A Land Where Bears Have Been Spotted...
Anadi and I were sitting alone in the dining room this morning eating breakfast, when we were joined by a man called Angelos, who was running the 40k event...We chatted about mountain running and how the 40k goes into land where only the animals live... 'Virgin land', where bears have been spotted...
Anadi commented on his excellent English, 'I lived in England for five years', he said... 'Oh, where did you live?' I asked....
'I lived on 'The Sunshine Coast' - 'Eastbourne' he replied laughingly, 'I was doing a degree at the university there...', 'Oh Wow' I exclaimed... 'That is the town I lived in for eleven years...' I told him how, when I had just met Anadi I had sent him a photo of the sign as you enter Eastbourne, which says 'Welcome to the sunshine coast...' covered in snow!
We established that we were both there at the same time, and that he knew my great friend Rob Harley, a principal lecturer at the university... Over the past fifteen years I have run in many circles with Rob over the South Downs....
And here in a small town high up in the mountains of Greece, we meet, and discover that we may well have passed one another in the street, or at the university, and never have known it....
I think the common phrase is... 'It is a small world...'!
We are all drawn energetically to one another, whether that is because we have unconsciously recognised shared wounds, similar hurts, that with conscious relating we can work through together - or because we have similar passions, and share similar energy....
We are unconsciously attracted to one another because we recognise something, and the bigger the attraction the more likely there is the opportunity to heal together too... Which is why intimate and close relationships often begin this way, and then after the honeymoon period is done, can find that conflict and power struggle arise... This paradoxically heralds the opportunity for growth and healing from the childhood hurts....
But when we meet like spirits on the path, it can be a chance for recognition of ourselves in each other, a light and fun exchange, and then on we go...
Yesterday we met a couple in the town, we had stopped for a coffee, they too had left the life they knew to live in Greece and so we shared coffee and conversation for half an hour... They were at the end of the race today too, and greeted me as I crossed the line, and I imagine we may never meet again....
Fellow travellers on the path, meeting and greeting and going on our way.
And today we journeyed together, 700 of us on the mountain path, all on our own journey, but drawn together by the magic of the mountain... We travelled together on the same path for just a few hours, sharing something special, and yet all experiencing something unique, and each of us with a different tale to tell...
I crossed the line with a string of little girls. As I ran the last kilometre the road was full of chidren, who were putting their hands out to high five... suddenly two little girls took my hand, and then more little girls held their hands, and so we ran down the finish straight together this way!
The race was spectacular.... I think I may have finished fifteenth woman, but I don't know officially yet... I ran well though.
It was of course a tough race!
And of course I lost many positions on the descents, but as I ran, I did award myself a 'much improved' for my downhill running!
And at the end it was strongly suggested, that I would benefit from purchasing some trail shoes, in fact horror was expressed that I ran round in my Nike frees!
I knew I was running in a beautiful land, I could feel it and sense the energy of the mountains as we climbed and climbed. I saw flashes of expansive views and the energy of the trees pulsed and underfoot Mother Earth held us in her warmth and her strength and all we has to do was trust the next step...
But even though I was aware of this untamed land all around me, these beautiful mountains that allowed us to travel on their paths... I could not see too much, because it was essential that I did not take my eyes off the ground in front of me...
And the next step!
Anadi chose to run the race in a different way. He took the camera, and stopped to both take in the land, the people, the experience....
And capture it all in photographs...
