From sport to success: Harnessing ultra-endurance principles in everyday life
How 30 years of athletic training can transform your approach to work and personal challenges
For nearly 30 years, I have devoted a significant portion of my life to sports. It was considered that sports would be my profession when during my youth I was in a high-level sports-studies program with a few other hopefuls in my discipline at the time. Since then, despite choosing a career in a completely different field, sports continue to accompany me daily.
Over the past 20 years of practice, I have chosen to focus on ultra-endurance sports.
What is an ultra-endurance sport? A sport that usually takes place over durations or distances that exceed the standard. For example, for people who run, a marathon is considered a long distance, while an ultra-endurance athlete will focus on distances from 100 to 160 kilometers. For a cyclist, a classic race takes place over 150 to 200km, for ultra-endurance we are rather on distances from 1000 to 2000km. In mountain biking, races are done on 30 to 40km, in ultra-endurance races are rather of the order of 150 to 300 km.
My practice was initially in the field of ultra-trail, then I gradually evolved towards cycling (road, gravel, and mountain biking).
When I line up for a race, it’s usually a minimum of 30 hours waiting for me.
30 hours during which I will be completely autonomous (food, mechanics, logistics) and during which my body and my brain will be severely tested.
On many occasions, I have received comments on the relationship between my professional activity and my sporting activity like «for a guy who runs 100 miles it’s easy» or «for an enduring guy like you this subject is nothing».
It seems to me that indeed my sporting practice allows me to be potentially more «efficient» at work, but it seems to me that it has absolutely nothing to do with physical or psychic endurance.
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