The Body Electric - Rush

One humanoid escapee, One android on the run, Seeking freedom beneath a lonely desert sun - Lee, Lifeson & Peart

   

Pre-Marathon des Sables, I'm sure that lots of people are feeling this way with just a couple of weeks to go now until the 33rd edition of 'The World's Toughest Footrace'. However, before then there's a much greater challenge ahead of me and that's to condense my 'Life-Story' and 'Global Message' in just Five minutes to an audience at an 'Ignite Cardiff' evening at The City's Glee Club, next Wednesday evening. No pressure there then in getting 56 years condensed into a 'Five-minute time-frame aimed to cut out waffling' - normally it takes me an hour to get going! 

Anyway it got me into thinking about the 'Five minutes' - hence I picked 'The Body Electric' by Rush as it's exactly Five minutes long. I could have chosen 'Five minutes' by The Stranglers or Synchronicity II by the Police but the Stranglers subject matter was far too dark and I've blogged previously about Synchronicity, so let's hope the Rush track gives you the inspiration I'd like to convey.

   

On the subject of 'Synchronicity', the desert reference being in a track of exactly Five minutes does seem like a massive coincidence and let's hope it bodes well for a much condensed 'Coleman Performance'. Five minutes as you know, really isn't a very long time to grab an audience and convey 'The Process of Change' in a bullet-pointed kinda way - it's going to be one heck of an 'Elevator-Pitch'.

   

Then again it'll be good for me as I'm getting very used to delivering my 'Director's Cut' Inspirational Talk and keeping to the time it takes me to run a 1km now-a-days will certainly keep me on track. Thinking about it, it's going to more like a Five-minute obituary!

   

I mean, given a Five-minute epitaph, what would you say about yourself? What would other people say about you? Could you edit yours down to Five minutes? Would other people have to 'Pad' yours out if they wrote it? Would theirs all be positives or a mixture of positives and negatives perhaps? You see, in our caustic modern-day celebrity world, folk are remembered more for their one moment of madness rather than a career of well-doing and entertainment. I'm sure Ant McPartlin, Jamie Carragher and even JK Rowling would agree this week.

   

Luckily for me, I don’t have that kinda profile pressure to worry about - however I do feel some trepidation ahead of just Five minutes in the spotlight.

I wonder how you'd feel if you were speaking about your Life/Passion/Beliefs? I'd love to know and I'll let you know next week...

1,014 Marathons - 245 Ultras - 14 Marathon des Sables - 9 Guinness World Records