There's two fundamental Laws at work in the world - distraction and attraction. Whether you believe it or not, like it or not, they're there.

The Law of Attraction is a simple one - you attract whatever it is you concentrate on most. If people are hostile towards you, it's because you're radiating hostility. If people smile at you, it's because you're smiling.

The Law of Distraction is more subtle, and is a technique I've learned to cope with the bad times. We all do it - you do it too probably without realising. It, too, is deceptively simply - you find something to distract your attention away from whatever it is you want to avoid.

But here's the difficulty. If you distract yourself by saying "don't attract X", then you're thinking about X and you will attract it. My old favourite - don't think of a blue elephant - is a good example of this. Distraction is not denial.

Douglas Adams had a great take on this. He declared that it was possible for human beings to fly. All they had to do was throw themselves really hard at the ground, and then miss it. They key to missing it was to be distracted by something at the very second you would have hit the ground. You'd forget all about hitting the ground, and find yourself floating in the air.

It sounds impossible, but distraction actually works. When you're in the pit of despair, and everything is just churning and frothing horribleness, then the only way out of it is distraction. Sometimes, I distract myself with quantum physics, but that takes a lot of concentration. I distract myself with bikes, but that needs Sundays and Fridays. When I'm riding an enduro, I am blissfully unaware of anything that may - or may not - be wrong with me. OK, I'm completely shagged, probably smelling of cowshit, and I'm looking behind every bush for Martin lurking to wind me up with phanton laps, but these are distractions and they take my eye off the unpleasantness.

Have a look at this. Watch the whole video - it's only 30 seconds - and you'll see a wonderful piece of distraction in action:



The human brain can only hold 11 pieces of information in concious memory at any given time. As soon as you get another piece, something has to give. For men, the number is slightly less - because one of the slots is constantly being occupied by thinking about sex.

And, speaking of which, if you find yourself lonely of an evening, you might want to have a look at (apparently) the number 1 dating site in New Zealand. Trust me, it's not what you think. You'll be forwarding it to your friends two minutes from now, when you stop pissing yourself.

I am not out with AJP on Friday, since I can not have this Friday off due to having to cover for somebody who is on holiday, but we've got 5 people out on Saturday. Martin, after speaking to him last night, is in a bit of a mischievous mood and has apparently found another - "better" - hill for us to play on. So we're going to be spending some time going up it. I've not to worry about my speed, he tells me, since gravity will take care of that all by herself. Three words spring to mind - "after you, Martin".

The Tripy roadbook has also arrived, so will be getting fitted and tested. It has to withstand impact from falls (no problem there, I can easily put that one to the test) and being submerged in water (which happens in the tank tracks). This means that I will be starting navigation training proper in the next week or so.

Which got me thinking about speed. There's no point in being able to carry lots of speed if you're carrying it in the wrong direction. The Dakar, and races like the Dakar, is all about navigation. If you can't navigate, then you're going nowhere. If you can't navigate but you can carry a lot of speed, then you're going nowhere fast.

I'm impatient. I want to be better. Much better. But a year's experience takes a year to get. Every day, people shell out bushel after bushel of groats on training courses and all sorts of stuff that claim things like "Be A Rocket Scientist in 7 Days!!!" and stuff like that. It takes as long as it takes and can't be rushed. Patience is needed but, strangely enough, impatience is needed too.

You see, impatience is the motivator. It's the driver. It's the engine that pushes this whole thing along. If I wasn't impatient, then there would be impetus - no energy driving it forward. It is my impatience, and my desire to get better, that motivates me through the slackness of these plateaus I'll hit from time to time.

And, in the process of being impatient, I've killed two birds with one stone - attraction and distraction. I have distracted myself from the very bad place I was in, by focusing on my speed and how I can get more of it. By doing this, I am going to attract it.

As I've constantly banged on about, bikes are great metaphors for life and they will go exactly where you look.

But, the Hero of the Day is definitely Cockle. Been up in the Dublin mountains on his new Yamaha, doing his best to follow the "tracks" that my ITM wanted to ride down. Mud, bogs, stumps, roots, hills - he did them all. Next time out, he'll do them all again - a little bit better than this time.

Cockle, welcome to the family.

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