Latest Event Updates
Training log: 8 September. Unscheduled rest (brought forward)
Decided to bring forward the rest day scheduled at the end of the week. Spent a good period of time at the gym stretching.
Thanks to Fiona Parker, Deb and Paul from Ashtanga Yoga Space above the Verona Cinema, Oxford St in Paddington for all of their wonderful love and care over the past few years- I have been a far too irregular attendee, but gained so much especially in picking up my own routine.
Feeling fresh and well rested for the week ahead.
Nudge
Peter Singer in his provocative book The Life You Can Change raises the phenomena of a gentle nudge to slowly help shift community trends to overcome apathy. He mentions this in relation to a culture of giving.
Singer argues that even when we are choosing in our own interests, we often choose unwisely. So his writing here is about informing better decision making.
If major corporations, universities and other employers were to deduct 1% of each employee’s salary and donate the money to organisations fighting global poverty, unless the employee opted out of the scheme, that would nudge employees to be more generous and yield billions more for combatting poverty.
He writes that while the idea might sound odd now, but if a few corporations or institutions adopt it, it could spread.
Is this part of the solution? More money? If so, how should it be distributed and spent?
What other changes might be introduced through giving it a bit of a nudge over time?
‘Fun Run’- Oxymoron? Go on, come and run 2.4 km for the global launch!
A friend of mine emphatically swears that the expression ‘fun run’ is a non sequitur…he claims never to have experienced a run yet that was fun. Poor soul!
Join us for the Global Launch of the 10 City Bridge Run this Saturday where 100 people will together run 2.4 km from right behind the Sydney Opera House across to Milsons Point, via the Cahill Expressway overpass and the Sydney Harbour Bridge.
Arguably the most picturesque route for a short course in Sydney, and so while the running might not be ‘fun’, it will be a pleasant view. Besides, what have you to lose? Let this be the start of your personal ‘get fit for summer’ regime!
RSVP here through Eventbrite.
Bring a camera and it would be great to see how you saw the event.
More details are on the Eventbrite page. Please leave a comment or contact me directly with any need of clarification or questions: phone 0438 007 770.
Inspiration- moving past barriers (pun unintended!)
The words of Roger Bannister have served as an inspiration as I found the courage to move past discomfort and regain the confidence in picking up speed. He is quoted in Wikipedia having said:
The man who can drive himself further once the effort gets painful is the man who will win.
This journey is not about winning, but about raising awareness and overcoming what was once thought to be a barrier to action, that is the first of the objectives to the 10 City Bridge Run:
To raise the awareness of an individual’s capacity to act to positively influence the eradication of extreme poverty from our world.
The pun in the title to this post, unintended when drafting this entry, sums it up best. Not only is this about moving past, as is beyond, barriers that are thought to exist. More so, it is about moving, or better stated as “removing” past barriers- barriers that were once, but now no longer are.
What is holding you back today, and what are you going to decide to do now to make that barrier a thing of the past? Go on, we’re waiting…
Training log: 7 September. 5 x 1600 m sprints
After the last week of relative discomfort in the ankles and calves, I stepped it out tonight for multiple sprints across a distance of 1600 m. I ran at close to ‘race pace’ less so for time, and more to regain confidence in running at speed on legs that were a little delicate in the previous days. I felt in good condition after the long run yesterday.
My course, rather than repeated distances from Mrs Macquarie’s Chair to the far side of the Sydney Opera House, was running 1600 m intervals which took me across the Sydney Harbour Bridge (2 lengths at 1600 m) and returning (3 lengths with one running across the Circular Quay and around the Opera House).
I principally ran across to Milson’s Point to confirm the logistical arrangements for breakfast on Saturday after the launch run. Some details required extra refinement…everything takes effort, and the outcome is the reward. I think it will be a great run on Saturday.
A couple of thank you’s from today:
- Thanks to Brooke, one of the friendly Personal Trainers on staff at the Cook and Phillip Pool/Gym facility opposite Hyde Park. She gave me some good advice in relation to stretching.
