It's All An Illusion
I love our new coffee shop...
And it has brought about within me a renewed commitment to learning some more Spanish... We have landed once again in a very 'nada Ingles' area of San Sebastián...!
So; when we arrive back in Gatwick, I have a 'Spanish phrase book' awaiting me - at last! Rather than relying solely on google translate and the patient Spanish people teaching us...
We sat amongst the bustle and chatter, with our cafe on leche... In a glass, 'en vaso' for Anadi, and a cup, 'en taza' for me; even in two days they know our quirks and say it before we ask!
I had planned to run on the treadmill... It appears our requirements are springing up in front of us...
I recently remarked to Anadi that intervals on a treadmill have always helped me improve, and that I would like to have this facility available on our travels....
The gym here opened just three weeks ago...!
I was last running 'super fast' in 1992, and a session I did regularly on the treadmill then, was ten lots of three minutes at a pace of 16 kilometres per hour, with a two minute jog...
This session felt relaxed and not too hard...
With this in mind, my 'plan' was to replicate this, but at a pace I can manage currently...
Today I decided I would be capable of running with the same perceived effort at 14 kilometres per hour - this is faster than I have been racing - but I reckoned that if I ran the session as ten by two minutes, with a two minute jog, I can build up to the three minute efforts, over the next few weeks....
I absolutely loved every minute....
And, I could do it...
This is a very important ingredient in a progressive training programme...
That it is 'doable', but stretches us...
Stretching is fun, flat out exhaustion usually means that it becomes difficult to return to the training session on a consistent basis...!
This is the same with anything we embark on in life, it must be maintained for improvement to occur... Consistency is the key...
It also works to be honest about our current ability...
I was aware that 14kph was enough of a stretch and I was right...!
But a stretch I loved, and it opened up the vast vistas of possibility within me.
Already the 'Shore Method' of supporting body work, is making a difference to the feeling of strength in my gluts and the stride length...
And I am only in week one!
I did session two last night, and finished it feeling quite shaky and pale...
I was aware that the big, slow stretch movements, get right into the 'stuck stuff', and access where I am hiding away...
'It feels like I've had a treatment' I said to Anadi, who was filming me, so that he has another snippet for the documentary we are making about my 'Perth bound meditation in action!'
'Treatments just help the process' he said, 'the movements you are doing remind me of all the Kung Fu stretches we did, and how much martial arts are the basis for clearing the body'...
Later, watching Anadi's films of me stretching and running, I felt like I was watching another being... 'A funny thing this journey' I mused... 'In a body... That is my spirit in action in a body! It is very strange watching it...!'
'Yes' Anadi said 'this is all an illusion, but we might as well have fun on the 'film set' while we're here'!
