Encounters On The Run...
I am sitting in the breakfast room waiting for Nikos Kalofyris, the race organiser of the Metsovo URSA trail race to arrive for an interview....
My new book is called 'Encounters on the run' and will chart the races I run, and the people I meet, in the coming year as I travel the world, on this running track of mine...
The book begins in Kassiopi with the Kassios Dias trail race... The idea for the book was born on the side of Mount Pantokrator last September...
We were being guided to the top by Nikos Tsirimiagos, and as we ran, it was his suggestion that I write a new running book... A mighty storm broke before we reached the top, forked lightening flashed across the sky, and the path we had just run up became a flowing torrent...
But the idea was born, and so on returning to Kassiopi this May, 'Encounters on the run...' began its journey around the globe from its place of conception.
This morning I walked again into the mountains, to clear my legs from the race, and to be once more in the company of the whispering trees and the stillness of the land, alive with wildlife and verdant pastures. No one was about; Anadi set off with me, but returned to our hotel as his body felt tired from the rigours of the race... And so I walked alone within the silence and the magic of the Metsovo mountains.
Later, I was sitting around a table with Nikos and his two friends Dean and Yiannis who had come as translators, and they spoke of the birth of yesterday's URSA race, three years ago... The race is named after the bears that live in these mountains....
Yesterday the runner who finished 4th in the 40k event, came face to face with one at the 15k point... The bear ran away!
Dean the told a story of when he had been out running for three hours and he met a bear on the path with her three babies....
This bear did not run away!
She sent her three little bears into the forest and then chased Dean for 200 metres... He said that after running for three hours he found the impetus to race along at 3 minute kilometre pace! 'For the first time in my life I felt real fear...'
We spent an hour an a half together and in Nikos I recognised a like spirit... Running has been within him all his life, he ran from the moment he was born and is still running...
As a boy he would run from the village Anilio where he was born, to school in Metsovo 8k away... His friends would carry his school bag for him and then in the evening they would again carry his books as he ran the 8 kilometres home again....
This reminded me of my sister carrying my books for me, when I got off the bus 4 miles from home and ran instead of staying on the bus...
Like Nikos I have run from a child and I still love to run... They were surprised to find out my age and Nikos was interested to know how I maintain my body as the years on the planet have passed by...
Of course I told my story of chronic injury and the unravelling of that, but also of the clearing at a deeper emotional and spiritual level...
And I also shared with them my attitude and how I think... 'For instance, yesterday' I said 'I don't think " oh that was good for a 56 year old", I always look at where I can improve and believe I can, and then plan to come back next year and run the race better... Whilst also accepting what is...
I think as if I were 26 years on the planet, but with the peace inside gained from the 56 years....