One Day I'll Grow Up

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Beyond the misery of a miserable childhood. Being trapped. Being trapped in the defencelessness of childhood, where not even running away is an option. There is an Stockholm syndrome that will make us be close to a cruel hand. To an infinite Misery. To the cruellest of teachers or the schoolmates from hell. We try to feed of the brief moments of peace that we are awarded with and we endure with stoicism the rest of them. Until either we are killed or we are thrown violently into the world when, finally, we don't need anyone to stand on our feet. And all of a sudden this cruel world sees us born again under the baptism of fire that our childhood was.

This long period of defencelessness in our species will grant us the food and protection that the development of the magic box on our shoulders that distinguish us from the rest of living creatures demands from us.
To make us unique. To make us human. This defencelessness assumes the protection that our parents and environment will provide us with and which will revert to all of us as a stronger and compassionate society.

If this equilibrium is broken, we are not worth it. If this equilibrium is broken we do not deserve our place in this world.

There is a song by Antony and the Johnsons that describes perfectly this period in which we depend on a compassionate environment which grants us the privilege of protection and defence, of growing towards our realization as human beings. And the trap. And our fight. And our strength knowing that there will be light at the other end of the tunnel. The underlying subject in the song is obviously different but it has the same roots in that time of defencelessness which should be instead a time of continuous spring and, why not, happiness.

One day I'll grow up, I'll be a beautiful woman

One day I'll grow up, I'll be a beautiful girl.

But for today I am a child, for today I am a boy

Sadness, anger, frustration... but also hope, strength, perseverance. The picture in the video is truly chilling...

My Hunger Games, another step beyond.

Under the Iron Bridge We Kissed...

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"Still Ill" - Possibly the best Smiths songs ever. You'll find all sorts of explanations on what people think about the intended meaning of a song, but the reality seems to be that it will have as many meanings as people listen to it. Songs travel with us through life and define our coordinates in space, time and emotions, they tell our stories of struggle and joy.

I am just a recent fun of The Smiths. They were really at their peak when I was not even a teenager, and well before I could make sense of English lyrics. However they seemed to be big back in the days in Spain. It has always amazed me that concerts of English bands in Spain seem to drive people mad at the stadiums while here in the UK people seem to be more apathetic about them. Maybe if most Spaniards could understand the lyrics they wouldn't be so enthusiastic in some cases (ha, ha :))

There are lots of flashes on this song that suggest to me our lives in my dear cities. "Under the Iron Bridge we kissed..." and although it was bloody freezing I'd go back under that Iron Bridge :) Who needs the mountains if I could go back under that Iron Bridge on a cold and wet winter in the grey darkness of the city night!

My running is by definition in a city, going past the grey buildings, loads of random people, the landmarks. It is embedded within its concrete foundations. It couldn't be any other way.

"Does the body rule the mind 

Or does the mind rule the body? 

I dunno..."

Isn't that one of the unanswered dilemmas of humankind? So thrilling to hear the question in that sad, nostalgic voice. And then that kiss under the Iron Bridge... Our eternal love/hatred relationship with society's rules and ethics. And, from another angle, how the mind can guide the body conquer the next frontier.

In My Hunger Games  it is definitively the mind ruling over the body. Or is it the body ruling the mind to rule about what it needs to? I dunno...

Bye bye Double Espresso :,(

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Awesome run today :) ! - getting closer to run consistently under 4min per Km. It looks like the return after Xmas has not been as dramatic as the last year when a mixture of awful viruses and the typical Xmas laziness made me crawl well into spring to recover all the hard work in late 2012.

What helps me go running in winter well into the dark, after a long day when I have not even had the time to sit in my desk for more than 10 mins in a row? Yes, the same one that helps go through my day: coffee!

Just a couple of days ago talking about Living below the line a friend mention to me that most possibly the thing I will be missing the most is my double espresso... Well, not just the one... all the four I will be missing. Each of them for its own particular reason...

Since a double espresso is somewhere between 1 and 2 pounds (or free if the office coffee counts), let's say that three days worth of coffee would eat my whole budget for My Hunger Games pretty much.

It is curious that just the drug we need to keep us switched on is more expensive than the food others can afford for a day. Just the one.

Having said that I think that I will be saying good bye to my favourite coffee shop for a couple of weeks and say hello to my thermo flask :) I am hoping that with a packet of 227g of ground coffee (cheapest around 2 pounds) I can make myself coffee for the duration of My Hunger Games :)

And may the odds be ever in our favour! ;)

Living below the line with a Twist.

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I have been wanting to run my first Ultramarathon for the last couple of years but I can't really find the space for that in my life right now. I envy these crazy seekers of the human-self limits but running almost every single day of the week, including a couple of almost full marathons is something I'd love but there is just no way. Not saying it is still not happening sometime soon :)

So there needed to be something I could do in the meantime which wasn't just boring everyone with another marathon. It is just so yesterday :)

At some point last year I got an email from Unicef which was organizing an interesting campaign to bring awareness on the lives of all of those living below the poverty line. This has been defined somehow as living below £1 a day, which varies depending on the country for various reasons.

According to Unicef over 1,200 people across the UK took on the 2013 Live Below the Line challenge for UNICEF. They decided to live on £1 a day for a week to gain first-hand insight into the lives of people living below the poverty line. In the 2013 Campaign an amazing £153,170 was raised to make a lasting difference to the lives of children.

So you can see where I am going, can't you? :)

My Hunger Games will consist of 2 weeks living below the line, on a £1 a day ration, during which I will race a total of 84Km (or around 52 miles) divided into two half marathons and the Brighton marathon to finish this journey.

I am pretty sure this is going to be an interesting experience which I will be sharing with you, starting now which is when my after-Xmas training starts!!

Oh, and this is a picture of one my heroes this year, Valenti SanJuan, right after he finished his Cavalls del Vent 100Km across unforgiving mountains! I am sure I'll have the chance to introduce you to this inspiration of mine during this journey :)

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