How I Loved Racing Round A Track...
I love my football pitch in Ipsos; I look forward to arriving on the scrunchy surface, which reminds me of cinder tracks in the past…
Motspur park in particular; it was a track that had a reputation for producing fast times, and I ran my first ever 1500 meter race here when I was 15 years old… I think I ran 4.54…. but I can’t fully remember.
My mother had sent off for some spikes for me; there was an advert in the Sunday times, and she ordered me a black and white tracksuit and a black and white pair of spikes…
We didn’t go to an actual shop, I am imagining the reasons were:
1) I do not like shopping outings, unless they involve sitting drinking coffee while other people shop, and then come and meet me for the coffee!
2) She had undergone full amputation of her right leg, so getting out and about was more challenging.
3) Shopping with me, who didn’t like shopping, was no fun…!
But, the items arrived and I was ready to race…
How I loved racing around a track… The times being called out at each lap… Even if there was the undeniable knowledge on occasions of the ‘hoped for time’ vanishing with each passing footfall; but of course there were other races, when each lap sent a surge of delight knowing ‘the goal’ was being realised…
Or the utter horror once, when aiming for my first (never to appear) sub 2.10 800 meters… I was leading the field feeling amazing, relaxed, strong, in control…
We went through the first lap, also the bell, and I heard the timekeeper’s voice ‘sixty, sixty one…’
‘Oh no….!’
I knew it was far too fast and that ‘certain blow up’ was just around the bend….
I hung on until 600 meters… bang!
Runners who have done the same thing as me, will know what those last 200 meters felt like, eventually bringing me across the line in 2.11….
Which remains my personal best time!
Training to run fast round a track might seem a rather strange thing to do, in so many ways… And yet it has brought joy to many people, over many years, both in the training for it, the doing it and the watching it…
The runner is transparent, in terms of being totally exposed and vulnerable on a stage for all to see… And it is possible to witness their soul in motion... No pretense, no hiding…
This is true in any endeavor, but particularly so when done in front of an audience. The player and the audience linked energetically; the player often living out and expressing the dreams and desires of the watcher.
We become one; the audience and the athlete... We run because we can, and because we have committed to the goal of finding out what the ‘can’ is… the watchers wonder what is possible?
And so this morning I included some strides on the chalky surface… I loved the feeling of stretching out a bit, and the sound under my feet, and the feeling of ‘running tall’ for about 100 meters!
Finding out that I haven’t forgotten how to run since Sunday…!
I used to enjoy a session many years ago where I ran round a football pitch on the Clifton Downs in Bristol…
I would sprint/run fast the length and jog the short ends; round and round I would go…
Or the same type of session on a running track… Striding the straights and jogging the bends; 20 laps at a time… I ran this session every Monday for a whole summer long; alone on a grass track in Haslemere.
I loved it, the rhythm, the feeling of running, the summer sun, the grass under my feet… being alone, running because I could, and because it felt good.
Finding out what feels good is an individual pursuit; none of us can truly know what it is like to be another person… For some what feels good is a complete anathema for another; and who knows what this earthly journey is really about…?
Doing what feels good, and feels true to us, is as good a place to explore from as any… It is certainly better than trying to live by the rules and regimes of another, which only causes confusion within us…
I come back time and time again, to the answer… That there is no answer, except for ‘To thine own self be true’, which means noticing ourselves in every single aspect of our life and noticing what resonates, and what is true and what is not…
If we like to run, then we must run… If we want to stop, then we stop, if we want to eat and drink, to explore the tastes and to savour good wine, then we must do so, consciously, if we want to paint or sing or take time to sit and stare, this we must do and we will discover who we are…
I have always been a lover of Krisnamurti’s words…
And as he says here…
‘In oneself lies the whole world and if you know how to look and learn, the door is there and the key is in your hand. Nobody on earth can give you either the key or the door to open, except yourself’