1) What the heck is this blog about?

A mother took her son to see Gandhi. She requested Gandhi speak to her son.       

    Mother “Can you tell my son to stop eating sugar as it will rot his teeth”         

     Gandhi “Return in one month and I will speak to your son”.

The mother returned in one month and presented her son to Gandhi.                  

   Gandhi “You must stop eating sugar, it is bad for your teeth”                           

    Mother “Why could you not have told my son that when I came last month?”    

    Gandhi “It took me a month to stop eating sugar myself”

What the heck is this blog about?
By day I work for the Education charity Teach First and my job involves coaching Teach First teachers to make the biggest impact possible in their classrooms.

The other day I asked a teacher to write a blog for the Teach First community website. I had broken my own rule, as exemplified by Gandhi “Lead by example” as I had yet to write a contribution, so firstly this aims to remedy my shortfall in this regard (This blog will also appear on the Teach First community website).

Secondly I work through a yearlong program with the teachers; setting bold visions and goals, creating backward plans, reflecting honestly, analysing data and challenge themselves.  So if I truly believe in leading by example, surely I would be undertaking the same process, I am proud to say I am, albeit in a slightly different context, as a triathlete.

Through this blog I will share my experiences/reflections on the process of vision and goal setting, creating a backward plan, tracking my progress using data and looking at outcomes, causes and solution in the context of a triathlete (swim, bike run).

Phase 1: Vision and Goal setting:
The below diagram comes from the book “Happier” by Tal Ben-Shahar, one of my favourite books.  This diagram has become my main tool for creating my vision and goals as a triathlete.

GOALS
Within Teach First we create goals in three interconnected categories; Access, Aspiration,Attainment.

For each category I have tried to create specific measurable goals.

ACCESS: To improve my technique in swimming, cycling and running.

ASPIRATION:  To achieve entry into all the British super series races and to be competitive within them.

ATTAINMENT: To improve my 1500m swim time, 40km bike time and 10km run time significantly so I have an overall Olympic distance triathlon time of at least sub 2.08.

HANG ON A MINUTE!

What the heck does “Improve my swim, bike and run technique” actually mean?                                                                                                                         Next week's blog will discuss how, over the last few months I have been analysing my swim and run technique using video analysis and going about the process of becoming more efficiently. Not an easy task!

A few pictures from the last few weeks of training (mostly in the rain!) Courtesy of Timmy Pinder and Tim Pulleyn.

My find of the week:

I love twitter as it opens up a world of interesting articles/blogs/videos, my favourite this week is by Manisha Tailor a Teacher and Football coach in London who's article Teacher and Football coach: Different or the Same?  is extremely insightful.

Happy swimming, biking and running whatever the weather!