Thread: Inner Work
There was a time in my life when I spent more hours watching others move than moving myself.
I stood at the edge of snowy trails with a stopwatch in my hand.
I watched skis carve thin lines through winter air.
I listened to breath soften and sharpen in young lungs.
I watched bodies grow into themselves, slowly, imperfectly, beautifully.
That was when I was coaching with ENSC, though the name mattered less than the moment.
Back then, I thought I was teaching technique.
Pacing.
Endurance.
Form.
What I didn’t realise is that I was being taught something else entirely.
I was learning how to see people.
To notice subtle shifts in their eyes before they ever showed in their legs.
To recognise the difference between pain and doubt.
To understand that potential doesn’t reveal itself loudly — it whispers, over time, to those patient enough to wait.
The best moments weren’t the podiums or the results.
They were the quiet ones.
A breakthrough no one clapped for.
A young athlete who finally believed in themselves.
A small nod of understanding between us without words.
I didn’t know it then, but that was the beginning of a different kind of work.
The kind that isn’t about being the one in motion — but the one who helps others find theirs.
Later, when I opened Fast Trax, I thought it would just be a shop.
Shoes.
Skis.
Gear.
Sales.
But it quickly became something else.
A meeting place.
A refuge.
A corner of the world where runners and skiers could step off the noise of their own lives and breathe for a moment.
People didn’t just come in for equipment.
They came in for conversation.
For recommendation.
For reassurance.
For belonging.
I learned that business, at its most honest, isn’t about transactions.
It’s about holding space.
It’s about listening to someone explain who they want to be, not just what they want to buy.
It’s about recognising whether they’re trying to escape, prove, heal, rebuild, or simply move for joy — and meeting them there, without judgement.
I never had a manual for that.
I learned it by watching, again and again, how people carry their hope in their posture.
And I realised something that has followed me ever since:
Most people don’t need a coach.
They need a witness.
Someone who sees them in motion.
In struggle.
In reinvention.
In quiet determination.
Someone who respects their becoming.
Somewhere along the way, without ever planning it, that became my role.
Not loudly.
Not officially.
Not in big declarations.
Just standing beside the track, in different forms, as life kept changing the scenery.
Now, when I look at my life, I don’t see separate chapters.
I see one continuous act of attention.
First to myself.
Then to others.
Then back to myself, but in a gentler, wiser way.
Even now, in this new stage of my life — quieter, slower, more deliberate — I am still doing the same work.
I am still:
Watching.
Listening.
Holding space.
Encouraging without instruction.
Guiding without control.
The only difference is that the track I am standing beside now is my own.
And the person I am learning to see more clearly… is me.
That, perhaps, is the deepest lesson of all.
That eventually, you stop trying to run ahead of your life…
And you finally learn how to stand beside it.
To honour it.
To care for it.
To stay with it.
Quietly.