Breaking my wall!

November 2019; I was mighty pissed at .. myself. I was going to be in my mid 40s and having escaped active exercising and sports in all my school (that prioritized merit lists over sports) and college years in pursuit of academics, I was sorely out of shape. Walking a mile was a chore that had me huffing and puffing. And it wasnt that I was doing fantastic at academics either. I was (and am still) doing research that was important along with; teaching graduate students and mentoring undergraduates and others. Apparently, I was good at mentoring and teaching. However, there was this sense of not having control over my life in general that was bothering me immensely. That's when I decided to do something that I had never done before. Something that I was probably going to fail at but at least would give me a sense of accomplished failure. Of course, this idea didn’t just sprout up, I saw people around me that were doing something similar to cope with their own struggles with health. Another thing, I can’t run, just simply can’t.  I dont know why; but I can walk; I can walk on and on..

So I started walking 5K every weekend that progressed to a 5K everyday with a 10K hike on the weekends. I first kept this up for a week, then two and a month. I started 2020 doing this every week even when I was travelling, at an airport or was out of town. And I noticed an immediate change, no matter how my day went (good/ bad), I always slept peacefully knowing that I had at least accomplished one thing as per schedule. 

Even among all the vagaries and uncertainties that COVID brought to our lives, this 5K everyday became my motto and was instrumental in getting things accomplished. Fast forward 9 months, our local Athens community hosts a 5K / half marathon. Obviously, COVID had thrown in spanner in a real race but the organizers decided to do a virtual marathon. Despite some initial reluctance, I signed up for a half marathon to be completed by the end of October, time and place of your choosing; the only condition being that it needed to be done in one shot. 

I bugged my cousin @Ashish Bakre ( a full marathoner himself) for pointers and he came through with excellent pointers, even drawing up a walkathon schedule for me. Thanks, Ashish!

And thus on October 23rd, 2020, I began my half marathon. I choose the local Sandy Creek Park Lakeside trail, equipped with energy bars, water, orangeade and a walking stick. Reached the venue, parked my car and set off. 

The Lakeside trail in Sandy Creek park runs along a man-made reservoir (Lake Chapman). A roundtrip from and to the pointer is 7.5 miles so my plan was to complete this full trip, then go back halfway and then come to origin again to get my 13.1 miles (7.5+~6 miles= 13.5) and complete the target.

So here I was at the starting of the Sandy Creek LakeSide trail and I was doing very well for the first 4 or so miles; just a little bit tired but the good kind of tired. It was not exhausting yet. Moved on and finished the 7.5 mile stretch easily. Now I had two options, as highlighted in the figure above, I could keep going circles around B ( a flat terrain) where I would be easily accessible to 911 if the need arose but also easier and more likely to cause me to give up because I would have a way out. The second option was to hightail back half way across the lakeside trail (red line) and then return to the end point (blue line). This terrain is up and down and though I was only walking, it burns bridges because it is not readily accessible to emergency services. In the end, I ended up choosing the difficult path A for two reasons 1. Foolish bravado 2. I knew that I may give up on the easier path B if I had an alternative. So here I am, after finishing the 7.5 miles going back to the mid-point of the trail to complete my 10 miles and my legs and waist are now reminding me that they exist. I start having a sharp shooting pain in my waist every 100 feet. I decided to slow it down and rest intermittently before continuing; however I was only able to go back about 2/3rds of the return segment. I turned around and started walking back towards the end zone. Contrary to the ~2hrs it took me to finish the first 7.5 mile segment, the last 6 miles took me about 4 hrs. 

In the words of my friend Mangesh, himself an avid marathoner, I had hit my wall. The wall is this point in your endeavour that you begin to question your decision to do this and begins a cascade of self doubt. However opting for the second option had left me with no option but to reach the end. It made me question my life choices, I berated myself for making this choice and yet because I was in the middle of nowhere and it would be embarrassing to need rescue on such a trivial matter. So I continued and did finish my 13.1 miles, thoroughly exhausted and tired. When my spouse came to pick me up and was encouraging me to finish another 0.5 miles, my response was “ I am done”.

When I uploaded my data later to the organizer’s website, I learnt that I was the last in my age group. And though that was not what I wanted, I was still proud of the fact that I did finish.

So will I do this again? You bet I will, I have planned to take on a bigger challenge. I will write about that when I have accomplished it.

And what have I learnt in this whole time frame from November 2019 to October 2020? Four important lessons.

1. Many people are eager to help you achieve what you want to achieve; however you have to identify these mentors and seek their help. I got fantastic guidance from Ashish Bakre, my cousin who is a marathoner himself.
2. I identified my mental walls/ barriers and was able to cross over those walls. We make our mental boundaries; I had never imagined that I would be doing a 5K everyday let alone a half marathon; but I achieved both consistently for a year and did finish a half marathon. So let your mental blocks not stop you from trying. Persevere in your trying. When you hit your walls, remind yourself that >80% of people will never even realize that they have a wall let alone break and move past it. So when you see your wall staring you in the face, be happy that you now can count yourself in the 20% who know where their wall exists and that they can break it.
3. You should always have new targets . A static target breeds complacency. Till the time, I had not achieved my half marathon, I was always unsure if I would be able to do it or not and that kept me motivated. When I crossed this half marathon target, I too became a little relaxed, getting off my routine for a while before I needed to set a new challenge for myself. As others have said, the best snipers dont aim for the targets, they aim beyond them.
4. Guard your attitude like life depends on it. Why ? Because it does. People around you are going to be supportive / non-supportive of what you are trying to achieve. If you start caring of what other people think, it is slippery slope down. My own struggle was to guard myself from naysayers around me but more importantly my own internal doubts. It is critical to keep the motivation going. No need to impress anyone else. One good way to do this is to NOT talk about this with anyone. I had many temptations to tell my peers that I was doing this or had accomplished it; I delayed it however to deny myself that short term rush that comes from social appraisal; one of the reasons I am posting this after many months.

So can you learn anything from this ? Believe in yourself; try to identify your mental walls and definitely try to break them. It doesn't matter if you fail once; try again and walk on!