School - Supertramp

Yesterday, I wrote that I’ve definitely had value for money from life so far and scrolling back through the years, I’ve certainly lived a full life. I haven’t filled up my time with things that I’m not good at or are not interested in. And if we wind my clock back to March 1976, I have only happy thoughts of that time and being 14 at school. Indeed, I wrote in my book ‘A Rebel and a Runner’ - 'My overwhelming memory of school life is one of happiness and fulfilment'. Only on reading my school report of that term, my teachers observations were quite different. In fact, in my last school report at 18, the headmaster’s comment was ‘He has never developed a serious attitude to his work’. Nice soundbite for seven years in one of the top Grammar Schools in the UK - and not one that reflects my current work ethic.

I was never highlighted as a child with a complete mental-block when processing written language(s) but on scanning a few of my reports – it’s clear where I was failing. Don’t get me wrong as this was the 70’s and the education process was more about exam preparation and university entrance than providing pastoral care. Learning how to find a route through the confusion of education, probably taught me more if I’m being honest and has given me a way of dealing with a complexity of adult life.

Told you it wasn't great...

Okay, I’m not the most literary of people as you’ll know if you are one of my regular blog readers’, but I do believe that the life-experience that I now broadcast has an in-built message that delivers both achievement and fulfilment.

Possibly my school years' taught me to be more pragmatic than anything else – putting my energies into knowing what I was good and where I could achieve - making a platform to bookmark my success perhaps. No wonder my marathon running and Guinness World Records etc. have been so fundamental in marking my success and investment into what I believe has been an important part of me becoming the present-day me.

I’m sure if I went back, I would invest more of my time and energy into my education and pass far more of my A and O Levels but what would it really achieve? Absolutely nothing. The 'School of Experience' offers much higher qualifications and I've achieved way beyond where predicted some 40-odd years on.

For this reports, I’m going to continue with my serious attitude to my work (that I’ve always had) and continue believing that I'm happy and fulfilled.

Are you happy and fulfilled too?

A* in 1,045 Marathons - 254 Ultras - 9 Guinness World Records - 15 Marathon des Sables