It is time to reflect on the lessons of the year: both the successes and failures, to store up the harvest of positive fun, companionship on the way and to learn to grow from the things that were less than hoped for.

   If you ask Dorothy Robarts, she would tell you that coming in second in South Africa was a shock but it has given her great motivation for Gateshead England in two years- What a gift to receive in your eighth decade of life--a desire to be even faster and to have better technique!

   Fall workouts, going to Phoenix Lake and beyond is a good metaphor for being reborn in the fire of the ashes of this past year. We are working on endurance and strength and the beauty of the surroundings refreshes our souls and gives us energy.

   This is the time of the year to work on technique. Race walking is an intellectual sport; you always have to be thinking about what you are doing--it really doesn't become rote - there are always new things to learn.

   When it is so quiet and the air is golden with the light of the changing leaves it is natural to reflect on the changes that our own efforts and time have made.

 Resolve to find anew your purpose for being here; that essential core of your being, that reason that you are here - that special gift that you have come to bring to the world and show it forth in all its glory.

    It is time to reflect on what it is that you wish to accomplish, how far on the path you have already come and to study the road map to see where to go next. Some of us are already far into that territory marked unknown, that no one else has yet explored - all the more reason to try to become conscious and to understand the secret thereby that life is always young and we are ever moving onward.

   Listen to the silence of autumn and learn.

No, one spoke,
The host, the guest;
The white chrysanthemums
          Ryota