Stiffness, rigidity, lack of freshness, feeling bulky, fear of cholesterol levels, weight gain, mind block, expensive gym membership, attractive gear, fear of water etc are some of the reasons one considers to include running in their lifestyle.
That’s right, running as such is not an exercise, sure it starts as one but over a period of time it becomes a part of one’s lifestyle. You tend to not worry about the advantages of running when you do take a run but miss it when you don’t, this makes sense only after an addiction towards running has developed with in. I guess that’s how every addiction shapes with in us, first we see the pleasures / advantages of it and we invest in them to help us overcome physical / mental drawbacks and disabilities. Slowly these supplements which helps to bring normalcy which was missing due to certain shortcomings, increase bearability of surroundings, endure the circumstance etc. becomes a necessity on a regular basis. The situation which made one yield to supplements to natural process might not even exist anymore but the confidence this particular supplement brings in irrespective of the situation makes it a necessity to have normalcy in life.
Not doing one thing made me addicted to another thing, is the summary of what I want to express.
I had to get to my classes quite early one day, which means I had to wake up earlier than usual, go to the gym earlier than usual, do everything that you generally do a bit earlier than usual. Easy to explain, easy to understand till now isn’t it? If one of it starts a bit later or takes a bit longer to finish, eventually everything is delayed and I can’t get to my classes on time. How appropriate it would be if the class was on operation research and the topic of the day was PERT and CPM, well it was not, drama doesn’t exist in real life for moderately successful people. I did wake up early, I did get ready and was in front of the gym earlier than usual to find out about the concept of opening hours, I had to wait for 30 mins for someone to open up the gym. Normally I guess people wait and work out a bit lesser due to time constraints or cancel exercise for the day and get along with the next tasks. No, I thought “out of the box”, let’s jog for the first time in life instead of working out in the gym. 300 meters done, all the oxygen the Amazon forests can produce in a day was consumed by me. 500 meters, I thought I had a heart attack not because of just running long distance but also dint know from where I would get my next supply of oxygen, after the oxygen from Amazon had been already consumed in my first 300 meters. Well, it was 20 years ago and I guess we still had a few trees and they all got together to supply enough oxygen for me to complete my extra long run of 1 KM in a terrain flat enough to make a pond out of the Congo.
Well we all know what normal people do, if their first experience of something is bad enough to be categorised as life threatening then they do it again !! Isn’t that right ? I’m a normal person, I wanted to jog again. Ran a KM the next day, 1 KM the next day again, went on for 10 days and stopped. The day felt like 24 hours, night was another 24, 2 slices of bread was heavier than a large pizza, coffee tasted like cough syrup, tea tasted like boiled water (that still does), I felt heavy, weak, dull, wanted to sleep, depression had set on. 48 hours later as per my biological clock, 24 hours later as per Casio, I was on the road again running my 1 KM long distance running. This went on for couple of days and instead of going 500 meters and returning the same distance, one day I thought why not go 1 KM and walk back, well I ran back, same the next day and so on. Now I graduated school. 10 days later took a break again to see if depression sets in, yes it did. Got back on the road for 2 more days and then 3 KMs one way and plan was to walk back the other 3, no I couldn’t walk, I ran back the 3. I’m now Officially an undergrad, 6KM every day. By the way, going to the gym was more like socialising and used it as a platform to advocate running. Full blown addict and a peddler too.
In India, it’s next to impossible to run on the busy streets once it gets busy. Really! If you don’t finish your run by 7 in the morning, you are sure to be run over. In the Country which ruled India once, it’s not the case, they have footpaths with space for wind and air. I could run in the UK at 6 in the evening if I wanted and not bump into people or breathe in pure carbon (mind you VW was not forced to alter their cars yet, so their emission was just destroying the glaciers and not human lives directly). What would a drug addict do if no one was watching and the substance got cheaper? Same thing happened to me, I started running 6 KMs twice a day.
Well, there is something called career, friends, life beyond running etc. possibilities to maintain them became tougher day by day whilst running 2 times a day. I had to make time for working late, going out with friends, so decided to run just once in the mornings but for 10 KMs instead of 12 in 2 intervals. Wow, got my daily dose of substance, people don’t treat me as a social recluse, things seem to have found a balance. This is how I came to be what I’m today, not a day goes by without a 10K. Yes a day goes by with out a 10 K but, with out me in it.