Thursday, July 30, 2015

My Running Chronicles: Synchronicity



Synchronicity is a concept created by psychiatrist Carl Jung, which holds that events are "meaningful coincidences" if they occur with no apparent causal relationship, yet seem to be meaningfully related.

Candace Pert
wrote in her book, 'Everything you need to know to feel Go(o)d' that Deepak Chopra told her that the more you meditate, the more you will notice and experience synchronicity happening in your life.

On Saturday as we came to the end of our 5.5 mile training run for the Bermuda Marathon Weekend,


I visualized the finish as we were coming up on our final hill. I was totally there and I created the scene for Tom. I told him who is going to be at the finish line including Vince Cann, Sundown and Kirk Dill who were members of the Blue Waters Anglers Club who we knew when we went to the Island and when they'd come up here to Falmouth to compete against Boston's Sea and Surf Anglers Club. When we met Stoker Smith at the Finish at the 50 Race Expo he thought that Vince might have passed on. When we skyped with him last week, he said that he would reach out and see if he was still around. I told him where he lived. By the way Vince lives in Warwick near Mike Douglas' house on the Island but I digress.

So I cried and had goosebumps seeing us at the finish line of the Bermuda Half Marathon. It was as though we were there and I could experience the sense of jubilation and exhilaration as well as the sights and smell of Bermuda.

After our training run, I got into my ice bath and had post run fueling with Blue Diamond Gluten free crackers with sesame seeds, an orange and water. I posted our run to Facebook via Nike+ and let myself enjoy the benefits of a post run ice bath feeling my body recover from the run in which we took of 24"/mile of our pace.

We relaxed the rest of the day and I worked on my book, "Going the Distance."

I remember what training for a marathon feels like and it's kind of like going through a pregnancy. Your body is changing and you get all sorts of cravings. Mine came in the form of mashed potatoes so we fixed mashed potatoes and barbecued chicken on the grill with a huge salad. I wanted a decadent dessert and we settled for a half of a Luna bar. We had been considering going out for dessert but something told me to just stay at home....

My phone rings just as we finished dinner. It's a Bermuda number - yup it was Vince! He didn't know what happened to us and said you just kind of disappeared from our lives. I briefly told him about my journey. He was so happy that we are coming back to the Island and said to give him a call as soon as we get in in January.

Not five minutes later, I receive a Skype call from Stoker! He told us that he used the phone book to find Vince once we told him where he lived. He said he was so happy to hear that McManus was fine and was coming to the Island. He was delighted that Vince called us and did not know it would happen so fast. He is going to make plans to meet up with Vince. He thinks they might have met before but now with the connection to us, he wants to reach out to him.

We talked with Stoker as though we have been friends for life. We talked about families, the race and Stoker's plans to return stateside to help out at the Falmouth Road Race Expo. He mentioned that the RD for Bermuda was heading to Maine for the Beach to Beacon 10K and would be meeting with Joan Benoit Samuelson to see if she'd come back to Bermuda to run the marathon in January.

The conversation was filled with magical moments and I just knew and felt in every fiber of my Being that the Divine has a hand in everything that is happening in my life now. Stoker told us that he is working on changing the marathon course from an out and back to one loop saying how you really can't ask volunteers to be out there for 6-8 hours while everyone finishes the race. He told us they have cups of water, bottles of water and gatorade available on the course. "It's a very relaxed atmosphere and few people come to actually race it." He told us one story of how he went to do a sweep of trash and people making sure everyone was fine out on the course if they still wanted to finish and was very distressed that he couldn't find a couple of runners who had registered for the race. He found them in a restaurant enjoying a meal and they had decided to ditch the race. I usually have so much anxiety going into a race that I have not run before but Stoker put me completely at ease. I know it is going to be an absolutely amazing experience to be running my first 13.1 since running Boston in 2009 on that beautiful island of Bermuda.



The Universe is orchestrating a beautiful symphony for my life. Ahh the sweet sounds of synchronicity!

I chronicle the first 7 years of my healing journey after being diagnosed with post polio syndrome, a progressive neuromuscular disease as a survivor of childhood paralytic polio and 9 years of childhood domestic violence in Coming Home:A Memoir of Healing, Hope and Possibility.


In Journey Well, the journey continues in the wake of my nephew's suicide on 3/4/11 and the events of 4/15/13. Through my journey of healing and transformation, we learn that no matter what life circumstances happen to us, we can always find a way to journey well.


"Feel the Heal: An Anthology of Poems," my latest collection of inspirational poetry is now available soon on Amazon


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