The Journey To 2500 kms in 2023...

Last week, I wrote about my running 2500 km in 2023 and was both surprised and humbled by the response I received on the same.

Many friends, well-wishers and some complete strangers sent me DM asking me broadly the following three things -

1. Why do I run and that too so many Kms in one year?

2. How did I go about getting to that 2500 km mark in one year?

3. How do you keep afloat and be on track with your goals when life does happen?

Here is my attempt to answer each of the above Qs with complete honesty ?? -

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1. ‘Why do you run’ is a question I often get asked at home by my mom almost every alternate day and my response is the same every single time – ?? ?????? ?????????????? ?? ???????? ???? !

There is absolutely no other reason for the same – I definitely don’t run –

• Because someone has asked / advised me to
• To hit a particular milestone
• To complete a particular event and get it’s medal
• To remain fit – I have my own fitness regime to do that and don’t necessarily need to run so much for that

I run because probably for the first time in my life I am doing something which requires no external validation, has no tangible rewards and it’s outcomes are defined only by me – and trust me, that is extremely liberating.

2. As mentioned in my last week’s post, running 2500 km in a year was pretty straightforward mathematically – run a little over 200 kms every motnh, which translates to running a little more than 50 kms every week. I know more than a handful of people in my connections over here at Linkedin itself who have done this (& more) many times over!

For me it was a stretch simply because I had never run that kind of mileage before but that part was easy to overcome because of what I mentioned in point 1 above – I was going to attempt doing it simply because I just wanted to and therefore there was no pressure to perform or a fear of failure !

Having said that, one does need to put together a plan in order to achieve something which you have never done before and so did I –

• Ensured that I started the year with 200 km mileage in January. I had no template to do it except that I will just go out and run as much as I can (without injuring myself) till I reach the 200 km mark – ???? ???? ?????????????????? ???? ?????????? ???????? ???? ?? ?????????????? ???? ?????????????????????? ?????????????????????? !
• The fact that I could get to 200+ km in January meant that I could take a shot at doing the same in February and March as well, which is what I did and by the time I had completed first three months of the year achieving my monthly targets, I had both the template and the confidence to do so in rest of the 9 months as well – ???????????????? ???? ?????????????????? ???? ?????????? ?????? ???? ???????????????????? ?????????????????? ???????? ???? ???????? ???? ???????? ?????????????? ???? ?????????????? ?????????????????? ?????????????????????? !

• Now that I had the template to get to my monthly targets, I ensured that I kept going above and beyond my monthly targets every single time I could, this ensured that I had enough buffers with me when I was hit by injuries and bad health – ????’?? ?????????????????? ???? ???????? ?????? ?????????? ?????? ???????????? !

3. Keeping afloat to stay on track with your goals when life happens is nothing but a mindset game – I know, it is pretty cliché for me to say this but I did create my own hacks to play the game –

• Made going for my run an absolutely non-negotiable part of my day, which was not difficult to do given what I mentioned in point 1 above – I run because I want to and therefore, the only time I missed going for a run was when my health did not allow me to. For every other scenario, I figured out a solution to step out for a run. Example – (i) if I was on a business trip / vacation, first thing I did after reaching a new place was to find out a place to run through google search / staff at hotel / colleagues.

• (ii) If I had an early morning flight to catch, retired early the previous night in order to go for my run late in the night before heading to the airport (had many 2am runs in the process )

• Created milestones to go after during the times when life happened and ensured that those milestones were both aspirational and exciting for me – signing up for my first marathon and first ultra-marathon were examples of such milestones for me, I had no plans to do either of these events but signed up for them to get out of the inertia induced due to health and injury – ????????????’?? ?????????? ?????? ???? ???????????? ???????? ?????????? ???????????? ???????? ?????????? !

• They say, every run, once completed, is a great run and therefore, I celebrated every single run of mine as a ‘win’. I had many ways of celebrating this ‘win’ – clicking a post run selfie or treating myself to my favourite dessert after the run or (my favourite) visualizing Meher cheering for me at the finish line

I will close out this post by posing a question to everyone who has read it this far – when was the last time you picked up something to do, which had no linkage to that entrance exam, job, promotion, increment, bonus, family responsibility, image, reputation etc. and yet you did it because you just wanted to? And if you haven’t done so (like I dint till a couple of years back), I would strongly recommend you to find something and give it a shot with all your might – you will be surprised at how rewarding and satisfying it would be for you !

???????? ?????? ???????????? – ???? ?????? ???????? ????????????????? ???? ???????? ????? ????? ?????????????????? ???? ??????? ?????? ???? ?????????? ???????????????? ?????? ?????????????? ????????, ?????????????? - ?????????????? ???? ????? ???????????? ???? ????? ????????? ???????????????????? ???????? ???????????? ??????? ???? ???????? ??????????????????? ???????? ???????????????????? ?????? ?????? ????