Written while sick, and missing running. Views maybe exaggerated
UC San Diego campus. Picture taken during a run.
People are amazed that I run longer than 5K. “I could never do that”, they keep telling me. “Running is hard”. “Amaze that you can keep it up”. I don’t think I am that amazing. I don’t think long distance running is that hard (compared to swimming, cycling or any other sport where you need to practice form and technique).
“You have a liver disease”, my doctor uncle informed me. I was always overweight as a child. “If you keep this up, you will develop cirrhosis”, he said. The doctor uncle was my childhood best friend’s father. He knew me since I was 5 years old. He never talked to me in such a stern voice. I felt so pathetic.
All my life, I ran away from stuff. I ran away from India, tired of the nonsense. I never chose to be born in India. I ran away from people, because I had social anxiety. I never chose to have social anxiety. I grew up bullied for the way I looked. I never chose my skin colour or my body shape. When I heard my body was failing, I felt life was so unfair. All my life, I cursed my body. I realized it was unfair for my body that too. That it was stuck with an owner like me.
I just wanted to run away from everything. So, I just decided to run (literally since I couldn’t actually run away from my life). I was at the bottom in life. But it was a promise I made to my body. I only managed to run for 5 mins. But I didn’t want to let down the only thing that had stayed with me all my life. I endured a diet of two chapatis with any homemade curry and curd. Slowly I started to lose weight. Within 3 months, I lost about 10 kg (22 pounds). My doctor uncle was shocked. “Are you ok?”, he asked.
I continued running. But I would try to run a 5k as quickly as possible. I was out of breath. I reached my limit. Or at least that’s what I thought until I met my classmate who invited me out to a run. “10K, you must be out of your mind”, I remember telling him. He wanted me to run twice as far as I usually did. I still remember the run. One acquaintance, one stranger and one physically unfit me. As they ran ahead, I didn’t want to fall behind. Others until then always left me behind. Fall back and you will be forgotten.
But these gentlemen slowed down and waited for me to catch up. Telling me to continue. “Is this why people exercise together?” That day—that day I was hooked. A 5K run is too short. It feels like a small walk in the park. A 10K feels like a journey. It’s a long journey where you pace yourself at a comfortable speed. Don’t get too excited at the start. The journey feels long ahead. Within a year of that run, I ran my first half marathon. In a span of 365 days, I went up thinking 5K was my limit to quadrupling the distance of my long runs.
Running now was a complete journey to the beach or the cliff. A journey through changing landscape and weather. For those few hours, I feel free. I can think whatever I want. I can go wherever I want. For those few hours, I don’t have to live my life. But I feel alive. A long run is a destination, then heading back home.
The starts of a run feels exciting (after 10 minutes). You’re setting out with a goal in mind, deciding what you’ll think about for the next few hours. A conversation with yourself. A new podcast episode. A new music track. Some Chinese lessons, who knows? You never know what you might see or who you might see (I often see people I haven’t seen for months during my long runs). You don’t know how the scenery will be. Will there be a fog over the ocean? Or will the sunrays glisten off the waves? Will the trees sing a peaceful melody?
Every run, no matter how many times you run the same route, you are not sure if you can complete it. Maybe you don’t have enough water or you didn’t fuel up enough. Maybe you didn’t catch enough sleep. Or the sore muscle is worse than you thought it was.
When you hit the midpoint, you reach your destination. A magnificent view. A place to rest. You rest your mind. You steel it for the way back home. You never know whether you can complete run, no matter how many times you completed the same route. Maybe you don’t have enough water? Maybe you didn’t eat enough or sleep enough the day before? Maybe the sun is too hot? There are too many variables in each new run. The way back home is the hard part. But this is the part I look forward to. When you are tired. When you don’t have energy. When you can just take the bus back. What do you do? What would I do? What kind of person am I? Do I have the strength? Will I take the next step, even if I just want to call it quits?
Lately, going on a run for me is going on a journey. To find myself in those moments. Find out why did I take that next step. Why do I keep going? But, sometimes I do call it quits and just take the bus back.
All this is a long winded way of saying, running is not hard. Go slow, take water (I didn’t when I started, much to the annoyance of my friends, who graciously shared theirs), bring a candy bar, go long to somewhere with a nice view and avoid the hot sun (Go early mornings or late evening, I prefer mornings—honestly, how do people run in the evenings?). Don’t be afraid walk some parts. Don’t run more than an hour when starting out. It is really that simple. The other things in life, the relationships, the work, the news, the monotony and the uncertainty seem way harder. If you can do all that, running should be the easy thing you do!