Watch this space...

Running/training going well so far this year - last year, as a friend commented, I lost my mojo somewhat and my writing and my running just fizzled out. So, maybe this year things will be different. I certainly hope so, as I have entered a 69 mile ultra run/race that follows (more or less) Hadrian's Wall from Carlisle to Newcastle. The run is called The Wall by the way and I am doing it all in one go! In order to get fit enough, I have ramped up my training and have entered a 33 mile race as part of that training - it's all about time on your feet and staying injury free. I will also have to sort my nutrition out with a view to losing weight. By June - that's when the race is - I want/need to be under 12 stone, preferably hovering around 11 1/2 stone max. At this weight my running goes up a notch or two - guess I'd better be focused from now on in. Watch this space for more news.

Stuff about running

Seems my running is coming back. Been out training and just running and things are looking up. No toe pain to speak of, no misbehaving knee, no laboured breathing and the weight is coming off! Why, I can even sense a frison of excitement coursing through me when I'm out there running through the wild woods and along the sandy trails; and that's an experience I've not had for a while now.

A poem for the moment... by Arpan

Start- Run-Finish

The Start, the Finish

And

All the steps

We run in between

Can be seen

As many separate experiences,

Or

Can be taken

As one complete meal,

Ready to be eaten

when we are hungry

To be nourished

By the dynamic energy

Of life on earth.

The Amaryllis in my kitchen...

I have never really thought about it before but an Amaryllis has a certain, dare I say it, eroticism about it - at least the one in my kitchen does. After spending a few days thrusting its strong green stem ever upwards, our Amaryllis now stands proudly erect on the kitchen window sill, offering passers by, the sight of four beautiful, fully open flowers; their delicate stamens arcing outwards in outrageous temptation; an insect boudoir if ever there was one. To my mind, the sight of this fully complete flower shows that a healthy joining and flowering of both its male and female counterparts has taken place and that it has reached the zenith of its life cycle. In nature energy terms this joining and flowering represents the Yin and Yang and in human terms, is representative of a healthy balance of the masculine and feminine natures that reside within us all - that's what I think anyway. From this observation, I was left with the thought that it might be interesting to research the symbolism of the Amaryllis further; perhaps a Freudian view or some other symbolic meaning. My initial search however did not throw up any particular Freudian insights into this flower but I did find other symbolic meanings that are associated with learning and academia.

Amaryllis Flower Meanings:

• Symbolic of success won after a struggle. These were often given in recognition of a job well done – particularly in scholastics, writing, and artistic endeavors. Give the poet in your life a bunch of amaryllis and you are encouraging his/her creative muse. You are also recognizing his/her achievements in the arts.

• Legend has it that the amaryllis - the stunning red flower we've come to associate with the holidays - began as a shy, timid nymph. Amaryllis fell deeply in love with Alteo, a shepherd with Hercules' strength and Apollo's beauty, but her affections were unrequited. Hoping that she could win him over by bestowing upon him the thing he desired most - a flower so unique it had never existed in the world before - Amaryllis sought advice from the oracle of Delphi. Following his instructions, Amaryllis dressed in maiden's white and appeared at Alteo's door for 30 nights, each time piercing her heart with a golden arrow. When at last Alteo opened his door, there before him was a striking crimson flower, sprung from the blood of Amaryllis's heart. With this romantic - albeit tragic - tale as its beginning, it's not surprising that today the amaryllis has come to symbolize pride, determination and radiant beauty.

The Bud...

The Bud

I like this poem by Galway Kinnell, it speaks of hope, it offers salvation to those who have lost their way, it teaches us to recognise that beauty resides within all living things and that, most important of all, it can be resurrected!

The bud

stands for all things,

even for those things that don’t flower,

for everything flowers, from within, of self-blessing;

though sometimes it is necessary

to reteach a thing its loveliness,

to put a hand on its brow

of the flower

and retell it in words and in touch

it is lovely

until it flowers again from within, of self-blessing;

as Saint Francis

put his hand on the creased forehead

of the sow, and told her in words and in touch

blessings of earth on the sow, and the sow

began remembering all down her thick length,

from the earthen snout all the way

through the fodder and slops to the spiritual curl of the tail,

from the hard spininess spiked out from the spine

down through the great broken heart

to the sheer blue milken dreaminess spurting and shuddering

from the fourteen teats into the fourteen mouths sucking and blowing beneath them:

the long, perfect loveliness of sow.

Walking back to happiness...

