Speed, direction and destination

I'm not sure whether Mark Rashid does this deliberately, or whether he just has a knack of pointing those universal truths that have an unexpected depth and meaning.

I was out for a nice quiet peaceful toddle with my mother's pony today. Weather was neither here nor there, but at least it wasn't raining. The bluebells were still out and looking lush. 

I deliberately set out not to have a fast hack, but to include some "hillwork". Well it would count as hills in Norfolk... really just undulations in Scotland ;)

Anyway, I was reflecting that a year ago my "goal" was for us (Rosie and I) to be able to comfortably manage an hour's hack. And last year we did a few taster rides, managing the last one at the right speed and time. (If you are riding 9-12km at the required speed, it takes around an hour to do).

So this year the aim was to step up a bit and aim towards doing a short pleasure ride. Rosie was already starting the year fitter than this time last year - but still wasn't going to be "fit enough". We have already done our first taster this year - the same ride we finished last year with. The ride is in a forest so is level and soft going, and we just snuck in at the maximum time.

Which means the training needs to work towards more than an hour, needs to be not just on flat soft going, and needs to be building more speed.

As we pootled along today (aiming for the longer time but not at any speed), I realised I could express my/our goals in terms of "speed, direction and destination" (something Mark talks about in his clinics).

On any ride I want to achieve a certain speed, on a specified route (direction), with a known destination in mind (most of our rides are loops, but they go "via" different places).

And then for some reason my mind made a link with work. If you used the same three aspects - speed, direction, destination - couldn't you pretty much define your work goals as well ?

The destination is where you want to be, whether on a personal, team or corporate/organisation level. 

To get there you need to know where you are starting from, and what route you plan to use - a roadmap. The direction might be overall (I want to go north) or for the next part of the journey (I need to travel along this road for a mile and then turn left).

And then you decide how fast you are going to get there.