From an ignorant runner to an amateur one
Growing up in a small town there are a lot of things that one takes for granted and open spaces are one of the most common ones.It’s only when one moves to the metros is when they see the real value of open spaces.For someone like me who spent his childhood in a small town, outdoor sports were one of the primary contributors to my daily activities.This involved everything from cycling to running to cricket to football.
Having shifted to a metro, the same set of activities were now had to be performed in a smaller space or for most part had to be stopped.Having stayed in a metro long enough to have sort of forgotten about the perks of living in a small town, when things started opening up after the first wave of pandemic one of the things that I wanted to go back to is some sort of regular physical activity.This was the time my firm was also trying to motivate employees to participate in some kind of physical activity driven initiatives.I too volunteered into one such initiative.Since social distancing was still part of the protocol,I couldn’t really do it indoors with the likes of a gym and had to find an open spot, which I could eventually manage to find.With that I started with managing to get some initial step counts through brisk walk and a bit of running.I must admit it was very difficult to do even smallest of the rounds consistently.
My references to running till this point were from my days at this small town were I used to do these short runs for fun with my friends just to see who was the fastest.Being ignorant about professional running,I always thought I can do this again and would be easy only to realise that I could only clock a kilometre at one go and had to struggle to up the game.That’s when reality hit and I realised how difficult it is to even keep doing smaller runs regularly, let alone doing it professionally.
Since there were some cool goodies to be won :) as part of the initiatives started by my firm ,I started reading about the whole process of running and how to approach it.I started with forming the habit of running and also won the initial part of the initiative(may be because there weren’t enough participants at the start :)) along with some goodies, which I later started using for my runs.This initiative helped me get into the groove and like everything else I realised if I were to get any better at doing this I have to get regular at it along with right technique and that’s were reading and some of the gears such as smart watch, right shoe, etc came into the picture.
Having followed the tips and tricks from the professionals, with barely covering 1km at at time,I slowly managed to clock 10km runs at a go well within an hour, after a period of 1–2 months.Though there is still scope to improve a lot, but personally it felt like a small win.At this stage,I realised this is more of a mental game than physical.Along with whatever physical prep that one needs to do, after a point it is the mental preparedness which helps take one to the next level. During this process I also realised that my runs as a school kid seemed enjoyable as I used to do it more for fun.Many years down the line, when I started again since I considered it to more of checklist I had my struggles in getting to my daily goals.But slowly as this started forming into a habit where I just wanted to run without being bothered about the distance being covered, suddenly the fun was back and now it was just a matter of pushing the pedal.
As John Dryden says -
“We first make our habits, and then our habits make us”
While I am less ignorant about running now, I still have a lot to learn and execute.While that happens, will try and enjoy the process and may be some day might try some sort of marathon, till then Happy Running :).