whoopah, oh yeah yeah - so the song by Helen Shapiro goes. Well, after my leg op on Wednesday, today I started walking; walking back to happiness, walking as many times and as far as possible, as directed by the consultant surgeon who laser blasted and removed some dodgy veins from my right leg. I'm told that I will have to walk and only walk for about 9 days or so before I can consider running again but I have to admit that while out walking today, the thought of perhaps trying out a little trot did enter my mind at times; this mainly brought about because of my leg not actually hurting while I walked. A friend of mine, who had similar work done last year unknowingly has set the standard for this walking recovery period of mine; she was quite focused on her recovery, stuck to the programme and on the ninth day, was able to start running again. I quite like that phrase 'and on the ninth day'; it has a certain biblical quality about it and also resonates quite well with my June 2009 blog, '54 days in the Desert', - at least it does to me. This imposed walking regime is in fact quite strange to me, especially as I have to walk long and far. No just ambling along anymore, this is about making my legs work, particularly the one that has been heated and boiled and is now full of holes. This walking is about getting the circulation going, about repairing the damage done to my leg veins and some nerves too. I'm told that if I was 21 years of age, new veins would grow but as I am 22 years PLUS, there is no chance of this happening. So in a time where society has deemed ageism to be a bad thing, my body decides to be ageist against itself. No surprise there then. Another thing about all this walking, is where to actually go and do it. There's only so many walks you can do from home; down the hill and turn left to the Co-op or turn right for the chippy. Go straight over for the football field and the burnt out childrens' play area or walk up the hill for the newsagent etc. You can see how it goes. I was imagining the other day that I might perhaps make up a series of walks that would loop out and back from my home, in effect treading out the shape of a many petaled flower, like say a Lotus flower. (I like the Lotus flower by the way and have always fancied having one tattooed on my head for some reason - !!). This at least would provide my walks with more meaning, more purpose and I could use my Garmin Forerunner to record each route I take and then download them onto a map to see how close I am to recreating each petal of my chosen flower - you can see how desperate I'm becoming with all this, can't you? As a result of my leg op, I can't drive for a week or so either, so I cannot take myself off very easily to the great outdoors, which actually is not that far away but without assistance, remains unreachable, unless that is, I plan and pack for a long day of walking. I'm not a natural high speed walker and if pushed to my limits, I can actually be in danger of losing my balance and falling over - you can ask my wife about this, as she has seen the stumble coming quite a few times now and finds it all quite entertaining. Even in ultra running events, I try to minimise my faster pace walking bits because of the stumble factor, adopting instead a sort of running shuffle that I feel much more secure with and which also minimises the chances of getting blisters appearing on the soles of my feet. Anyway, I can't run, not even shuffle run at the moment, so if I'm to reach the great outdoors, I must plan to be away for quite a while... or should I just stay local and start walking flowers? Hmm.

My shadow on the ground...

Following the (pagan) celebration of Candlemass Day yesterday, today the sun came out and I could not resist going out for a run. Given that I have been suffering from a dreadful cold for several weeks now and given that I have another operation looming; this time to remove a rather troublesome varicose vein on my right leg, you might understand if I said that, I have been rather depressed of late. Today however, that has changed. There has been a significant shift in my psyche and today, as I ran along the tracks and trails of Eelmoor Plain and Long Valley, I actually felt like a runner once more; an overweight runner maybe but a runner never the less. What brought this change about? Well several things happened yesterday. Firstly I had booked myself a therapeutic massage at my health club which was just divine; hot stones sliding up and down my troubled legs and aching back, followed by a facial scrub with gentle fingers working to remove both the physical and emotional impurities lodged in my head... and probably in my mind. My second treat of the day was to go and get my hair cut and scalp washed at my favourite Barbers - I don't have much hair, so I can't say 'hair washed', as my head is mostly scalp. The benefit though, is that as I emerge from the depths of the shop sink, I always feel that I have been born again! Then I found out that yesterday was Candlemass Day and given that it symbolises the mid-winter point and the promise of spring around the corner, complete with sunny sunshine, I was finally filled with hope and light. So when the sun came out today, I found myself out running and I saw my shadow on the ground.

A fun run in the sun...

Went for an unplanned run over Long Valley today with my friend Anne. I wasn't planning to go running today but I'm glad I did. In fact, when I got the call, by way of a text message arriving on my phone, I was sipping a post gym workout cappuccino while reading the paper and I was pretty damn sure that I wouldn't be moving for anyone! Some 60 minutes later there we were starting out on what turned out to be... a fun run in the sun. Long Valley lies between Aldershot and Fleet and runs roughly north/south from the Basingstoke Canal to Caesar's Camp. Being MOD land, it is regularly used by the army but as it is not used as a live firing range, it is also open to the public. This is the place where the GRIM takes place and where the James Bond movie, Die Another Day was filmed. Today there was plenty of army activity going on - troops marching, a whole army village camped up on some high ground surrounded by screening and razor wire, scaffold observation towers overlooking a large pond with water pumps and inflatable boats lying around on the ground below. We just had to take a closer look at it all but even then, we were really none the wiser, so on we ran. Less than a 1/2 a mile later, we stopped again, this time just to listen to the babbling of a small stream made up of water run off - it had been raining heavily overnight and water lay everywhere. The noise of the stream also made us aware of how quiet Long Valley can be regardless of what might be going on elsewhere. Even in these transient places, you can find respite from the slog of everyday life. Running on we came to a single track path meandering through a small belt of pines, which then spilt us out onto open heathland once more and into another army exercise area - this time fenced off with red tape and notices carrying warnings about the area being mined! The mines weren't real of course and not one soldier was to be seen. It was then we both heard the approaching sound of an engine. As it turned out the engine noise was coming from a quad bike that was laying a lure trail for the Sandhurst Drag Hunt and sure enough after a few minutes, we were treated to the sight and sound of a hunt in full progress - baying hounds, galloping horses and hunt horns sounding. As I said, a fun run in the sun.

Thanks Anne.

PS Sorry about the cloudy photo - I could not find a sunny one.