JAPAN - SOME WORDS

Japan

Hello and thanks for taking the time to visit. I appreciate you being here and always aim to provide takeaways that are actionable towards whatever goals you might have through lived experience.

I have been sitting on writing this for far too long and decided today was the day I would share the magic of our first retreat before life fades back into routine. At the beginning of July we hosted a trail retreat in the Japanese alps. It was nearly a year in the making and something I anticipated and somehow didn’t have much stress or anxiety around. A variety of things could have induced some panic; never having visited the location, not knowing a lot of the guests, their personalities, expectations and never having hosted 18 people for 4 days previous to this. 

What I did know was the power of long table group dinners, the stillness of a mountain town and having some world class brands believing in the whole thing would be all bonuses going in. As we move along I will share how I navigated the four days, things that blew my mind and the biggest takeaways from sharing such magical moments with some of the most incredible people imaginable.

I knew that running would be the glue and I wanted to incorporate things that have helped me navigate my thoughts. How to gracefully incorporate these moments without resistance seemed harder than it was in practice. It took a lot of awareness and willingness to be vulnerable myself. I’m grateful for the entire team of people that helped to take this whole experience far beyond any expectation.

MYOKO - 

The feeling of peace and expansiveness was felt on the train ride to the local station. Big beautiful mountains stood calm and welcoming as they do best. The town runs on the snow season and the rest of the year it’s basically a ghost town. Like any good mountain town nobody has keys to their house cause there simply isn’t a need to lock the doors. It was quiet and calm. The accommodation was quaint and comfortable. It felt like visiting a friends cabin. The shift from 30,000 steps around Tokyo being a consumer gracefully shifted into taking those steps while picking wild flowers to put into the guests rooms. 

Our home base is called A.I.R. (Artist In Residence) - There is an extensive story about why it has this name but I’ll keep it simple. Kakuzo Okakura wrote a book called The Book Of Tea in the early 1900’s. It links basically everything that makes Japan special to the Tea Ceremony. Myoko happens to be a place he wanted to turn into an artists village of sorts. A safe haven for creatives to create their best work. A shrine and guest house sits 100m up the road from AIR. 

Thinking of this now it begins to make sense of the individual characters that came to the retreat and how each one of them is an artist in their own right. To have 18+ people trust in the experience and come together so seamlessly almost felt too easy. Ryan put it best at the closing ceremony - This retreat is filled with main characters but somehow nobody acted like the main character.  

TAKE NOTES - 

Poetry has become a bit of a staple at our run club and has been a beautiful way to connect all the ideas I have while out on my runs. I wanted to introduce this practice at the retreat so we handed out a notebook and pens to all the guests. Each dinner would be accompanied by a prompt. We wrote Haikus, Mantras for race day and our “why”. With each dinner the emotions grew stronger, the laughter got louder and the sense of safety within the bubble continued to expand. It was a beautiful practice and I need to give some credit to our mate Josh Lynott who helped encourage me to share my words through his book A Note To The Runners. Here is a Haiku from one of the guests - 

Came for a run
Running from my fears through all the green
A flower bloomed within

PEOPLE -

Well. I somehow want to describe the guests and the staff of AIR in two seperate categories but I simply cannot. The way the kitchen and dining room flow doesn’t draw a line between the two. It seemed like everyone had their positions dialed and executed their purpose so incredibly well. The chefs hopped in on our prompts, guests cleared their plates. Intentions were shared and appreciated equally. To have people from different cultures, backgrounds, levels of running come together and hold space for one another was astonishing. There was deep listening, beautiful conversations and more laughter than is probably legal. 

The living room was lived in through amatuer games of chess, fire side conversations and the sharing of things from vintage SATISFY to guessing what a certain gender always fails at when becoming a pilot. Not to mention morning coffee while overdosing on pocky sticks and seaweed crisps. It felt like a reunion more than a bunch of small talk with strangers.

One day the crews split up and went on a cultural visit to the grocery store, a vintage camera shop and oversized second hand store. Connection over discovering new ice creams, rolls of film expired before we were born and a shirt that says “ZEN HIKER” It’s safe to say everybody won on that day.

RUNNING - 

As you might have guessed from above the running aspect of this “running retreat” was simply a bonus. We hosted a run in Tokyo with the crew at Distance before heading to Myoko - to see familiar faces and 50 odd people show up in the rain to run was really special. Thanks Miguel and team! Once in Myoko we had an amazing host in Haruki who took us on 2 different runs in the morning. We had the entire town to ourselves which meant running in the middle of a foggy road to a beautiful waterfall. We  ended at the towns foot Onsen plaza; a special way to end the run.  Another morning of galavanting down a squishy trail with little sings that reminded us to slow down and appreciate where we were. The crew spent more time swimming in the lake and forest bathing than anything. Both days were perfect. A big bonus was everyone being fully decked out in their new kits. Look good, feel good, right?

RACE DAY - 

Flowerboy has become kind of known for its finish line support and outlandish cheer squads at local races here in Bali and the crew proved this yet again. We had 8 friends complete their first Ultra marathon and each and every one of us completed the race with smiles and a sense of gratitude that wont soon fade.

To have friends on the course at different times and be able to share the feelings and memories of such an incredible landscape together was really the perfect icing on the cake for this whole experience. The race itself was masterfully put together. Sign ups were a breeze, the signage was perfect and the course couldn’t have been a better place to spend X amount of hours. We ran through all kinds of forests, past extremely instagramable waterfalls and beautiful open grasslands.  Moments on the trail felt like a fairy tale. The stillness of the forest and the collective rhythm of bear bells ringing added to the experience. Seeing so many people in their 50’s and 60’s moving with such grace gave me a lot of hope for my future in this “sport”. 

The finish line was electric and we made sure to cheer for those who had nobody waiting at the finish line just as loud as we did for our friends coming down the hill. We basically flooded the place with tears. Hugs were held tight and I think the experiences shared will live on for a very long time.

SOOOO -

Cheer for your friends and strangers - go run in the forest - sign up for the hard thing - take the wrong train - eat 2 ice creams - drink another coffee - get naked in an Onsen with your homies - cry - tell your friends you love them - have intention with everything you do - smile when you run - get titanium chopsticks and join us on our future retreats. This experience is too good to not repeat again and again and again.

A heartfelt thank you to the team at AIR - the FB team - Erica - DISTANCE - the guests - Haruki - VRAC - Tomato - 7-11 - SATISFY - SnowPeak - SAP - anybody who has ever come to run club or reps our merch - MYOKO and the bears for not eating us.

Here is a poem from the first breakfast -

Running is the glue -

It connects me and you -

We are the bees and this is our hive -

Moving together makes us feel alive - 

If the goal is experience we have already won -

No need to be serious - this is about fun - 

What’s your why?

I’ll tell you mine - 

Seeing your smiles when you cross the finish line.

———-

Thanks again for reading - See you for a coffee and run real soon.

Peace - FB