Last week, with Biscuit the dog in tow, I decided to walk along the Brooklands Racing track near me in Weybridge.
For those of you who don’t know, Brooklands Race Track was the world’s first purpose-built motorsport venue, built in the early part of the 20th Century and the place to be seen if you had any interest in cars and sport.
In its heyday this track would regularly attract some quarter of a million spectators at its Grand Prix events!
Nowadays, it sits as a shrine to those heydays of motoring greatness…
Today I was alone with my thoughts as I surveyed what’s left of Brooklands;
The track is worn, cracked and in need of repair…
Only a few bits of banking are still standing…
Grass grows through the cracks and moss has taken over the track itself…
Brooklands is very much a shadow of its former self.
As I walked along the steep banking enjoying the sunshine, I imagined the race cars roaring past me, the sound of the engines spitting, the crowds cheering, the drivers cocooned in the cockpit, steering wheel rattling, engine vibrating the chassis… the deafening sound of motoring glory!
It doesn’t take much to imagine greatness.
Even if, like me, you had never been there during the events, you have enough pictures, film footage and imagination to set the scene in your mind and put yourself there among the crowds as the cars hurtled round the track.
The same goes for your own physical greatness.
You may not be there yet, you may never have been there, but you have all the power to imagine that time in your mind where things come easy, when you can tackle physical tasks with ease and you can move without discomfort, aches or pain.
We all have the power to forsee what we want in life.
The thing that keeps me focused with my health and fitness is an end result – pictured clearly in my mind.
It’s not cosmetic, like a six-pack, big arms or a thick chest… It’s a feeling of achievement, of being better than those around me, of winning against myself and not taking the easy way out.
I should think those were some of the thoughts that kept those drivers on the track in their heyday – winning, being better and achieving…
If they spent too long thinking about the ‘what ifs’ they may never have turned the key to their engines – spinning off, failing, losing, crashing, losing concentration…
YOU can ALL achieve physical greatness.
If you’re in no hurry, stick to the slow lane. If you want to get ahead, switch things up a gear or two…
Whatever you do, head in the direction you want to be and keep steering.
Then, once you’re there, you can look back at what you have achieved and how far you have come.
Your keys are in the ignition… Have you turned them yet???
