Focus… The Secret…
Another golden day dawned… Anadi came with me today, and because my feet felt a little tender from yesterday’s ouchie run, I was keen to stay on the softer terrain… We ran up the drive, to the long grassy muddy hill behind the church in Buxted Park, which leads to the lakes.
As we approached the church I was thinking about my friend Sheila who lives nearby, she was my first ever PT client 30 years ago and I was aware that my time here is so short and I have no space to see her… Suddenly I heard a shout ‘Julia’ and there she was, with Gordon her son. They were clambering out of their car…
“I recognised your running action’ she said, as we all hugged and stood for awhile so glad to see one another… Our paths crossing, our energies attracting and dancing together still, even if the time together was brief… Our relationship rich with love and memories of special times, like when we drank champagne in the Jacuzzi in the morning and danced on a table in the evening on our shared birthday… My 30th and her 45th.
Anadi and I ran on, down the hill….The ground was wet cold, and our feet tingled… We passed a woman walking her dog… “Ooh that looks cold’, she said… She was right!
As we slip slid our way through squelchy mud by the lakes, we came upon a herd of soft coated bullocks; they looked like young cuddly naughty boy creatures… We called out to them, hoping they would move aside… They did and a gap appeared between them for us to pass through…
Along the path into the rugby field, the grass quite long and tussocky, not so easy to run on… We decided to try the road… Oooh, what an ouchie choice we made… However my feet are strengthening week by week, and as we skipped gingerly along, I reckoned to myself that the way to keep toughening them up is to keep running on the ouchie!
I then, thankfully, found a loop of smoother road behind the church in Uckfield, and then we made our way home… As we were running I said to Anadi that I am enjoying having a mileage goal each week because it keeps me going – on a run like today – which wasn’t so easy…But in the end through persevering, we completed six miles.
I observed to him that we both have the same quality of tenacity and endurance in committing to doing what we truly want to do…
We both too have known the times to walk away…
But in the case of creating our nomadic lifestyle, Anadi’s business, my own creativity and work and barefoot running we both have the same focus… And the energy doubles and multiplies in our synergy and support of this quality in the other… Particularly when it extends to needing to work again after dinner, or early in the morning…
Anadi then told me that he had read an article recently in which Bill Gates and Warren Buffett were asked to sum the secret of their success in one word…
They both replied the same…
‘Focus’….
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.
As a little girl I ran barefoot for many years, and then I put on shoes to race around the world. Fifty years later I am travelling the world as a nomad with my husband Anadi and I have taken off my shoes and I am running barefoot again….
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Email : juliachitaylor@gmail.com
