long last the search for knowledge will reach out for its due: — it will want to rule and possess, and you with it!' Friedrich Nietzsche And an other, also from Nietzsche:- 'What doesn't kill us makes us stronger' Once again, I lie on the same Canadian hotel room bed with the same knee raised and under ice! So, what has changed?  As my title says, everything and nothing. I've experienced and witnessed the highs and lows, the competitiveness, the comrad...

I sit here typing my first proper entry feeling upset, emotional, frustrated, angry and well, feeling a little sorry for myself! I'm propped up on a Canadian hotel bed in my underwear with an ice pack under my left knee and one on my right ankle! How did I get here? We need to go back in time a little. I 'm a skier or at least, I like to think so. I've been skiing for most of my 50+ years. I've always done the traditional 1 week or, if I'm lucky, two weeks of skiing a season and have a achieved a pretty good standard or all mountain ability but with a life time of bad habits firmly sat on my shoulders. My ex.wife, my daughter and so it seems, most of my friends all did some sort of gap year or season in the mountains. My daughter is a Level 3 ski instructor training for her level 4 in Val d'Isere in France. Last year, life threw me a massive curve ball that hit me square on. Big changes in relationship, career and the too-young loss of a friend made me ste...

I'm not really sure how to start with this? I've never written and published a blog before but I guess one has to start somewhere, so here it is! What's it all about? It's about my favourite topic - me!  Sorry about that so if you're not interested then switch channels now. If you are still here, you will see posts about me, my activities, my interests and my thoughts about a whole range of subjects - hopefully, amongst the just plain boring stuff, you may find interesting, controversial, informative, helpful posts that you enjoy reading. For those of you not into reading the extensive ramblings of a middle aged, sometimes sporty, bon-viveur trying to hang onto his youth, I'll try to put up plenty of pictures to enjoy! Why? It's for me - a way for me to look at and reflect on my life, to keep a record of what I have done, am doing now and what I dream of doing in the future.  Perhaps, it may give me a different perspective or frame of reference t...