A Lifelong Quest...
A cloudy Saturday afternoon in Ipsos…
There is change afoot, more tourists, more activity... More shops and tavernas opening…
May 1st was celebrated in style yesterday... The taverna we frequent was packed full of folk in celebratory mood... We had lunch there today... After a delicious Greek salad, meat balls and tzatziki, which we had topped off with a greek coffee, Anadi was looking at the photographs of party life and fun, covering one of their walls…
Giorgos, the waiter there, told us that through July and August the taverna looks like that every single night of the week… ‘April quiet, May a bit busier, even more busy in June... And then July and August every day a party day, every day busy; then September is like May, and October we close and we have our vacation…!’
‘Every day, everyone is having fun’ he said ‘eating, drinking, party time…’
‘I have never really liked doing that’ I said ‘Really and truly, I have always preferred running…’
‘Yes, we all like to have fun in different ways...’ Giorgos said… I agreed, and then I told him about how some years back, I was chatting with the man on my left at a wedding feast. I was telling him that I liked to go running when I was on holiday, and on Christmas day…
‘Don’t you ever have any fun…’ he had asked me… ‘I always have fun’, I laughed, ‘and running is one of the best ways for me to do that…’
When it comes to interval training, you might find Anadi disagreeing with the fun element…!
We drove to Ipsos promenade this morning… My plan was to warm up, and then run 8 x 1kilometre with a minutes rest between each run… We reckoned that if we drove to the venue, we could ‘rub down’ afterwards and go to ‘the Lagoon’ for breakfast... We had spotted that they offered a delicious one….
After a couple of repetitions, Anadi decided that he was not enjoying this particular form of training and chose to stop and do his own thing… He loves the long runs and as he wrote in his interview he has no desire to race...
‘I have no desire in sport, and so there is nothing holding me back. I always run to the best of my ability and that is enough for me. I have no intention of winning races or competing against other runners…
My experience is that, in truth, there is nowhere to go – just being in the moment of a run, of life and of play is enough – the experience of now is my personal success…’
As I chased up and down Ipsos seafront, I reflected on why I was doing this…! Interval training can be quite demanding and arduous!
And in the end, I simply came up with the answer, that I like stretching to find out, in the running step…
And, that interval training for me is the ultimate meditation – to stay in the now, to not try to ‘go anywhere’, to allow whatever comes out to come out, without judgment or agenda… And yet be stretching to run fast because it’s how I ‘find out’ where I am NOT in the moment, where I AM attached to outcome, where I ‘want to be faster’ ‘want to be better’… It’s a space for me to clear all that away and simply run…
Running on heart rate is allowing this… It is no less ‘hard’ to keep my HR at 160 – 165, which is my threshold HR… but it does mean that I cannot get ‘caught up’ with ‘time over distance’ stress…
My lifelong quest continues…
To run to the best of my ability without getting attached to, or projecting what that might be…
Without comparing with me in the past, or anyone else on the planet… To take part in the races to find out, to run intervals to find out; to truly surrender and ‘go with the flow’…
I really did enjoy my session, and I also really did enjoy the breakfast of Greek yoghurt, and honey, scrambled eggs and orange juice…
My nomadic life sees me sitting down to meals in a way I haven’t done for many years… Living alone, I was a ‘healthy snacker’ through the day, and I threw together a ‘healthy salad’ every evening…
There is much more time spent sitting over food now… talking with Anadi, eating slowly; enjoying the moment…
More time for eating, more time for sleeping, more time for running, more time for writing, more time for sacred space with Anadi…. And also more time for my work with people, because I am doing less than before...
Later....
Just as I finished writing, Anadi joined me on the terrace... Giorgos spotted him and came over to us, and offered Anadi an ouzo with Grenadine - his favourite - and some tsipouro (fire water!) for me... Anadi smiled and nodded...
I shook my head... 'I'm going running'... He appeared with Anadi's pink concoction and half a shot glass for me... I laughed 'I'm going running Giorgos..' I said with more emphasis...
'Tsipouro good for running...' He replied. I took a sip, and realised Tsipouro was probably not good for running!
I jogged down to Barbati beach and ran on the stones and pebbles...
The music of the light waves breaking on the shore beside me; I ran right to the end and back, and then up the hill and back to Stefanos place...
And over dinner I enjoyed my magical 'firewater', post run, with a Greek salad...
