Last
night I was at my daughter’s middle school band concert. Not only was the music
entertaining and fun, but it was great to see kids proud to perform numbers
that they have been rehearsing all year long. Playing the trumpet, the sax or
the flute is not an easy task. Like sport skills, it takes hours and hours [...]

Despite the fact that I am a lifelong runner and a voracious
reader—I often have one novel and at least two other books on the go at the
same time—I admit that I don’t actually read a lot of running books for
inspiration. Perhaps the impact of watching ’Chariots of Fire’ ten times as a
teen eclipsed any direct [...]

I was driving three kids to a cross country meet recently.
Each was in different state of mind about their upcoming race. One girl was
just chatting away about random stuff that happened at school that day, about
her teachers and her marks. Her mind wasn’t really on the race at all, as if it
was just another after [...]

I am a 45 year old woman. I am a mother of two. I raced full
time professionally for 25 years. Apart from perhaps, manual labour, I don’t think
I could have chosen two less physically demanding of careers: motherhood and
sport, doubling up on both for the last 12 years.

I have had my share of exhausting days, [...]

August Journal: The Olympic Dream

I tie my white track spikes carefully, pulling the laces
tight. I am warmed up and ready to race. Six months of preparation for this one
event, and here it is, ten minutes away on a warm and windless Victoria
evening. At a signal a marshal directs us to move onto the track for [...]

Unplugged but Switched On…
I have talked and written about the magic in running before, about how participation in sport can often act as a spontaneous and joyful catalyst to challenge all we think we believe about our abilities and limitations. These are special moments, when we are engaged in the doing, the moment when our [...]

Some people love to run, some people don’t,
And some people just don’t run.
Some run towards a point in their future, and some run away from a ghost in their past,
And some people look back while running forward.
Some people run to eat, some eat to run,
Some hardly eat at all.
Some runners choose to run barefoot, some [...]

Oh, how I love those words, ‘ad hoc’, a Latin phrase meaning ‘for this’. Ad hoc refers to the ability to think on your feet, to create a solution that works perfectly for something right now. It might be temporary and make shift but do not confuse it with haphazard. Quite the opposite of chaos, [...]

I was only 7 years old when the several hundred shards of an early Australopithecus afarensis skeleton was discovered and carefully brushed out of an Ethiopian valley. Later, sometime in middle school or high school, we studied this early human, named Lucy, and I thought what a funny name to choose for a skeleton. First [...]

Already thinking about some new goals for 2012 even thought you have signed up for six races already? Want to still make resolutions for the New Year, even though your diet is impeccable and your time management is all set for 12 hours a week of training? Looking for some new inspiration to take into [...]