- Thanks to Ben Ward, a friend who together with other friends runs GreenUps in Sydney. He was really interested in the run and launch for Saturday, and gave some excellent feedback to change the start time from 7 am to 8 am. Good advice Ben! About 100 other people will really thank you for that extra hour on Saturday!
Bono shows the power of a bridge
Bono, who has been a vocal advocate for issues including the eradication of extreme poverty, demonstrate the power in the metaphor of a bridge recently in Turkey. See the link here. You have to hand it to Bono- he gets around…in the photo in this blog he is featured at the 2008 World Economic Forum. Kudos!
Yesterday Hugh Jackman wrote an Op-Ed about global poverty in the Sydney Morning Herald. Many of the comments suggested that the only thing Hugh Jackman was qualified to speak about was acting…
Should we care about what anyone else thinks about global poverty, and is it right to give a louder voice to the rock-stars who step up to the microphone to advance this issue? Bono, Jackman, Jolie, now even Madonna!
Failure
What defines success? The absence of failure?
Dealing with doubt and uncertainty is all part of trying to start or do something. No one wants to fail publicly.
What is worse is not to try.
There are some more recent examples of spectacular failure which resulted in the loss of billions of dollars, which for most of us is a figure that is difficult to comprehend. During the early months of the global financial crisis the collapse of many companies saw billions of dollars of value ‘wiped off’ the stock exchange. Lehman Brothers is seen as a scapegoat, but terms like ‘toxic debt’ were frequently used to describe the situation many companies faced. Some of those companies no longer exist.
Is there a correlation between the failure of the world’s financial and banking system which led to the global financial crisis, and the situation confronted in less glamourous places across the world where the conditions of extreme poverty are inescapable and oppressive? I contend that there is a wider spiritual failure cultivated from seeds of greed that contributes to both.
Throughout the 10 City Bridge Run I am and will be confronted by my own real sense of failure in a different sense.
The core focus on the 10 City Bridge Run is the publication of a book to be presented as a ‘pictorial petition’ to the G20 Summit leadership in November. With a working title of “Above the Line”, the book will feature 24,000 photographs of people who are posing to create a bridge using themselves and another person or people. We are encouraging people to be as creative as they would like in achieving this- our best response so far is from a village chief in PNG lining up his 200 elders to form a massively long human bridge.
The metaphor of a bridge communicates our connectedness, among other things. This is important. Help us raise this issue to the G20 Summit so that the issue of aid is not sidelined by a focus on addressing structural reform to the global banking system.
The run, the logistics, the photographs, the book…surely you might well be shaking your head in disbelief and muttering that while it sounds intriguing, it also would appear impossible.
Is the seemingly impossible possible? is the tag line to this event, and although inherently problematic (and truthfully is far from ‘a walk in the park’), it is achievable which I intend to demonstrate before the G20 Summit commences.
Put into perspective, my sense of failure is manageable and the consequences are not fatal. Sadly, this is not true for a child born in a community experiencing extreme poverty. What can we do about this? I don’t have the answers, but I am going to try to create a shift through along with other people through the 10 City Bridge Run.
Join us. Please sponsor the book and build a bridge into the G20 Summit.
Training log: 6 September. 20 km circuit.
After cutting the run short on Saturday and not completing the 20 km scheduled run, I covered the same distance tonight to build my confidence in training that it was not beyond me.
The course is a great circuit looping Bellevue Hill (Sydney)…great that is if you like a long run. If you don’t like running, I suggest you drive. The start point was Hyde Park, running out along New South Head Road to Rose Bay. Turning south on Newcastle St, into Blair St to reach North Bondi. Running the beach run to Bronte, then I returned via Bronte Road, Bondi Junction and Oxford St finishing at Hyde Park.
I didn’t measure time or heart-rate, and kept a slow pace for most of the run. I measured weight before departing and on my return. My legs felt in good shape all things considered which was a relief following the discomfort experienced on Saturday.
The highlights:
- Running beside the water lapping the sea wall at Rose Bay
- Tuning the bend at North Bondi and seeing the black expanse of Bondi Beach at night; peering out into the distant darkness
- Running along the Bondi- Bronte path in the moonlight, hearing the waves pound the cliffs
- Returning from Bronte knowing the long part is behind
I encountered four people I knew. Retiring MP and fellow runner Pat Farmer, a champion of ultra-marathon distances and now planning a run between ‘Pole to Pole’. Gordon Fell of Rubicon fame- good to talk with him, but also the oblique ‘bridge’ reference (crossing the Rubicon…).
