My current inspiration is Red Rum, the racehorse, who won the Grand National three times…!
I’ve also just found out that his birthday was in May.
Like mine… That must mean something 🙂
Throughout February, I am living, working and running on the Costa del Sol in Spain…
The beach is wonderful, it stretches for miles… And I am practising running in the soft sand…
Yellow orange sandy sand, with seaweed scattered, and some stones too…
I am enjoying running intervals – all be it short ones – with short recovery.
I can feel the strength building in my feet, my legs, my lungs…
‘Legs like iron ‘ are building like Red Rum built his winning legs of iron…
I am enjoying it a lot ….
I have no structure to my running in the sun, by the sea, in the sand
There is a gym where I am staying and so I have developed a little gym routine – which takes about fifteen minutes, and covers all I need – some squats – dead lifts – press ups and triceps dips…
And each day my stretches and foot exercises too
My training feels like play – like it did in the very beginning…
And as always I am reminded of T.S Eliot
‘We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring, will be to arrive where we started, and know the place for the first time’.
And in the very beginning I ran and trained a lot in soft sand…
I have been reminded of this recently when YouTube reconnected me to a friend I haven’t seen since we were tennagers!
Terry, The boy with a mop of curly blond hair – two or three years my junior – we trained together in our running group on the Hankley Common dropping zone…
Up steep sandy hills we ran; up and down and round – and up again, panting, sweating – developing legs of iron
Like Red Rum
Our dreams being lived, created, expanded – sometimes dashed; then built again…
And then the years went by…
Until Terry saw me pop up on YouTube in my ‘Run with Julia’ channel – and now we are planning to meet again, and to run the second hardest Parkrun in the country…!
Woolacombe Dunes….
We have circled the sun, round and round we have gone…
Until, nearly fifty circles later, Terry and I are planning to run up a sandy hill – and down and round and up again…
Panting, sweating – developing legs of iron!
The ‘Dune of Doom’ here we come…
