Running to Learn now available as an ebook!
How should you approach your life?
How can you sustain confidence in yourself in times of difficulty as well as triumph?
How can you find out who you really are and what you really want to do?
Julia is, indeed, a successful life and business coach, and she has also lived the life of a successful international athlete – and at the age of 50, Julia is still running, further than ever before. But she is more than these things, she is an example of how anyone can make the most of their life, fulfil their potential, and achieve the frame of mind in which anything is possible.
You’ve heard of The Secret, but have you really followed the ideas through in your life? Let Julia give you an insight into how it can it can actually be done. You can be whatever you want to be. Download the ebook of Running to Learn, and found out who that you might be.
Click here to listen to Julia reading the first chapter of Running to Learn.
“Julia is a remarkable person so it’s no surprise that this is a remarkable book: vivid, intimate and wise, with the power to inspire that can only come from deep personal experience.” Andrew Shields, Sport and Health Editor, Time Out London
"Running to Learn tells the story of my life so far, offering guidance and insights into my approach to life, with running an ever-present theme.
I have run all my life and I have come face to face with myself at every turn of my running journey. Running has kept me on track when I have faltered and stumbled on my own life journey. I have learnt that by staying in each step the journey unfolds and carries me to new adventures and to always seek progress and growth.
I have found answers by testing universal laws to the limit, going off course, trying again and again until I lived and breathed the idea that being myself and finding my own voice was all that was required. Having taken the hard way myself, I am able to help people go the less hazardous route - should they choose!
I wrote this book for me, and to offer guidance for you, as we are all connected and can support one another as we run our own race – take new steps, go off course and find our way back."
Julia
Old-fashioned print version still available!
You can order your print copy of Running to Learn here by clicking the button below, at the price of £8.99 (rrp £9.99), including delivery within the UK and Northern Ireland. Your card will not be charged until the book has been dispatched.
Blurb
Running to Learn tells the compelling story of an international running career in which each step has led both round in circles and towards healing and awareness.
Through the many highs and lows of her life Julia discovered the skills necessary to perform at top level throughout times of difficulty as well as triumph, both on and off the track. Here, Julia shares the journey behind her unique and dynamic approach to life – the struggles behind the performances, her battle with an eating disorder, and the challenges of her personal relationships. Running to Learn shows how you can direct each of your own steps towards taking control of your life and moving towards a place where it’s perfectly okay to be you.
Extracts
“May 12th 1959. I was born in Freetown, Sierra Leone, West Africa. My mother was secretary to the Governor and my father was Director of Public Works. They were both adventurers – travelling far and wide in the pursuit of new experiences. They had met at a party at Government House, and when my father saw my mother on the beach later in the week he said that he had never seen anyone look so tired – the particularly social Christmas period must have been taking its toll. A few dinner dates later, my father kissed my mother for the first time, and in the next breath, said that he was in love with her and asked her to marry him. Much to my own and my sister’s horror when having the story recounted to us as children, she asked for time to think about it! She also said, however, ‘I knew that I would marry him – I just needed time to fall in love with him.’ I think this may go some way towards explaining the enthusiasm with which I have agreed to marry many men shortly after the first kiss!”
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“Life is all about change. The moment we are born we experience one of the hugest changes imaginable – nine months inside our mother’s womb, comfortable and nurtured, our every need met, and then we are forced into life, our arrival heralded by our mother’s screams of pain. Lights and people, pain and joy, the yin and yang of life thrown at us in a whirling mass of change. But we adapt, we adapt fast. We need to survive and so we suck at our mother’s breast; we need to learn to breathe, and so we cry and gulp in vats of oxygen. Our lungs moved, our heart beat, the cord was cut and we were on our own. Our own life had begun and we had gone with the change – we did not cling to the sides of the birth canal saying I can’t do this, I want to stay where I am. We went with the flow, and emerged to our new life.
And so it continues, the death of one state of existence and the birth of another – and so it is in all things and for the rest of our lives, a cycle of birth, death and re-birth.
The changes in a baby and in childhood are noted by the adults around, the transitions are supported and guided, and depending on how well the carers in our lives do this job, we keep going with the flow, we keep adapting to what is actually happening rather than resisting and getting stuck.
The biggest distress of a human being is trying to keep things certain. This is what causes the greatest anxiety to mankind, the mind sticking us to what we believe to be certain and therefore safe, whereas in truth the only safety is the trust deep within that we can manage whatever is ahead of us, that we have within us the skills to adapt to any change that occurs in our life. If we can cope with birth and death, and do it alone, which we all can and do, then we can cope with anything that is asked of us.”
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“We ran along the coast road, one step in front of the other, it should have been simple. ‘We’re running fast,’ I said to Angie after about six miles had passed. ‘We’re on 2:32 pace.’ It felt good, comfortable, easy. I was the fittest I had ever been in my life, but at the core of me I had huge tension. I didn’t really believe that my dreams would come true, not at the deepest level, the level that counts when they are about to be realised.
The next 20 miles held in its hands the chance of my salvation, the fork at which my life would go in one direction or the other. The desire for peace inside, to know once and for all that I was okay was so desperate within me, and I saw this race as the path towards freedom from the pain and destruction I had imposed upon myself.”
Praise
“Julia is a remarkable person so it’s no surprise that this is a remarkable book: vivid, intimate and wise, with the power to inspire that can only come from deep personal experience.”
Andrew Shields, Sport and Health Editor, Time Out London
“Julia and her work are unique. She has a special gift in understanding exactly where you are, where you would like to be, and guiding you to a place where you can truly trust your inner self.”
Angela Dawes, Co-founder, Micromuse Inc.
“Julia tells her story in an analytical style, challenging the reader to search out their own life motivations, to ask why they have followed a certain path, while questioning why she chose hers… Julia creates a journey through this book which is extremely therapeutic. 4/5”
Review, Women’s Fitness Magazine, August 2008
“Julia’s conviction, depth of understanding and indomitable spirit are qualities that serve to rouse the slumbering soul and direct it toward full consciousness and the realization of its most precious dreams.”
Lindsay S Wellstead M.Sc. (A.I.H.T) Transpersonal Psychotherapist
“I have finished reading your book. I thought it was fab and at times it sent little shivers down my spine because it was so close to home. I’ve read some of the books by Paulo Coelho and you certainly gave him a run for his money. In fact I think yours was better because it was true as well as being two dimensional – if that makes sense. I’m going to read it again because there are parts that I want to absorb more that I think will be useful in my future.” AH
“Your book is an inspiration (not quite finished yet!) and just like you – I have been laughing and feeling sad all the way through. The picture of you as a leggy little girl is soooo telling. For me the key things I am picking up are; find your true self and true dreams and lose the fear that holds you back; find your own happiness and don’t rely on your partner to make you happy.” JT
“WOW!! Am full of admiration & inspiration for YOU! You are incredibly brave & pioneering in staying true to yourself Julia, trailblazing as only you can do, don’t ever stop…” DC
“Finished. I loved it. I loved the way each chapter started. I particularly liked the very first chapter which made me cry. Once upon a time…we all knew what we wanted to do…..etc. I dont kow why it made me cry, I dont know whether it was because people forget their dreams or because people are influenced by others. But it was sad.
But the book struck a chord with me and certainly made me think. Is that what you wanted people to do? All throughout life I’ve done things to please others and I have never been a free spirit, not like you!” PE