“Controlling the controllables” This is probably quite a familiar phrase to most readers. But how do you really implement it and what does it really mean? The “flip-side” of controlling the controllables is not wasting any time or mental energy on things you can’t do anything about. Then there is the middle ground – things you can do something about but they are still there and could still cause issues. Get this right and you weigh the scales in your favour for any challenge or race before you even start. Half way through the first day of the Saunders MM in 2018 - we totally failed on foot care and both our feet were wrecked. We definitely didn't control that controllable! I was out in the fells with my good friend, accomplished fell runner and ex-Gurkha, Patrick Wooddisse, he was telling me about the approach the Gurkhas adopted in life and as soldiers: a combination of fatalism (‘what happens happens’) and an iron refusal to give up (‘however hard the road gets you