The pursuit of excellence

Excellence personified.
 (picture courtesy of Reuters)

Last night I found myself at the Royal Albert Hall, in the company of Anita, Wonka, Trotter and Proboy.  It was mine and Anita's first outing with the Monday Night Music Club (well, less of an official club and more a loose collective of Swindon and London based lawyers, traders and accountants) and we were there to watch a band called Pink Martini perform their particular brand of jazz-classical-swing-big band-fusion world music, accompanied by the BBC Concert Orchestra.  I know, I know, I was sceptical too.  Particularly about the name.  But I have to say, it was absolutely amazing. (The lead singer was particularly amazing, a striking blonde American lady in an elegant evening dress, with the word LOVER tattooed across her back in enormous gothic script).  Watching this eclectic collection of musicians performing absolutely at the top of their game, in the company of good friends, might just be the one of the best ways to spend a Monday night, ever.  


Watching Pink Martini perform (every time I type that name I feel strangely embarrased) reminded me of a story four times olympic gold medallist Matthew Pinsent told a few years ago.  Interviewed on Radio 4, he was asked about his favourite sport to watch on TV. He replied that he would watch absolutely anything, as long as it was being performed at the highest level of excellence.  I recognised that sentiment in the Albert Hall, when I realised that I too would watch, and listen to anything, as long as it was the best in its field. There is something completely uplifting, inspiring, about watching elite performance, whether in sport, music or anything else.  


As I type this I am listening to a podcast of Michael Johnson on Radio 4's Desert Island Discs. He describes growing up in an average family, one of five siblings, where the accepted aspirations were to go to college, get a good job and work hard.  He explains what was involved, on a day to day basis, in gradually getting himself into a position where he was the fastest runner on the planet over 200 and 400 metres.  He talks vividly about the multiple decisions that he had to take about pace, tactics, and what his opponents were doing, in each of five distinct phases of a race that in its entirety took only 40 seconds.  Excellence seems to be a theme at the moment - last week Haile Gebrselassie, for a long time the holder of the marathon world record - a staggering 2 hours 3 minutes and 59 seconds, almost twice the speed of my own marathon effort  - was interviewed on the morning news.  Asked what his secret was, he gave a self deprecating laugh. "There is no secret," he replied, "just dedication, commitment and hard work".  


In truth, what I find truly inspiring about top level performance is not necessarily the performance itself, but  the sheer effort that has gone in to getting to the point where that level of performance is even possible. Gebrselassie revealed that he runs 160 miles a week, every week, in training (that's around one marathon a day).  The work that Michael Johnson must have put into breaking the 200 and 400m world records, not just during the course of the races themselves, but in the preceding weeks, months and years, is staggering.  He tells a story about the sacrifices involved along the way - about how the last Thursday in November is Thanksgiving, the biggest and most important holiday in the American calendar.  But to him it wasn't thanksgiving, it was Thursday, and Thursday was a training day.  He never missed a day of training in ten years.  Ten years!  "I wanted to be the best I could be. I wanted to be the best I could be so badly that I was there every day.  To be the best you have to take advantage of every opportunity, and every day of training was an opportunity for me."  A true inspiration.  I'm off to do some pull-ups.