Edition 11
For a change, this week, I have included a write-up by Saurabh Nanda, my friend and batchmate from Lucknow and now my trainee about his journey to a sub-2 hr half marathon.
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Last Saturday, on 12th Sept, I ran a Half Marathon in 1:59:54 (Strava)* and survived to write about it.
For a lot of people, the above will be an eyeball rolling statement. For me, it is an eyebrow raising achievement!! 16 weeks prior, around end May I was hard pressed to run 6-7 Kms and would not have put too much faith in me actually doing this run. And yet, I did.
Running a Full Marathon, or at the very least a Sub 2 Hr half marathon has been a bucket list item for me, and this year, with life going on a pause, I decided to actually do something about it. The 1st logical step being always to have a chat with someone who knows about the stuff, in this case my batchmate Dharmendra who I knew was into coaching aspiring middle aged runners. I signed up with him on an impulsive whim, not sure what to expect. The resulting 16 weeks have been interesting to say the least. I will not get into the details of the training piece, rather just touch upon some of the varied thoughts that stuck with me during the process
The mind as a limitation in itself: Through out the training, I have especially loathed the interval runs (those 3 mins fast, then slow kinda sets). Once I miscalculated the number of sets I was supposed to do and did more than required. The fact that I did quite surprised me - having always felt that the ask was always outside the limit of my capability. That day it struck me that once my mind fixes on a number, it actually acts as a barrier, preventing from me doing more. The body is capable, it is the mind which is the constraint. I had of course heard of this in various forums, but actually experiencing it was quite an a-ha moment for me...
A change to a new lifestyle: I did not jump into a marathon training with any intention of permanently changing my lifestyle. The idea was always to stick with the regimen for the required duration and then go back to my old lifestyle. Now I can't imagine doing that. I wake up feeling energetic now, I sleep very well and the diet feels right. Somewhere along the way, running a marathon has changed from being the goal, to being a byproduct of a new goal - that of leading a healthier lifestyle.
Being mindful of what I eat: One of Dhammo's asks was to lose almost 10% of my body weight in these 16 weeks, amounting to ~7.6 Kgs. I had been quite clear this was an impossible ask, given that I have never gone below 72 Kgs in memory. And yet, here I am, having lost 8 Kgs, without having had to resort to any diet or go hungry. Simple principles of being mindful of my eating habits had a cumulative effect. Here I would recommend the book Atomic Habits as a very helpful guide to changing habits. Understanding my habits and working around them had an impact - For e.g. I tend to snack absentmindedly when I am on calls, so we moved all snacks from the table to inside the cupboard out of sight. Another great help was tracking what I ate - It brought home how much I tended to eat throughout the day. Some other things like giving up on sugar in my coffee was difficult at first, but over time has become a preference - the power of habits.
Becoming a detached observer: An off-shoot from the previous point on being mindful, one of the things I got to practice in being mindful was to observe my "hunger pangs" more carefully to understand was it actually hunger or more of a craving. Often I observed it was the latter, and being detached helped control my tendency to give in. This was an ability that translated benefits across areas - even when pushing myself in pace targets, I would dispassionately observe my leg muscles working hard, and even though they would be burning towards the end, I could keep going. This was important for me. Slowly building up the ability to dispassionately observe the self is something that helps - from observing your hunger to your emotions, being detached gives you the ability to choose your reactions, and ultimately give a better control over your own life.
I am probably somewhere in the middle of my initial goal of running a marathon. Running beyond 21 Kms is unexplored territory for me. While I am looking forward to ticking off this item at least from my bucket list, I am even more curious of what changes will I observe in my physical & mental self during the journey over the next 16 weeks.
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*Nanda mentions Strava as another app logged it as 2:00:52 and elapsed time on Strava also exceeds 2 hrs as he faithfully recorded even the ~30sec spent waiting in queue to get into Cubbon, etc. So run time was just under 2 hrs