by Elisabet | Jul 16, 2012 | English Blog
100 years ago, in 1912, the summer Olympics were held in Stockholm, Sweden.
On Sunday the 14th of July 1912 the Olympic Marathon was run with 69 participants. It was a hot day and many runners suffered from the heat, only half of them completed the race.
One of the 34 people who didn’t finish the race that day was the Japanese runner, Shizo Kanaguri. His “disappearance” created the “myth of the missing Japanese” and I remember growing up with the tales of what happened that hot summer day. Apparently he wasn’t feeling well due to the heat and the long travel through Russia he’d had to make to get to Sweden. He was invited into a family’s garden for lemonade and buns (typical Swedish cakes, most common version is the cinnamon roll). He stayed there and rested for a bit and then returned to his hotel, checked out and went back home to Japan.
For years afterwards there was apparently talk about what could have happened to him. What happened was that he became a very influential person in sports in Japan and went on to participate in two more Olympics in the 20’s, but for some reason people in Sweden still just knew him as the “Japanese who disappeared”.
He was finally tracked down by some Swedish journalist and was invited back to Sweden in 1967 to complete the marathon! He finally entered the Stockholm Stadium after almost 55 years and crossed the finishing line, making his marathon race the “longest in history”:-).
Yesterday it was exactly 100 years since the 1912 Olympic Marathon, and a 100th Anniversary Jubilee Marathon was run. This time there were almost 9000 participants (including a great grandson of Kanaguri!) running the same race (well almost, roads have changed in 100 years so they had to make some changes to the course).
I went to watch the race as the runners passed us twice on their way north to the turning point and then on their way south into the city again. It was just a couple of hundred meters from our house. And close by, near to the house where Kanaguri was offered lemonade and buns (the actual house is not there anymore), great grandchildren of the hospitable family were serving lemonade and buns to runners and spectators (including Kanaguri’s great grandson). The circle was completed.
I got so inspired!
There was so much joy, there were so many running styles, there were people who seemed to be having a great time and those who seemed to suffer, there were people with hats, without shoes, men in dresses (1912 style!), people holdings signs, wearing wigs – there was even a women dressed as Superwoman!
Watching the race was exactly the kick in the bum that I needed to get myself properly back on track for my race. So what if I’ve missed a few weeks of training!
And who knows, maybe I’ve got a Marathon in me in due course…..
by Elisabet | Mar 27, 2012 | English Blog
My app has guided me through a successful first running/training session!
It’s a beautiful morning and with the extra support of some good trance tracks (thank you Rich!), I had a very enjoyable fast walk (with some short running intervals) of about 40 minutes.
So what have I learned so far?
To be patient. Most training efforts fail because people are too much in a rush, want to overdo it, run a bit further, push themselves a bit harder – and then give up, because it feels too hard. We have to crawl before we can walk – or in this case walk before we can run:-)
My second (renewed) insight from this morning is that most people don’t complete what they start because there are too many temptations to stop or do something different before you get to the goals. And one of the biggest culprit here is of course our own mind, our mind who keeps reasoning with us – “should I, shouldn’t I, maybe I should…instead” – well, you know how it works.
The key to completion is to stop the mind from even having this discussion with you – take away the option of doing something different. And just do it.
And this is exactly how my app is working. It, or she (I’ve named her Sam!) will tell me exactly when to walk and when to run – “Run now! – and all of a sudden that is no longer up to me and so I do it. Brilliant!
I made a commitment to myself, together with a couple of friends, that this was going to be the year of Completion – and it sure is looking that way! I don’t want to stop now.
by Elisabet | Mar 26, 2012 | English Blog
I’m not sure what possessed me, but I have decided to start running.
And typical for me, I can’t just start running, I have to enter a running race. Oh no, not yet, it’s not until 1 September, but the clock has started ticking. 159 days to go.
So it’s high time for me to create a new habit, the habit of running. Like everything else it needs some discipline to create a new habit – determination and staying power.
To help me in my endeavor, I have enlisted the help of an iPhone app, which has promised to take me from “couch potato to 10K in 13 weeks”. It sounds just right actually, something that will tell me exactly what to do and when:-). But that is of course only part of the solution.
I will stop talking about myself as a non-runner. I have only recently realized that that’s exactly what I do. So my first step is to create a new self image when it comes to running:
I’m a runner!
