Robert Marchand, setting up a world record in one-hour
track
cycling in the over-105 age group on Jan. 4, 2017
cycling in the over-105 age group on Jan. 4, 2017
Maybe you have taken one or more New Year resolutions at
the start of the new year. However, there is a good chance that you’ll not keep
them or maybe you have already forgotten them by the time you read this blog.
The reason is that most New Year resolutions are too vague: they don’t mention a
date when they have to be fulfilled and they don’t tell which specific aim you
want to reach. You decide to lose weight this year, but when you haven’t done
it yet on December 30, you can say that you’ll have yet one day ago, but in
fact it’s too late. Moreover such a resolution doesn’t say how much weight you
want to lose. One gram? Ten kilos?
Every sportsman knows that if you want to achieve a
goal, you must determine exactly what you want to achieve and that you must
make a plan. And, of course, you must keep yourself to the plan – and not change
it too much while you are working with it – for otherwise it is almost certain
that you’ll fail. For instance, a long distance runner decides that he wants to
run the marathon within three hours and then his plan says how often in a week
he will train, and from day to day whether the workouts will be filled in with
intervals or endurance runs, how fast he will run the intervals and the
endurance runs etc., and when he’ll run the marathon. And so it’s the same for
losing weight: Make a plan how many kilos you want to lose each month and what
your diet will be. So far, so good. “Everybody” knows it, and hardly anybody
does it, when taking New Year resolutions, and so they fail. Or they have
simply forgotten their New Year resolution.
Although the time to set New Year resolutions has
gone, it is not too late to set targets, for you don’t need to do it at the
first day of the year. You can do it any time and you should certainly do it, for
setting targets is an important condition for good life. Targets structure your
life, they help make your life successful and they contribute to your feeling
of happiness. And you are never too old for it. Really. Take Robert Marchand,
the French cyclist who became 105 years old, last November. You know from my
last blog that he is still active in cycling and that he even holds the world
record in one-hour track cycling in the over-100 age group. But he needed a new
challenge, so Robert Marchand set himself the target to get the world record in
one-hour track cycling in the over-105 age group. However, there was no
official over-105 age category in international cycling. No problem: it was
created for him. But alas, the rules prescribe that for a record in one-hour
track cycling you need to use a bike without brakes and without a freewheel.
When Marchand was younger, riding such a bike didn’t cause difficulties, but at
the age of 105 you don’t sit as firmly in the saddle anymore as a young fellow.
Again no problem: The rules were adapted so that for this new track record it
is allowed to use a normal race bike with brakes and a freewheel. And so it
happened that last week, on January 4, Robert Marchand set up the new world
record in one-hour track cycling in the over-105 age group in the unbelievable
time of 22,547 km on the National Velodrome at Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines near
Paris! Take your hat off to that! And pattern yourself to Robert Marchand and
learn from him that you are never too
old for setting targets. Old people were too long seen as people in terms of
objects who need care and have nothing else more to wish. It’s true, often the
elderly need care, and I wouldn’t be surprised if Robert Marchand needs some
age related care as well, now and then. But Marchand shows us that also at an
advanced age you can live life to the fullest, and that the elderly are maybe
vulnerable but complete individuals who can live possible futures filled with
perils and promises – as the philosopher Jan Baars words it – and who can set
targets, indeed.
2 comments:
Hi, my friend!
To start, let me wish you and Anke a good year 2017.
Amalia (a marathon runner herself) and I have read your encouraging post with pleasure. And of course we agree.
Thank you for such positive and beautiful words.
Diana
Hello Diana,
Thank you and also the best wishes for you for 2017!
It's nice that you and Amalia appreciated this blog. Robert Marchand is an example for many people.
How nice that Amalia is a marathon runner. I have run a lot in the past, mainly long distances but no marathons but mainly track races.
Thank you for reading my blogs.
H.
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