Spirit Of Speed...
We wandered up the street last night...
Another world...
The same street that I ran down each January and February morning twelve years ago... The air was still warm then, although running along in vest and shorts elicited 'ooh mucho frio' from the Spanish folk, even though it was around 20 degrees all the time I was here!
Another world, so different to the mountains, different people, different energy... The same language.
We walked up to the church in the square.
I spent many hours there in 2003... I would sit writing and watching the world... I hardly spoke for a whole month, except for 'cafe con leche por favor'!
I do recall one conversation though, with a young man who was third generation Gibraltan. He was a fisherman who had never travelled... His grandfather was English, and had journeyed from the Yorkshire, and made his life in the territory of Gibraltar... We can see the famous 'rock of Gibraltar' from here...
The man I spoke with was blond with blue eyes... His mother tongue was Spanish but he spoke perfect English... With a Yorkshire accent...
And he knew nothing of England except for the stories he had been told... It felt like I was speaking with a replicant!
The square was as I remembered... A beautiful church (I didn't take a photo!) standing tall and still, the bells chiming out each hour... More people now, but the serenity the same.
We ate in the restaurant where I used to eat my breakfast most days...
'I didn't fully take it in that I was coming back', I said to Anadi...
Even though I chose to come here, my life exists where I am, and I hadn't looked ahead to what is already a joyous visit, with any anticipation...
I have made some loose plan for the people who are coming to work on themselves with me here... But that is all...
And I am delightedly enjoying treading the pathways I trod before... Where I dreamed of living the life I lived then, all of the time...
And now I am living that life....
This morning I rose early ish and ran down the bright, sunny street to the sea... Just two days ago I ran ten miles in the mountains...
I have been running solo the past few days as Anadi has a cold; quite a sneezy, coughy violent cold, which is passing... But he felt it wise to rest for one or two days more..
And so I trod the familiar route alone, just as I did each day twelve years ago, and I reflected that my body feels better now than it did then...
Albeit slower - at the moment!
I am freer of movement, more balanced and less achy...
My time here then was very transformative... I had committed in the year 2000 to 'learn to run again', and my book 'Running to learn' was born of this decision...
I had finished my international career quite 'crocked' with imbalance and pain in my body...
I ran less through my thirties which meant the pain was less; but then at 38 years old I decided to 'get fast' again - which I did - but the injuries reared up and it became too painful to run more than a couple of times a week...
Instead, I learnt to front crawl and found that I loved swimming, in the main because it didn't hurt!
So aged forty one, I decided I did not want to go though my life limited and in pain... And I recognised unresolved 'issues' lay within my running step....
In Spain, here in San Pedro, all those years ago, I did a lot of the unravelling, although the process went over years, and continues still...
However the time was transformative and the following year in 2004 I ran fast and free... The fastest runner in Sussex on the road that year - outright, not 'for my age'- from 2 miles to marathon....
I ran this morning and I loved every step I took, along the beach, along the prom...
I love the feeling of running,
It is as simple as that.
And I love stretching to see how fast I can run...
Even though it seems I am getting slower.
But 'Spirit of speed' within me is alive and well and she always believes that this might be reversed...!