Pole Pole

Challenges always provide opportunity. It is hard to see it in the moment unless you pause and look for it. Not different from seeing many things clearly. The need to pause and actually look for it, but thats a musing for another time perhaps.

Covid was a huge challenge for me. A business that was largely dependant on people coming together in person was halted. I had staff to take care of, continuing overheads to cover and a community that needed us more than ever but we had little idea how to reach and support them. 

My biggest support (Holly) was over 5,000 miles away and as borders shut there was no indication of when she would return. With lockdowns in place, when I wasn’t staring into a laptop, on a call with a team member or a client, rowing 50km in my garden, burying myself on my turbo, doing online workouts at 4:44am with Holly and a few others around the world, (the list of crazy goes on). I was thinking, staring into space, reflecting. You could even say I was losing my mind. I liked it though as when something is lost you have an opportunity to find it again and that journey in itself can be very rewarding.

The mayhem mixed with the emptiness gave me something very special. The two live predominantly in conflict but the void they offered was one I was happy to step into. 

Grief is hard and in the early parts I was right in it. I knew it. My wife had gone as had my business. If that’s what I wanted to believe. I passed quickly through the stages, each of them leaving a different mark on me. I chose to wear it with pride. When I arrived at the home station of acceptance I knew there was nothing I could do to change the externals; the restrictions and rules that had to be followed, the news, the idle group chats, the conspiracy theories, the thought groups that were no wiser than those that had no thoughts at all.

What I knew was that there were many things I could influence. Things I could work on. A set of my own rules I could follow within the walls of my own home that I was confident would serve me the best. I had to rewind. To go forward we have to move back. I had experienced calm before. I had experienced slow. I had experienced freedom and fulfilment. I had to reconnect, I wanted to reconnect.

September 2019 as I was running through a gorge in Lewa conservancy, Kenya. Something came over me. I was in paradise. Every time you enter a flow state it is different. I don’t always get a feeling of floating. This time I was flying.

It started something. Something I was in no rush to finish. Something I was happy to leave open in the confidence that the time would come to continue my dance with it. Weird isn’t it? In the daily grind of life finishing tasks with speed at the frequent cost of quality is increasingly rewarded. And here I was happy to sit with the feeling. To let it be. To let it grow. Something I was not able to do in so many areas of my life. 

Whilst many were glued to the news, sat around debating policies, trying to predict the future, I turned to You Tube to learn more about the Kenyan runners. I reopened the September 2019 chapter. I stayed in the same geography but I had a different equation I wanted to process. I wanted to know what made them so fast. I wanted to know what they were doing that seemingly no one else was doing. I had watched them with owe since I was a kid. I saw people talk about it as a secret. I was not on the same scent. I was happy to go wherever the wind blew. I had time, I had patience but above all I had desire and when I want something I am the little prick that never gives up. A blessing, never a curse.

The restrictions lifted. I hit the streets. Given that little over a year ago I had just completed 30 consecutive marathons in 30 days, one may say I had done enough running. Others may presume I was still on a high. Neither were true. I was searching, experimenting, curious and ready. 

I ran fast, I ran slow, I landed hard, I landed soft. I tried to be elastic. I tried to be rigid. Everything I had been watching and thinking about I thought about more and tried. I made notes. I went back to my pieces of paper. I wrote more. I sat, alone, in silence, looking at the wall, just thinking, asking, breathing, repeating.

One day I had convinced myself there was something they were not telling me. I knew it was an out. An easy excuse. Weakness. I had given up. I had speeded up. I had found myself in a rush. I hit reset. I went again. The process repeated. The notes grew. The flame still burned.

More thoughts, more runs. Conversations. Dives down rabbit holes. A decision. I needed to go to the source. I figured out a way to get to where the fastest guys on planet were. I was obsessed. Not just with finding answers. I was obsessed with the process I was in. It was like therapy as every question I asked of it, it asked one back to me. Forcing me inwards. Giving me space.

The mayhem continued around me. Holly was still thousands of miles away. A new InnerFight slowly rose up from the sand in an area no one had heard of. I visited it daily with excitement, energy, unknown, fear, dreams. I did what I could. Then I breathed. Deep if I could. Shallow when I had to. My question of ‘how’ sat with me day in day out as the days past. Closed borders were not my excuse, they were my blessing as I could go deeper, think more, try, learn, look, see, feel.

The clocked ticked. It does. No matter if you watch it or not, the result is the same, don’t believe what they try and tell you at school. Thousands of ticks and we are in a line. PCR test papers, masks, a new way of travel. A ticket in our hand to where they were. We were going to the source. Eyes wide open. Smile from ear to ear. Heart pumping. Old sensations mixed with new ones. Ones I was more than happy to welcome. 

Our smiles were met with smiles. Our open hearts with open hearts. Our lactate levels however were not matched. Our zone 5 was their zone 2. It did not matter. We learnt fast that that was just one of the ingredients. That was not the secret. They welcomed us.

We sat. We spoke. We asked questions. Many. Some smart. Others for sure dumb. We did not want to leave one question unasked. Our position was unique. We had worked hard to be here. We were here. We were as close to the truth as we could be. If we asked enough we would know. We believed if we knew the game would change. For us. For our colleagues. For our athletes.

The room was dimly lit. From the corner emerged a short, stocky, aged gentleman. “That’s him.” Whispered across the table. He sat with us. I could not believe it. We were sat with the Godfather of Kenyan running. No one will ever do what he has done in the sport. No one will ever have the impact he has had on so many lives. The questions flowed. I made notes mentally. Immediately I arrived back in the room I wrote down what I thought I had heard. I crossed checked it with the boys. I sat and stared at it.

We ran more. The words reverberated around the pack from time to time. We knew but we didn’t know we knew yet. They welcomed us in so many ways. With a nod. Half a smile. A hand signal. A wink. The words. The two golden words. “Pole Pole.”

When they said it to us we said it back or just smiled as we searched for more oxygen. But they did it as they said it. We were unaware. We just tried to fit in. To feel the rhythm. Rhythm was part of the recipe. The process repeated day after day. The notes did not expand. There was nothing to add to them, just layers to what they had shared. Our brains like our legs in overload. We left. We knew we would be back. We knew it needed time. We knew we had to work during that time. We went to work. Thinking. Being. Working. Slowly slowly. Pole Pole.

Another visit. Then another. More work. More work. This was not just running. This was humanity. We were being retaught how to understand humans. The basis of performance. It was time to go again. Same people. Same places. Same questions asked in a different way. We believed but we wanted to unpeel layers. Maybe we wanted to be sure. Maybe we wanted more. Not sure. 

The more we sat with things, the more they would resonate. The more we tested things, the more we believed. The more we believed the more we grew. The process was long. The lessons were being ingrained over and over. It was incredible. It still is. 

Like all great experiences we get greedy. We want them to stay. We do not want them to end. The end is the start though. It’s key to the process. I didn’t want to forget. They made me a bracelet. I would never forget. Every time. All the time. One look down. Even without a look, with the feel. Like the sport itself. Like life. It’s a feeling. The feeling that fires the trigger that lets me know. “Pole Pole” (slowly slowly) and everything will work out just the way it is supposed to be.

Marcus