Running and Exercising in general

My ex husband introduced me to running back in 1984.


As any good Italian girl would, I put on my best outfit and set off with an astonished Canadian professional-league, Hockey Player (Aka my ex), Armani model and later actor, to run around the Castello Sforzesco in Milan, Italy.


Although looking great, I soon realised that having started smoking at fourteen, I could just about make it to the first lamp post.


Needless to say, the ex was laughing his head off, both because of my outfit and my lack of performance; or maybe due to the combination of the two factors.


The most valuable thing he taught me was that Italians have no idea about casual dressing, in fact they get it totally wrong. 


This has proved right many years down the road.


Abercombie &Fitch in Corso Matteotti, Milan, a shop my son and my ex wouldn't set foot in unless somebody was threatening to shoot them, is probably the tackiest place one can find in Milan.


At the door, naked male models from the waist up (I'd rather have the opposite), and girls in skimpy dresses. 


Where's your dignity man!


Still, everyday there's a queue as long as what used to be the one to get into The Amnesty in the late 80s.


This all proves my ex right: Italians have no taste when it comes to casual dressing.


Back to the main subject.


Since 1984, I have been running - on-and-off - for the best part of my life.


Eventually I came to realize that I was spending so much time either running around Hampstead Heath in London, U.K., or at the gym, that I might as well make money out of it and became a successful personal trainer.


I quit the job when caring about the cellulite on someone's thighs, together with having to remember the date their children had the violin concert exam, somehow crashed with the real problems I was going through in my personal life.


Yet, as my ex-husband - and nowadays best friend - always told me, if I had been born in the U.S. I would have become a professional athlete, so I kept up what, by then, had become a  passion, albeit a selfish one (yes, another one), of mine: exercising.


At present, I'm running at the "Montagnetta" in Milan, Italy, an under-estimated heaven in this city of cement.


I get great pleasure from looking at the the outfits of some of the fellows runners I meet on the way but, mostly, I am astonished at the gadgets and, most of all, at the expression on the faces of the runners; they simply haven't got it.


Running is an art. A form of meditation where, finally, we can open our minds and stop creating thoughts in our heads. When thoughts can come and go freely, or not come at all.


All that is required is to listen to one's body and being in tune with one's energy level which vary from day to day.


There are times when you will run fast, others when you will run so slow that you might as well walk, but that's not the point. The point is to lose oneself in the act of running, to effortlessly observe the surroundings, to feel at one with Nature.


The expression on your face should be one of Serendipity, your shoulders should be low and totally relaxed, your neck should be feeling no strain and your steps should be those of a panther strolling easily through the Savannah, ready to sprint when so inspired.


Lastly, the aim of the whole enterprise of running should have nothing to do with weight-loss or toning up - which are just to be considered as welcome outcomes - and all to do with being in the moment, thought-less and worry free and, most of all, TIMELESS!


Timeless, or the ability to live in a time-less zone is what exercising is all about, no matter the sport one chooses.


Hence, throw away those use-less gadgets that tell you how many calories you're burning, how fast you're running, whether your heart rate is above or below the ever-so-sought after 60%, and just set up to enjoy yourself and live in the real dimension of time that our every-day-lives are always trying to steal from us.


That's what is all about, 


You can do it!