Individuality Rules!
We are sitting in a cafe in Cyprus, our new office.
We have Derek with us, Malcolm of Running Crazy has nick named him ‘The Pink Panther’ because he loves to wear pink…
He has pink shorts and a pink watch and pink sun glasses. I asked him if he has always liked pink… He has and fuscia and lilac and lavender – I love those colours too…
I told him I love turquoise, it has always been my colour, combined with purple and fuscia and gold is a combination I like.
I first met Derek in Riga when I ran a half Marathon there four years ago, or maybe five… Derek and I spent time together then walking through the City of Riga, I learnt of his amazing talent to memorise the routes to drive to anywhere through simply looking at the map…
‘It is logged in there’ he told me tapping his head ‘like a computer’; and after the race we did crazy mad expansive expressive dancing together…
I remember getting very hot and sweaty…
And now we meet again in Cyprus… He told me at breakfast that I remind him of the golden cathedral in Milan… And that I am a trillion trillion times better looking and better dressed than Posh Beckham….!
I received the compliment laughing, thoroughly enjoying being in Derek’s company again… He is a mine of information…
He has just been telling Anadi and I about some folk who have been unkind to him and called him names… He was hurt by this, and so the three of us have been discussing how what other people do and say is to do with them, and if it hurts us then it is for us to heal the bit that got hurt…
He agreed with this, but said it hurt anyway… I said I totally understood and that he is an inspiration to me… A person so wholly himself and willing to keep being himself despite receiving some cruel comments…
Because essentially everywhere Derek goes, he is appreciated for his bright energy, his enthusiasm, his candour and openness. Anadi commented ‘Derek is a good guy, I would trust him one hundred percent to be honest and ‘straight up’.
Tomorrow will be Derek’s 61st full marathon and he has completed 245 half marathons…
He reckons all that running would have taken him five times round the world…!
He started running in 1985 initially to lose weight, and started competing in 1986… The year that I posted all of my best running times….
Yesterday morning and today’s Anadi and I went swimming in the sea after we had run…
It was the most wonderful experience, we had to climb down some steps with the waves crashing against the rocks and splashing us as we made our way down into the sea…
We didn’t stay there long, but it felt healing and cleansing to be embraced by the Mediterranean again, our familiar friend…
I have a belief that it cleanses and heals and has special magical properties within its waves
And so because I believe that…
So it is!
I emerged from the wild water, tingling all over cleansed and healed and with its magic in my being….
I have been running all of my life – it feels I was born to run. In the running step I experienced freedom and my true expression. I came to see that I needed to ‘get out of the way of myself’ and let my energy flow through the running step; allow it to express itself in the dance and the motion of running. I ran for England and GB for some years. My first international was in 1979, a three mile cross country race; and I continued to run at international level until 1993. Two of my best results were first place in the Dublin City Marathon in 1985 and 7th place woman, 3rd British woman in the 1986 London Marathon in a time of 2.36.31, which gained me selection for the Commonwealth Games.
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