Miles to go before I sleep...

Before I start writing my first blog, I have to confess that I have been planning to do this for over a year now. Now that I have finally mustered all the courage to get this rolling, there is almost a year-long backlog of running experiences that I have to share. I kept wondering for a while as to where to start and then decided to start from where it all actually started.

Jan 2014: It was another usual day in the office for me and I was interviewing a candidate for a strategy consulting role. Towards the end of the interview, I asked the candidate about his hobbies and he passionately talked about running half-marathons. That was the first time I heard about something called half-marathon, which is equivalent to running a stretch of 21.1 km. I found it intriguing to know that humans just like me are capable of running that much. I was pretty certain that even with an all-out effort I wouldn’t be able to run more than 5 km. That same night I decided to run and actually test my physical limits. I was disappointed to discover that I had grossly over-estimated my physical ability – I managed a little less than 2 km.

My dismal performance in that inconsequential late night run did inflict some ego wounds. I kept brooding over it for a few days hoping that the feeling would slowly fade away into the log of junk files in my unconscious memory. However, that was not to be – the more I thought about it, the more I wanted to do something about it. In the hope to resurrect my crushed ego, I gave myself a target to run a half marathon within the next 12 months. A rubbish target if you ask me now – rubbish, as it was purely based on my petty ego and whimsical idiosyncrasies.

Whatever it was – it was what it was and that was it. What followed was a period of fairly disciplined and highly unfocused training.

Disciplined - because there were no half measures. I made sure that I stepped out to run / jog every day without exception.  Often times it meant running on Gurgaon roads well past mid-night. There were times when stray dogs chased me, there were times when security guards checked on me, there were also times when the odd passer-by would just stare at the watch and discard it as another instance of Sardar gone crazy at the magical hour!

Unfocused - because there was no method to the madness. All I did was run, run some more and then run just a little more.

Thanks to the discipline, I did achieve a steep improvement in my mileage in the first few months. I quickly reached a stage where I was able to jog around 14 – 15 km. However, given the lack of focus in my training, I couldn’t continue improving for long. By the end of fourth month, I had hit a plateau and was just not able to improve my mileage any further. Every time I tried to run long distance I had to stop at around 15 km mark – for reasons such as fatigue, cramps, heavy breath etc. I soon realized that there was something fundamental missing in my training – the next task at hand for me was to identify that missing element.

Anyone who has ever taken exams such as JEE or CAT at some point in their academic career would tell you that when these people face a problem (especially a problem involving some measurable indicator), they start thinking of variables, equations and that kind of crap. I was no exception - I had a problem at hand and the problem was to maximize my mileage (i.e. kms I can run). So, on another fateful night, I sat with a piece of paper and a pen and started thinking about ways to improve my mileage (i.e. km or meters that I can run). I vividly recalled how as a kid, my algebra professor used to say that multiplying a given number by some other number in both numerator and denominator doesn’t change its value. I never thought that I would think about that seemingly futile algebra point in real life. However, I was wrong – that same learning was about to give me a ‘Eureka’ moment. After a little bit of editing and iteration, I had the following equation on the paper:

The equation looked simple, but it was powerful. It immediately told me that I could improve my mileage by improving on three aspects:

I immediately knew that the way I was training had absolutely no element of strength training and that was probably the reason for cramps and fatigue. This simple analysis gave my training a new direction and I now knew that to become a better runner, I had to improve three things:

• Flexibility
• Cardio strength
• Endurance level

…and that was it! This simple yet powerful message is what I want to leave my running friends with (especially those who have taken to running recently) – please don’t overlook the importance of endurance (or strength training)! This is critical if you want to keep improving and enjoying this simple yet addictive sport for years to come.
What followed was another six months of disciplined and this time focused training. On 12^thOct 2014, I successfully ran my first half marathon (in 1:47:03). By the time I won the Rookie runner of the year (2014) award in Jan 2015, I knew that all those late night runs and whimsical idiosyncrasies were completely worth it.

...what is more, I had found the true passion that I really enjoy and care for - Running!