I'm a little early with my blog post because tomorrow I am off to help with checkpoints during the three day Druids Challenge.
Ever since I took part in the UK Backward Running Championships earlier in the year I have included backward running in my training schedule. It improves my posture, I run like a sack of potatoes, and it helps me be more upright and on my toes. It is impossible to heel-strike running backwards.
This week during my backward running session I was in a particularly reflective mood. I enjoyed looking back at where I had come from and extended this to looking back over my running year and then over my running life. Don't worry I am not going to bore you with my whole running biography; although, that weighty sword of Damocles will now be hanging over you. No, I shall stick to this year and limit myself to one highlight; difficult because runners have so much fun. It has been a good year, just like all the rest, but the thing that stands out the most is the Ledbury Poetry Festival in July. Now to you poetry and running might seem like odd bedfellows, but I made the connection.
My business, Ed & Phil, does not have a very large marketing budget so we have to be inventive and innovative. My idea was to split a poem into parts, get runners to carry those parts around the Poets path near Ledbury, and then re-assemble them to create a new poem influenced by the spirits of all the previous poets that lived in the area. By that means we could become part of the festival and use it to gain some publicity. Kathy Tytler, a fellow runner and poet, entered into the spirit of the occasion and wrote two sonnets for us. These were broken into sections, divided among runners assembled for the event and taken around the Poets Path. On their return the newly ordered sections were re-assembled and read out in the Beauchamp Arms. One of them is reproduced below. To see the other one and the original works please visit the Getrunning website.
'Running order' Poem 2 - July 6th 2011
When my feet cross the ground with hardly a touch,
And my breath comes so free and so even,
And I travel so swift, but I'm not in a rush,
That's when running feels like I'm in heaven.
In search of the elusive runner's high
We run in morning fog,
In pouring rain, under leaden sky
Where once green field becomes a bog.
When the sun lights my way, but a cool breeze does blow,
When the path runs ahead firm and clear,
And the perfume on honeysuckle floats from the hedgerow,
Then I feel that perfection is near.
At the end of our run, whether pleasure or pain,
We all know we'll be back here again and again.
I hope you enjoyed the poem and will come and visit my blog again and again. We intend to have a running event next year at the Ledbury Poetry Festival, probably on the 4th of July. I will let you know the details nearer the time.