I’m a runner!
I’m a runner!
There, I’ve started. It’s a small step, but our self image tends to have self-correcting power, so it’s a crucial step.
There’s loads more to come, and I’m ready – bring it on!
by Elisabet | Feb 10, 2011 | English Blog
Do your childhood summers have a rosy shimmer about them? The way they do when we only remember the good things. Mine do.
My shimmering summers were mainly spent in two place – in Luleå, at our wonderful Lillängen and onboard “Geishan” in the archipelago, close to the Arctic Circle – and at Väddö in the beautiful area of Roslagen, northeast of Stockholm.
During the 60’s and 70’s we spent a number of summers at Väddö, at an Anti Aircraft Practice Territory to be precise – a military practice territory right by the Sea of Åland. During the summer months, hundreds of young men lived here while doing their military service, and then there were 6-7 cottages for the senior officers and their families – we were one of those families.
Somehow the world stood still out there. Maybe it was because we were so isolated – it being a military territory meant no-one was allowed in unless they had a pass.
So there we lived in total peace and quiet (apart from the daily practice shooting at air plane “sausages”!) Memories are mixed with photos and film that mum and dad took and it’s hard to know what’s truly remembered and what’s been reminded through those captured moments. It doesn’t matter.
What I remember is that we somehow just “were”, completely in the moment, taking each day as it came, did what we felt like doing, in harmony with weather and other circumstances.
We rowed out to sea, we went swimming regardless of temperature, we fished from the jettee in the bay, we chased each other on the cliffs, had a “foot bath” in the puddles in between the sea cliffs – and as we got older – played tennis, read books, played cards and bought sweets as the mess hall (checking out the guys!)
There was no phone, no dish washer, no washing machine and no shop. And that was OK. I remember how we would go back to town to wash clothes every two weeks or so. Or we went in to the nearest town, Norrtälje, to go for a treat at the local café – a real luxury!
These memories are so stongly anchored in me that I can recreate the feeling of them whenever I want – like pressing a “memory button”.
Do you do the same thing with your memories? Do you find the inspiration, the calm, the driving force, the joy in your best memories?
Take a moment and remember, tapping into the power of those memories. Maybe remember your childhood summers. But not to be sentimental and live in the past – no, simply to be able to live the best life you can, now.
Then take a moment and live in the moment, in the here and now. This is something us adults can do too (I have a lot to learn from my childhood summers:-)) – to just be. And apart from the pleasure of living in the moment, to really experience what happens today – imagine what great memories we are creating for the future!
by Elisabet | Jan 1, 2011 | English Blog
It’s not just because of the lie-in, or the all day pyjama fashion, or playing on the Wii, or watching good films on TV, or even pigging out on chocolote – although all of that is good too.
No, the main reason I love New Year’s Day is this – it has a great sense of clean, fresh start about it. Somehow the start of a new calendar year makes us realise that we can start something, something we’ve put off, something that’s important to us. We can wipe the slate clean, we can change something, we can find the energy to turn things around.
I don’t believe in “New Year’s resolutions” though. They tend to become a threat and a slow or fast journey to failure (as we somehow know – or have decided – that most resolutions fail).They could work though – if we called them something different and if we used them differently – as a great possibility, as an encouragement. Although this is not about resolutions….let’s get back to the magic of New Year’s Day.
You could argue that the problem with all other days is that it’s not New Year’s Day – that we don’t have that same sense of hope and opportunity that 1 January brings.
So I say, let’s make every day New Year’s Day! Every day is a fresh, clean start. It’s never too late or too early to act on our dreams, our aspirations, our interests.
Take this day with you throughout the year. Make every day New Year’s Day – keep the clear outlook, the hope and the drive. Learn from yesterday, take from it what you can, learnings, insights – and move forward with curiosity and joy. Anything can happen. What do you want to happen? And how will you make it happen?
I will start by treating myself to a leisurely day, full of joy and relaxation, and opportunities to recharge. If there is anything I will start this New Year’s Day with, it’s the continuous learning that to achieve anything, you need to take time to take care of yourself. Just like they say about the oxygen masks on planes – “before helping anyone else, please secure your own mask”. So true, so true – whatever we want to achieve, for others, for the world, for ourselves – we need to look after the instrument that is us, so that we have something to give. So it’s oxygen mask on for me. Go ahead, you do it too:-)
