Finding Out Where The Running Takes Me...
Last night we ate our meal on the terrace of Teide, a local restaurant in Bubion, sitting under trees laden with cherries. The skinny cats lay nearby, occasionally getting up to prowl around, tails in the air, showing off their manhood. Waiting for bits of chicken, fish, tidbits from the customers.... Anadi is the friend to many of these cats the world over, they are in every outdoor restaurant we visit it seems; these skinny cats...
We paid the bill and then Antonio, the owner asked us if we would like a liqueur? Perhaps some honey rum...? As I have been advised to eat the local honey to cure my hay fever, this seemed serendipitous; it was very delicious and I woke up today feeling much better...Maybe I have found my 'cure'!
Anadi felt he needed a rest today, so I set off up the hill, that rises straight up from behind our little house, alone.
The sun was hot, the land dusty and I decided to carry on going up and up and up... After about an hour of running - walking on occasions - as keeping my HR low in the heat, the altitude and up the side of a mountain is not the easiest task - I had reached the top of the world... The air was a bit thinner too. My watch said we were at 1730 metres, I could see for miles and miles, mountain tops all around me, some I was now higher than...
Once again I felt that being in the mountains and running all day long would be a good career path to embrace... But 'body', as before, had other ideas... Like eating and resting, and looking at the mountains from a chair in the garden of a restaurant...
On the way down, I met many mountain bikers coming up... They had numbers on, indicating it was a race, and they were spread out too, rather than riding as a pack.
I thought of my friend Kev, how he would love this!
Kev is an incredibly accomplished mountain biker. A few years ago, his wife Brioni and I stood at the end of the South Downs way - champagne at the ready - to welcome him home, having achieved his goal of being one of a small band of people to have cycled the 'South Downs Double' in under 24 hours... This is a there and back ride over 200 miles of beautiful, but challenging terrain and part of the challenge is to complete it unassisted.
This is what Wikipedia says about the South Downs way, for any of you unfamiliar with this part of the UK...
'The South Downs Way is a long distance footpath and bridleway running along the South Downs in southern England, and is one of 15 National Trails in England and Wales. The trail runs for 160 km (100 mi) from Winchester in Hampshire, to Eastbourne in East Sussex with about 4,150 m (13,620 ft) of ascent and descent....'
And as I witnessed these very fit guys peddling up the mountainside I had just run up, I understood even more their passion for their sport... We are different breeds, runners and cyclist, but of the same genre....
And then the first woman appeared... We smiled at one another a lot, and I put my thumb up to her. I felt my body briefly tingle with goosebumps in response to this fleeting encounter on the mountainside. I wondered at my body's reaction - what had the connection touched in me?
Many of the cyclists said 'Ola', and one man put his hand out to me, we touched and on we went...
Later as Anadi and I were sitting in the garden of the restaurant, and in the stillness and fatigue post long hot run, I became aware of how much running just happens, how much of a meditation it is... And how this occurs even more in these lands which does not lend itself to deciding on a route, or a pace or a session... I see that I am simply journeying and finding out a where the running takes me. In the slightly altered state of heat and steep climbs and thirst, and no route planned, it is far easier to become running....