Today is May 30 and the Navigate the Chaos question to consider is “How often do you rely on your willpower to move forward?”
Czechoslovak long-distance runner Emil Zátopek noted “If one can stick to the training throughout the many long years, then willpower is no longer a problem. It's raining? That doesn't matter. I am tired? That's beside the point. It's simply that I just have to.”
Zátopek was best known for winning three gold medals at the 1952 Summer Olympics in Helsinki.
He won gold in the 5,000 meters and 10,000 meters runs, but his final medal came when he decided at the last minute to compete in the first marathon of his life. He was nicknamed the "Czech Locomotive.”
In 1954, Zátopek was the first runner to break the 29-minute barrier in the 10,000 meters. Three years earlier in 1951, he had broken the hour for running 20 km.
He is widely considered to be one of the greatest runners of the 20th century and was also known for his brutally tough training methods.
He was the instigator of interval training and hypoventilation training. In February 2013, Runner's World Magazine selected him as the Greatest Runner of All Time.
He redefined the boundaries of human endurance. His training sessions defied belief, many of them performed in Army boots, in snow, in sand, in darkness – even, some said, with his wife on his back.
His toughness was matched by a spirit of generous friendship that transcended nationality and politics in the darkest days of the Cold War.
His warm heart and eccentric joie de vivre charmed the world. He dropped one of his gold medals in a swimming pool; another, famously, he gave away.
A hero in his native country, Zátopek was an influential figure in the Communist Party.
However, he supported the party's democratic wing, and after the 1968 Prague Spring, he was stripped of his rank and expelled from the army and the party, removed from all important positions and forced to work in a string of inferior and dangerous positions.
On 9 March 1990, Zátopek was rehabilitated by Václav Havel.
Zátopek used his sheer willpower to train harder and persevere incredibly difficult life situations. Do you?