Dear Diary; Souls Connecting

Julia Chi Handstands

‘A barefoot runner!

William look look – barefoot running’… William glanced at my feet as he bombed by on his bike…

Battersea Park resembled a holiday training resort today.

Sun burning down, hot already…

Crowds of people were on the main loop, on bikes, on foot, babies in running prams… A group posing for a photo- arms outstretched smiling, before jogging off together…

And on the grass, exercise classes dotted about, and pairs too; like Anadi and I…

‘It’s like Club la Santa’ I commented…’Minus the music’ Anadi replied, laughing…

And so we settled into our circuit… Which I keep extending 🙂

It’s grown to four sets of three different exercises which we do ten times each, twice round the three ( are you following me! 🙂 ) and now I’ve added an eighty meter stride along the length of the field in between the sets…

All this followed by handstand practise…

My ideal life

I love training

Always have 

All my life, right from when – age six years – I joined my Dad at 6am to do exactly what I am still doing…

A series of exercises to start the day..

For no reason other than the joy of moving, of being, 

Alive 

I am writing this in my lunch break… I’ve popped out for a coffee and a matcha almond croissant, the matcha somehow lending a healthy aspect to my choice of a second breakfast for lunch.

It’s midsummers day

June 24th…

10 years ago today I have discovered that I was doing this…!

Mark Cooper has just posted a memory on Facebook.

‘Marathon 49 done, 3hrs 33mins, loved running with former international marathon runner and top 10 runner in the UK for her age group Julia Armstrong, one more to go guys, what an unbelievable expedition, target is so nearly there now, thank you!’

I remember flying out to Girona, and on finding there wasn’t a bus for hours and hours, I had jumped in a taxi which smoothed me quickly to Lloret de Mar… As the car slowed into the town, Mark crossed the road right in front of us…

I had travelled out to make a podcast with him, as I was then producing my podcast series ‘Running to Learn, and I was also there to write an article about him for ‘Running Free magazine’… Oh; and to run the penultimate marathon of his journey of fifty, with him…

Mark had travelled on foot from Amsterdam and would be arriving in Barcelona, the day after our run…

He, his girlfriend ( now wife) Ferelith and I all went for supper together in Lloret de Mar… The next morning Ferelith drove Mark and I to Girona to the start of Marathon forty nine, and we set off to run to Feliu – 26.2 miles away – it in 30 degrees heat.

Mark and I had only met once before… I had interviewed him for a previous podcast in his home town of Edinburgh… We had spoken while he was actually running a marathon on a treadmill in a shopping centre right slam bang in the middle of the City….

And now we met again…

We bonded on that run.

We talked about everything

We shared ourselves, our lives.

We’d both experienced our mother’s dying when we were teenagers, and he was now running to raise money for the charity that had supported his family through that difficult time…

Far reaching dialogue, open hearts, two souls communicating through the run and on the run…

I’ve never seen him again…

We finished our run, we all had some lunch together, the three of us – and then Mark and Ferelith drove me to Girona airport.

And I flew away…

But our hearts are always connected

Sharing as we did for a few short hours 

On the road from  Girona to Feliu…