My Full Marathon Journey — Being Agile
Run often, Run Longer, But never outrun your Joy of Running — Anonymous (Source: Google)
A quote that resonates with my running, or I believe, it does for most of us in the community. We run because We can !
As I reflected back during my holidays in the last few days of 2022, struck a thought which refused to ebb; in our lives we all have been practicing some of the tenets of Agility. Agility in Life, especially for those micro habits and non-event rituals we all have developed and has been persistent. “Agility’ being such a buzzword in our professional lives, especially in software industry; inculcation of the agility values & virtues, to make lasting impacts is not news to us.
I was drawing parallels, about Agility and one of the personal habits that leapfrogged my outcomes in running. It’s been almost 8 years since I took to running and gradually evolved to this state of habit. A day is not complete without, at least, a short run and the sense of fulfillment it gives. For those of you pondering ‘WHY’ — here is a link to an older post to satiate your curiosity. 2022- a year of many firsts — trumped by the joy of completing my first ever full marathon, closely followed by a few more full marathons accomplished thus far. 2022 has also been a year where I clocked 2700+ kms in running for first time, most importantly, it became an inseparable ritual for me.
Here I was, returning back from my 2023 Mumbai Marathon with my personal best (PB) sub 04Hr timing, the feeling hasn’t sunk in yet of a great run and an even more wonderful Mumbai spirit on display. With almost 55000+ runners and close to 5000 participating in full marathon itself, the city has turned into a deluge of running enthusiasts and the surge in positive energy it gave all of us. These major agility tenets came to the top of my mind, where I could draw parallels between my running rigor & Agility (in no particular order):
1 — Short sustainable cycles of Improvement: Prior to 2015, with no active habits inculcated, never ever would I have dreamt of running a full marathon let alone any form of running. Though I began running to keep myself healthy, it soon turned into a passion or calling. In no time I moved into running 5Ks, 10Ks and even 21Kms. At no point, did I feel pressured by what my fellow runners journey was, some of them started with 10Ks and soon enough running Marathons. Is there a prescribed timeline for graduating into longer distances- NO is the answer. All that matters is what you are feeling and the sense of happiness and the improvements we observe. What I ended up doing, was the continual improvements I was making in pace, or techniques or my timing.
Circa 2020, Thanks to lockdown, my runs became more regular, started instilling a rigor to my runs with at least a few 100Kms clocked every month leading into this year of 2022. Key takeaway always has been short cycle of improvements, running experiments, stopping what is not working, listening to your body and taking the next steps. Isn’t Agility also about learning, unlearning, listening and adapting our practices ?
2 — Safe to fail experiments: My running journey hasn’t been an upward slope- I wish so! There’s been times when I tried to up my pace, run in a different terrain or emulate a friend and ended up with a hurt knee or a pulled hamstring. Allowing my body to push the envelope, stepping out of the comfort zone has been a revelation to me knowing what I can achieve. At the same time, I have been reminded rather starkly, that I have limits too physiologically and just because my friend is doing a certain practice doesn’t mean I can wing it too. The 100days of running that’s so popular now, I did it in 2020 and ended up with no runs for almost a month with a knee injury. Come 2021 I clocked consistently 300+ kms every month since August with no major side-effects. Sometimes its also about the timing, when we pushed the envelope and are we ready for that.
Psychological safety is paramount not just with Agile teams, rather we need to cut some slack for ourselves too. Be open, curious, take risks, at the same time be ready to pause, introspect and Pivot. Accepting failure as a reality and not an end of the road, rather possibilities of multiple uncharted paths lay open. Timing the
3 — Incremental nature of hypothesis validation: My first official full marathon happened to be the October 2022 Bengaluru Marathon and lead up to that was quite strange or fluid (at that moment). A few months before I started upping my monthly kms I was clocking and almost doubled it from where I was in July. The most vital change I made, was being more consistent and disciplined in my daily runs. Bengaluru Rain, or Cold evenings wasn’t a deterrent /excuse for me to step out. Every weekend, I ended up doing a long run of at least 15–21kms. Post these runs after a month or so in September, had some confidence that the effort I had put in the last 20 odd months has finally enabled my body and mind for a marathon run.
It is not to say all these preparations went like clockwork and I had zero doubts on the race day. There were weeks with weak knees, hurt hamstrings, sore overworked legs, but what mattered in all these, I was enjoying my runs. It was a series of smaller experiments- be it on pace, run schedules, terrain, shoes, apparels and adjustments made. Dial back to 2019, I had registered for Auroville full marathon and a day before the travel i developed cold feet and pulled out. Had a hunch I wasn’t ready then, in retrospective, for the amount of preparations put in 2022, hadn’t even put half the effort or discipline in 2019. I would have struggled had I run a 42K in 2019, probably finished but wouldn’t have enjoyed it one bit.
Like Agility, even though outcomes speak for itself, many times there are learnings along the way and in failures too as we build upon. As long as we are incorporating those learnings in our ways of working we are bound to find improvements. As much as we learn from failures, its critical to observe and know when to push the envelope. Timing is crucial, for the risks we take, should commensurate positive feedback loops, rather than stymie the confidence of your teams.
4 — Likeminded community to share, learn & positive reinforcements: Interestingly, the Bengaluru Marathon wasn’t my actual timed full marathon of 42.2 Kms. A training run in Cubbon park in September 2022, with my running friends originally intended to be of 30Kms, eventually became my first full marathon of 42.2Kms. To a large extent, especially after 30+ Kms it’s more about mind over body in these runs. That day, if not for this runners community, I would never have pushed myself out of the comfort zone during a training run to complete a full marathon. Not just this instance, the entire last 2 years its this close knitted community that has been open to share learnings, individual failures and there to cheer you up and push you out of your comfort zone constantly.
This is where the Agility transformation also gets an impetus, where we change agents interact with our fellow Agilists in the organization and outside. We get to know what is working for others, are we reinventing the wheel, is there a better solution we can try? In the long run, these are very crucial for charting our own transformation roadmaps.
5 — More about the Journey, than a Destination: As important your goals are, its also the rituals and the habits we ingrain that charts a path towards our goals. I didn’t start running in 2015, because I said to myself let me aim for 42Kms in 2022. Rather I sustained this practice as I was enjoying the journey and the ritual in itself. O’course in this process I did set some short-term milestones, like distance, or pace, or preparing for a race .
If we are not enjoying our journey, no matter the effort we put in or the enablers we set up, we are gonna lose steam and the motivation to strive eventually. Because transformations are about those daily micro-improvements we are steadfastly putting our focus and energy on. It’s never a start — stop initiative, rather a life long journey that leads us to paths we could not have imagined when we began. So enjoy, learn along the way, improve and have fun !
Marathon Running takes Balls, all other sports keep playing with it — Anonymous”, read a funny poster during my Mumbai Marathon. 😊
Look forward to see each of us prioritize health equally and integrate this into a sustainable daily habit. Feel free to comment your own experience on “Agility in life” !
