Musings of an Experiential Runner

This is not terribly original, but: Success is the end result of overcoming Failures.    Rarely, if ever, one achieves his/ her goal in the first instance. Even if, seemingly, someone accomplishes a target at first attempt, there is a lot of hard work and preparation that has gone into it that the others don't get to see.  Achieving success is a process and inevitably one encounters disappointments and faces failures along the way. Each failure teaches you something and each disappointment that you overcome, makes you stronger. The whole game is about learning from failures and pushing away disappointments. Do that....and success is guaranteed.  Have the mental strength....failure is the biggest motivator. And quite the contrary, fear of failure is the biggest hindrance to success. Nothing comes easy in life....there are no shortcuts in life. Be fearless. As long as YOU know that you've given it your 100%, and maybe some more, then there is no shame in failure. ...

One common myth, which I have almost convinced myself in my case too, is that you can acclimatize your mind and body to do with less sleep without any negative effects. As a doctor you pride yourself about this. However, as the years roll by and you listen to your body more and analyze yourself with detachment, one reaches the conclusion that you DO need MORE/ ENOUGH sleep. That gets us to the question of how much is enough sleep. The answer is pretty straightforward, no ifs and buts: 7-9 hours a day for ages 18-64 and 7-8 hours for age 65 years and above. And why: Because it is linked to your emotional, mental and physical health, quality of life and safety. Inadequate sleep leads to irritability, poor concentration, anger and depression. Sleep is important to process new information and remember it. Sleep deficiency is linked to higher incidence of obesity, diabetes, heart disease and strokes. Not to forget lower immunity, making you more prone to infections, especially virals. Sleep...

My apologies to the civic minded and upright, law abiding citizens 🙏 This post is neither a call to arms nor an instigation to break government-mandated lockdowns in this COVID19 pandemic. Rather it is kind of a survival guide for the running junkies (and indeed the hardcore morning walkers community too) who can't do without their daily fix  🤗 .  How best to get your fix without upsetting too many people or getting hauled up by the patrolling police. Here goes: 1.            Start real early in the morning 🌃 Preferably around 5 am, before dawn. Not many neighbors are up and about (and neither your family members!), so less people to castigate you 😝 . Running or walking incognito (hopefully!) in the receding darkness of the night lessens your guilt also 😜 . After the night's patrolling, the police waalas also tend to be at the nadir of their alertness and enthusiasm. What to say of the stray canines, they too deign that ti...

My ‘E theory’ of running: It’s a pot-pourri of my realizations while running, overheard conversations and comments on social media.   E  xercise: All children run, most youngsters run, some adults run, few elders run. As life passes on we become more mechanized, more sedentary and more out of shape. At some point in life we have an almost Eureka like moment, when the need to exercise hits us. It could be a stray comment by someone about you being out of shape, it could be looking yourself in the mirror one day and not  recognising  the overweight and puffed up stranger, it could be the doctor explaining your medical condition and the need to improve your lifestyle. So you decide to exercise before life passes you by….and what simpler exercise than to run?!  Neither do you need any special skills nor do you need specialized equipment. Just a good pair of running shoes and appropriate clothing: you are set to reclaim good shape and good health. That’s how I ...

Can a runner tackle all sorts of distances, terrains and weather conditions equally well? It's a pretty common sense answer: NO. But then who said that runners have ANY SENSE, let alone common sense!!😝 I am sure all you runners out there face the same conundrum and get caught up in the vortex of achievement. Once you have done a few 5Ks, you graduate to 10Ks, then move up to half marathons and finally tick a few full (42K) ones. Now what?  Pretty soon you feel an emptiness, no more new highs?!! You look around and see some insane people doing insane things....the ULTRAS. 50K, 100K, 12 hour runs, 24 hour runs!!😳 Gives you that feeling of not doing enough/ underachieving. You get caught on the hamster wheel, unable to get off. Pride of achievement takes precedence over the Joy of running.   Pardon me, but it becomes something of a sadomasochistic thing. How much can you push yourself, how much misery can you pile up on your body, how much of a beating can your body take. ...

Following a very long/ hard run or a competitive run, convention dictates that the next day one does a recovery run. Typically it's a 30-40 minute run at a pace about 1 min/ km slower than your usual race day pace.  The theory behind it is that it flushes out the lactic acid that inevitably builds up in the muscles after an effort run, helping alleviate the pain and soreness of the muscles, preventing them from cramping up, improves your fatigue resistance/ endurance and adds to your mileage with a chance to work on your running form also.  This is what the proponents claim; though probably there is not enough scientific data to conclusively prove it. The detractors are more dismissive of this 'jogging'!!🤐 From personal experience, I agree with a part of the theory. A short recovery run of 5K or 30 minutes duration is helpful in loosening up the muscles that are stiff after an effort run. If you listen closely to your body, it also helps identify the parts that have taken ...

A s a runner it is inevitable that you will experience pain at some point of time. And I don't mean pain of the mental or emotional sorts (though that too is inevitable, but that I shall keep aside for a later post).  The pounding on trails and roads results in the legs taking a beating. So aches and pains are natural. Over the years I have had my fair share of assorted injuries, pains and the usual aches. The usual aches are generally due to muscle fatigue or overuse. They respond to adequate rest, ice packs, stretches and maybe a couple of anti-inflammatory pills. Pain could also mean some nutritional deficiency, inadequate muscle strength, injury or infection.  The pains (that are more than the usual) I have come to categorize, from a functional point, into two sets. The exact diagnosis can wait for a bit.  The first set of pains is the one that usually creeps up insidiously. Till that point you have been running well and then you start feeling this pain that can be of...