I Was Born On A Tuesday...
I have been a lifelong runner
I wrote these words years and years ago
'My dream is to run and run and run. Free from pain , anxiety and stress. To run like the wind, fast and free and whole . I run because running is me'
I remember when I was six year old writing to God in the condensation of my bedroom window asking him if I could please win the running race at School Sports Day!
I wrote in mirror writing so that he could read it...
I went on to run at international level with a personal best marathon time of 2.36.31 - set many years ago in 1986.
But my body still feels like that twenty something and my spirit is ever willing.
I have always had an orientation of my running being a spiritual practice; and conscious of ego taking over on many occasions in the past, either in desire to achieve great heights and in the despair of 'wanting more' !
As the years have gone by I have surrendered to the step and to letting running take me where it will...It remains a place that reveals to me where I am not present and where I get in the way of the flow... And so it is an ongoing investigation.
I am writing a daily blog as I return from injury having been racing in the mountains of Corfu just six weeks ago...
I was born on a Tuesday.
Tuesday's child is full of Grace - so they say...
I have looked up the meaning of the word Grace in both secular and religious terms and suffice to say it is all good!
And so today being a Tuesday, this Tuesday Child has deemed it a fitting day to give birth to my running log or blog - it will be both - I will log what I actually 'do' and blog about everything else!
I have been 'sidelined' for about six weeks with an ankle injury which is now nearly recovered and responding well to movement. I have been introducing exercise gradually over the past three weeks; building up from stretching to conditioning exercises and drills.
Greg Funnel, the director of Optimum Muscle Care who along with my friend Kader, has helped me to return to the running road again describes the achilles injury as the rebuilding injury... This it has been for sure.
I am now fully engaged again with all the pre and post run support I was giving my body two years ago before I met Anadi
All of this slid from my routine as Anadi and I joined our lives together...
And now it is time to rebuild my running from the inside out and from the bottom to the top and the top to the bottom..!
My friend Kader is an excellent deep tissue sport massage therapist as well as having been a quality sportsman all his life. His treatments are awesome and they felt healing and opening and releasing to my body on many levels.
Anadi and I are 'living' in Eype in Dorset for a week.
We are nomads and all we own can fit into the 20k each limit in a plane and our hand baggage; our home is where we are.
Home for a week is here in Honeysuckle Cottage in Eype, close to my sister who lives in Up Lyme.
It is a very rainy autumny leafy grey November day today.
Anadi and I woke to lashing rain and so we waited awhile to go outside ...
At 10am it was clearing up; I started my (now daily again!) stretching routine and Anadi headed out to run....
I felt envious.... I yearn to run... But I breathed and relaxed and the feeling left my body and I returned to my own rehabilitation to run process, my own step...
At that moment I had not been in the moment - I had not been in my own step...
Once my stretching was complete, I set off down the winding country lane, I walked and jogged and my ankle felt happy... Within five minutes I reached the sea. Waves were crashing on the shore, a high tide, a strong wind was blowing, but the air felt warm.
I practiced some running drills on the grassy clifftop above the beach, jumping and bounding and hopping, my ankle felt strong, it has responded well to the treatments and the strengthening and flexibility work....
I jogged down the steps that lead to the beach and then ran up and down them ten times. It was fun and very easy if the truth be told!
Down to the pebbly beach.
I ran for thirty seconds and then marked the distance.... I was loving being out in the elements, the sound of the waves drowning out any other sound; no one was about. I felt free....
I ran ten stretches of the thirty second stony beach run!
And walked back.
I ran with the wind behind me, it helped me to fly over the pebbles rather than sink into them!
I walked back with the wind in my face...
When I had completed 10 runs, I walked to the end of the beach which took me about 5 minutes; scrunch scrunch scrunch and then I ran back, it took three....
My ankle had not complained at all; achilles was happy in fact, glad to be running again....
I arrived back at honeysuckle cottage 50 minutes after leaving it...
It felt like a proper training session :)