Looking ahead to the first run on 24 September, and preparing for some sprint training tomorrow.
Hugh Jackman in SMH: Help people to help themselves
Check out the article written by Hugh Jackman in today’s Sydney Morning Herald: “The best development programs help people to help themselves“.
Hugh talks about his “crash course on poverty and how it can be overcome”.
His conclusion?
History has shown development is possible, but not inevitable. Our challenge in the developed world is to help people to be more productively involved in the economy, to raise themselves out of poverty, and achieve a life with choices for their children – all without handouts. From what I have seen, economic development projects do work. They are the best answer to one of the biggest social issues of our time.
More interesting perhaps are the range of views in the comments trailing the article.
Inspiration…why do this to yourself?!
What has most shaped me to want to commit to the 10 City Bridge Run?
The idea for the 10 City Bridge Run was thought of and developed by myself (Matt Jones). My experience running a similar event called the 9 City Bridge Run last year left me with a sense of responsibility from the lessons I learnt to do something meaningful with that knowledge in 2010 which over time emerged into the 10 City Bridge Run.
My outlook in relation to this project has been largely influenced by my experience through my previous extensive service as an Australian Army Officer. This is broad and includes encounters with ‘unseen’ neglected and dilapidated Indigenous communities in Central Australia during the late 1980‘s, and later deployment on Active Service in East Timor seeing the often wasted efforts of a number of inefficient charity projects aside good examples of well run government and charity interventions.
Additionally later responsibilities as Desk Officer standing up and managing Australian Army response to the 2004 Aceh Tsunami relief effort showed the incredible power of media and the ‘fund raising industry’ to reap focused attention and financial contributions globally. The level of accountability following such efforts is often overlooked, along with less glamorous, unaddressed, longer-term, systemic issues which fail to have the capacity to ‘sell’ themselves. In these circumstances I witnessed the awesome efficiency by which the corporate machine is able to mobilise brand, but sadly often with disturbingly very little real impact on the ground to boast about other than a handful of photographs and well conducted fund raising efforts.
While this might seem overly critical, having worked in support of the United Nations in different capacities while serving in the Army I am concerned about the likely outcome of the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) due to be reported on in 2015.
Jeffrey Sachs in his book The End of Poverty paints a picture where the eradication of extreme poverty might be possible to achieve by 2025, which is to some degree based on the successful achievement of the MDG in 2015.
Can we be sure that the necessary attention can be maintained by countries and institutions to achieve this? The influence of the global financial crisis is likely to be disruptive, and the outcome of Copenhagen last year was not a promising indicator.
Meanwhile, every day children continue to suffer and die as a result of the conditions of extreme poverty they are borne into. What can we do to change this?
Is giving more money enough? Should we start up more ‘not for profit’ organisations with a focus to eradicate poverty? Should we turn our backs on the situation? What will it take to move action forward on the MDG? Will a conference of leaders in New York this September cut it?
I recently conducted in person an informal survey of contacts I met across five countries between March and May this year. I was surprised that most people had never heard of these MDG. Even so, every person I spoke with was fully engaged when presented with the statistics on child mortality.
I contend that action needs to come from the global community, with people acting as bridge builders. What might this look like? I am not sure, but through the 10 City Bridge Run I intend to stimulate discussion to identify a crowd-sourced list of 10 actionable items that people can engage in to make a difference. Is this naive? Possibly, but nothing ventured, nothing changed. Two-thirds into the first time period for reporting on the MDG, progress is slow and maybe falling short. Maybe it is naive not to try all options which we are presented with, regardless how facile they might seem.
The significant output from the 10 City Bridge Run will be a book published featuring the photos of 24,000 ‘bridge builders’- people who are building a bridge between themselves and another- which will be presented to the G20 leadership as a pictorial petition.
Maybe you have a different view. Go ahead and prove me wrong, or give me a better option. I start running in 19 days.
Building Bridges 