Running Is Easy When You Are Ready
Personal story of failure and rise up to success on its own.
What happens when you are motivated by someone (more specifically — Lucy Milano who’s written a lot over here)? You get inspired and make an attempt to share your views and experience in a way that you can clear a path for others. Secretly hoping that your first article makes a hit.
To all the readers who think why I had to make a brief statement before my article, it is to give a heads up that this won’t disappoint your expectations.
Starting running training on the ‘wrong foot’
I am just a regular guy who spends most of my time at work. Mechanical Design Engineer is my profession which mostly involves thinking rather than physical work. It keeps my social life good when the pubs and game centres are open but in regards to my fitness level, it was a bit challenging. I wanted to make a change in my life to balance my fitness and work. So, I decided to get involved in sports.
This is where human nature kicks in. We basically pick a sport or activity that yields the best result and assume that we can motivate/ push ourselves to try it out. I am not sure how many of you have done this but I have definitely done this. With “Google” help I checked all the adventurous activities like rock climbing, trekking, scuba diving (I got so interested in this that I went sideways when I was googling things), football, swimming, boxing, running, and one form of martial arts.
With all the hard research — I CHOSE running, which I would let you reap the benefits in a short timeframe. Also, I made an assumption that it will not require investment other than time.
I wanted to make a change in my life to balance my fitness and work. So, I decided to get involved in sports. I chose running.
That mindset was a bad start.
Being a white-collar boxer I was committed to giving my 100% in running. And like most other people out there, I asked Google for running ideas and tips. Even with fair warnings from athletes and running clubs emphasizing the importance of right shoes, I ignored it and used a branded costly trainers for my first week running plan from a beginner's schedule I found online.
Training plan — how much can you trust it? You need to self assess your fitness level before you can commit to an online plan or tailor it to suit your fitness style.
My training schedule was designed for people with a fair physical fitness level or above. With a decent fitness level, I tried to follow the beginner's training schedule. I never expecting running in cold weather would be that challenging and my thoughts of excelling in running went to trash. That's when it clicked that the training I took was not meant for everyone. It’s what a typical plan should look like and I had to tweak it to suit my fitness level and style. Weekly challenges and targets made me come out of my comfort zone.
When I heard about the LONDON MARATHON, I went online and made little research on how to participate and I also found that I can raise money for charity. This is what happens when you manage to hit some targets and set some personal records in running.
When I heard about the LONDON MARATHON, I went online and made little research on how to participate.
This challenging target was set for me with zero experience in running long distances. I discussed it with my colleague who had experience in running marathons. He shared his experience and that gave me a good idea of how I should approach it. Without proper training and plan my colleague ended up with Ligament pain. Which scared me.
Everything in running is important, starting from SHOE.
#SHOE: I assumed that a branded costly trainers will meet my demand and give me the edge over the others when running. Then, I went to one of the famous shoe stores where I came to know that selection of a shoe depends on the running style. I got my running style analyzed by trying different running shoes. And I realized that my tendons in the legs were over-bending when I run. My assumption of the branded costly running shoe was wrong.
I went to one famous shoe store where I came to know that selection of a shoe depends on the running style.
After trying multiple shoes from different brands I found a perfect shoe correcting my running posture and keeping my tendons in a straight line thus reducing the stress while running. The running experience was totally different. So I started developing my training schedule for the marathon. This cleared all the previous failed attempts and I started the training seriously.
#TRAINING: With a commitment, I made sure my diet and running schedule was followed to the “D” even when it was hard. Running in cold weather was a challenge but it made all the difference when I was running in hot weather. I don’t have a technical explanation for this but my experience was like that.
And then, one fine evening, I jumped over a sidewalk and I ended up with sprained leg. Because of that, I couldn’t participate in Marathon. I felt disappointed, plus my colleague who was a marathon runner advised me not to push myself and get permanent damage to the muscle.
Wonder what happened to ‘my Maraton’? Well…
I did complete ‘my Marathon’ on my own. It took me longer than I thought as my legs gave up a few times, but I did manage to do it.
To all the new runners out there, if you want to run in the marathon, make sure you are motivated enough to start the toughest journey because running is not easy as it sounds, you could hurt yourself if you are not committed.
Based on how this article reaches people I will write another article on running. Thanks for reading this — it’s my first article.
And remember this:
Commitment + Discipline + Effort = Pride
