Keep Running Forever...
My left leg is switching on again…!
Having identified that I compensate with my left leg, Rodja had me striding up hill, on the steepest gradient on the treadmill, ‘super-setted’ with one legged side dead lift kind of movements and standing up and down on one leg on a wobbly ‘rolled up mat’ surface...
I am doing all the things I have deep down known I needed to do for ages and ages - the quiet insistent voice whispering to me… 'Go back to basics’, and me knowing it spoke the truth. I also knew that I needed to set everything in place and create the conditions necessary for me to have the time, space and energy to do all that I am doing...
This is true of anything our inner-voice, our heart calls us to do… Hearing the call is just the first step. If it is coming from our soul's knowing - our true path - this doesn’t necessarily mean it is easy to implement! Sometimes it can be harder, especially if we have been following a counter path governed more by the desires of others and societies expectations than our own unique expression.
However if we hear this voice, and it keeps speaking to us, then once we know for certain the path we are to travel down, sometimes we can discover that we have no idea how to do it! There may also be blocks within us that make us afraid, or we may have become used to the way we have been travelling. All manner of incongruencies can arise that only emerge when we say ‘right, this is what I am doing now…!’
And the biggest stumbling block of all can be to not give ourselves the time for all of these things to unravel and the way forward emerge more clearly. If we don’t know how we may need coaches and guides to help us on our way; we may need to go more deeply into the areas where we are stuck – and of course we must clear the space and create the time…
Once I had created the space, I landed here on this beautiful island in the sun; and met Rodja. I then joined Gros Islet gym, and after a couple of weeks, in walked Jay the Olympic boxer who also identified my switched off adductor.
I was clearly ready....
Going by this 'formula' though, it could look like I am also ready to try smoking weed, although I have so far declined! Not a day goes by without being offered it... My experience to date of smoking cannabis has been passive with friends who were, when I wasn't… This was due to a belief it would be bad for my running!
Maybe I am simply living out some familiar pattern from the past; I run, they smoke….
We set off today to run laps of the beach, scrubland and pigeon island road... As we reached the corner at the end of the village to run along the coastal lane, a guy dangled a plant thing in front of me. It looked a bit like a piece by heather that gypsies offer for good luck… 'Do you want some'? he asked me, holding it out - I smiled and said 'no' - and then as we ran on, I said to Anadi... 'What was that'? 'Weed' he said, 'what would I have done with it?' 'Take the leaves off, roll it up and smoke it' - he said ... 'Ahhhh I see....'
We ran on and after a couple of miles reached 'our circuit' and did five laps of it - road, beach scrubland - it's exactly a mile long for each lap...
We run through different lands all in the space of a mile… People making their way into Pigeon island with its historic energy and calm tall trees, the steep climb to the top of the island, a look out post in times of war. Then we circle around, and run past the local cafes, where the people of the island hang out; then we blatantly run along the firm sand by the lapping waves of 'Sandals resort beach’. 'Are you residents' the Sandals security watchman calls out to us as we run across the jetty and jump onto the sand… 'No’, we wave and smile and keep on running! Each time this has happened the 'resort guard on duty' has looked away and 'given up.’ Today each of the next four times we went through again he pretended not to notice us; instead studying his clip-board intently!
The way our ‘training regime’ works, is that I plan my training and Anadi joins in. He doesn't like racing; the thought doesn’t appeal to him or motivate him; but he loves to train and he loves it that 'joining in' with me is getting him very fit!
I love it that I am ‘training alone’ with Anadi. Sometimes we talk and explore, very ‘run philosophique’ and sometimes we run along in silence…
Today the five laps we varied the pace, running the half mile down to the park gates fast and then we jogged along the beach and scrubland bit; so it was half a mile fast, half a mile easy - for 5 miles. I was running along feeling relaxed and enjoying the feeling of stretching out; my body working well and suddenly I remembered the sessions on Hankley common and Frensham ponds when I was a teenager, where I loved running circuits; fast and slow, no watch on them; just training hard.
I like saving my emotional energy up. I am not keen on too much ‘timing and testing’ in training. It works for me to put the work in and build the energy so that come race day I am ready to see what I can do; and I am totally happy then to embrace the challenge of ‘time over distance’ and know how motivating this day has been to get me training and doing what I love on all the other days….
I was reminded of these days because my great friend Rach has pressed ‘like’ on my blog today… She is true and special friend. She was twelve years old when she joined our athletics club. I was seventeen and I had started the female section of the club two years previously…
Rach was inspired to run as fast as me – and she did!
She became a great athlete, attaining international honours too…
We experienced so much together in those early years and a deep and unbreakable bond was formed.
She showed immense courage in supporting me when she was only fourteen years old in challenging circumstances. I was nineteen and my world was crashing about me; she showed me the depths of her loving heart and her beautiful shining soul.
A couple of days ago, she sent me a private message over Facebook…
This is what she wrote
‘Keep running forever…’
