It was sometime in October that I decided to run a total of 100 miles before my birthday on Christmas Eve. At the time my decision was just a way of getting back into the routine of running and averaged to about a little less than 1.25 miles each day.
There were a lot of things going on in October, including performing on stage twice which also required stage practice on each occasion, Navratri (9 day festival to celebrate goddess of Power and I fast for 8 of the 9 days), Diwali, Mum- Dad’s return from Seattle and a few other things. All the busy-ness boiled down to a whooping single digit, 2 miles total run for the October month.
November was a little less busy but hectic nonetheless. After Mum-Dad left for India, our friends from Colorado visited us for a few days, after that I seriously started the running ritual. I ran as often as the juggle called life permitted and just added 35+ miles to my record.
Before I go on with my saga, this chart will explain how challenges motivate and me and while it was a hard target to meet, I managed to beat it by a day.
When December rolled in and I was still 60+ miles away from my goal, a part of my brain felt that I can probably not make it and automatically assigned a few extra days by increasing the deadline to New Year’s Eve. Here’s where the fascinating facet of human nature shines through and I have yet to fully understand it but there was another part of my brain that took it as a challenge and refused to accept any excuses. I think it was this particular part of the brain that helped me finish my 5K early in May as I said in this post: Thankful for you, my body
I love challenges and it was amazing to see two parts of my brain fighting against each other. Actually only one was fighting; the other just extended the deadline and lay passive. I told a few people about my goal and also mention it here on my blog but there was no one that would care to remember it let alone hold me accountable, so slipping was easy. My passive brain kept telling me that it’s okay to take a little extra time as long as you get to your target that what matters in the end anyways. And against the gentlest persuasion of my passive brain, my body ran and ran.
Most runs were acceptable and mostly ran to the beat of 'podrunner podcast' but there were some awfully slow on extremely tired days and my ears pressed against the distraction of an Audio book or eyes peeled to bollywood movie, I kept on marching and to the end I have come. I am proud of myself for taking on the challenge and meeting it too… I managed a few slow 10Ks which is my goal for next year but it was good to get a head start on it this year and I can now improve upon my speed as the New Year rolls in.
Happy and Content…
There were a lot of things going on in October, including performing on stage twice which also required stage practice on each occasion, Navratri (9 day festival to celebrate goddess of Power and I fast for 8 of the 9 days), Diwali, Mum- Dad’s return from Seattle and a few other things. All the busy-ness boiled down to a whooping single digit, 2 miles total run for the October month.
November was a little less busy but hectic nonetheless. After Mum-Dad left for India, our friends from Colorado visited us for a few days, after that I seriously started the running ritual. I ran as often as the juggle called life permitted and just added 35+ miles to my record.
Before I go on with my saga, this chart will explain how challenges motivate and me and while it was a hard target to meet, I managed to beat it by a day.
When December rolled in and I was still 60+ miles away from my goal, a part of my brain felt that I can probably not make it and automatically assigned a few extra days by increasing the deadline to New Year’s Eve. Here’s where the fascinating facet of human nature shines through and I have yet to fully understand it but there was another part of my brain that took it as a challenge and refused to accept any excuses. I think it was this particular part of the brain that helped me finish my 5K early in May as I said in this post: Thankful for you, my body
I love challenges and it was amazing to see two parts of my brain fighting against each other. Actually only one was fighting; the other just extended the deadline and lay passive. I told a few people about my goal and also mention it here on my blog but there was no one that would care to remember it let alone hold me accountable, so slipping was easy. My passive brain kept telling me that it’s okay to take a little extra time as long as you get to your target that what matters in the end anyways. And against the gentlest persuasion of my passive brain, my body ran and ran.
Most runs were acceptable and mostly ran to the beat of 'podrunner podcast' but there were some awfully slow on extremely tired days and my ears pressed against the distraction of an Audio book or eyes peeled to bollywood movie, I kept on marching and to the end I have come. I am proud of myself for taking on the challenge and meeting it too… I managed a few slow 10Ks which is my goal for next year but it was good to get a head start on it this year and I can now improve upon my speed as the New Year rolls in.
Happy and Content…
Awesome! Congratulations Shalini! I am planning to use this idea and yourself as inspiration to run next year.
ReplyDeleteSounds good Suchi, let me know if you plan to run the Susan G Komen on Mothers' Day. It would be wonderful if we can do it together....
ReplyDelete