I Better Just Keep On Running...
I am once again writing my daily journal in the car!
We are in a few lanes of traffic making our way back onto the M25 after a 'pit stop' 28 miles from our destination - Winchmore Hill.
We are staying in London for a couple of weeks so that we can visit Anadi's family before we fly off to Thailand...
We woke up in the Thistle Hotel overlooking the route of the Brighton 10k, which was perfect planning by Amy who had booked us in here for me to run the race; and perfect viewing now that the 'not running' was happening....
We watched runners walking to the start as we were led to a breakfast window table overlooking the sea....
It was great entertainment; I love hotel breakfasts at the best of 
times and to watch runners was a bonus; especially as I managed to catch site of Julie who is writing each month in Running Conscious about her journey to a half ironman triathlon next August...
I was inspired too...
Even though I have been running and racing all my life, I have never discovered anything other than running that inspires me to do it; other sports, singers and actors often access something within me, in the energy of their own striving, their expression and their performances that again inspires a greater spring and increased commitment in my own running step; but nothing else has ever, for me, compared to the actual feel of running or changed the course of my running path...
So I better just keep on running...
As we left our breakfast table and went to take the lift to our room, some of the front runners had finished their race and were waiting for the lift too...If they had a quick shower would still make breakfast....!
And as we left the hotel other runners were returning...
And as we drove away some runners still running...
Watching the hundreds of runners all together but each one on their own path feels to be a powerful metaphor for life - individual expression within the whole that makes up the event...of life.
And now I had a plan...
The Ashdown Forest was my training ground for many, many years before I moved to Eastbourne eleven years ago.
My plan was that we could pass by it on our journey to London and I could show Anadi 'My Forest!'
Many many of my running miles have taken place on this beautiful expanse of wild forestland.
The home of Christopher Robin, Pooh Bear, Piglet et al!
My first run there was on a very cold and icy November day in 1988...
Anadi and I parked our car at Duddleswell and headed off onto the green-brown, sandy, brackeny expanse of the forest; very soon our feet were wet through as we tramped up the hill and looked out over East Sussex with the back drop of the grey majestic South Downs in the distance.
How I love this place...
Many Sunday morning twenty milers in my past started and finished at Duddleswell, with the tea rooms on the other side of the road always a welcome oasis.
Anadi and I walked a loop that took an hour, passing the airman's grave which was still bright with poppies from Remembrance Sunday a week ago, the white Poppy of peace particularlyattracting our attention ...
We completed our loop with tea and cake in the tea rooms and drove away completing a cycle of my life, rather fittingly twenty six years from when it first begun...
