What I learned about myself, growth, and leadership from running

I never was fun of running. And going back to school times, I never liked it, neither was good at it. My perception was that it is boring activity. Till 2007... I spent a weekend with my friends in Poznan in October 2007. My colleagues planned to run a marathon on Sunday. I was planning to support them. In a middle of Saturday, somebody told me there would be an additional race on 10km distance, before a marathon would start. I don’t remember how, but my running friends convinced me to register for and to run a 10K instead of just waiting for them. I bought pair of running shoes, and showed up at star line next day. Excited and stressed by unknown, I did it.  Six weeks later I finished my 1st half-marathon. And this is how my running journey has started. 

I use running as one of possible ways to recharge my internal batteries, to clear my mind, to get some creative ideas. On top of keeping my body fit and my mind refreshed, I learned a lot from running about myself, and about personal growth. I had thought that running was about legs' power and body fit for years. Since I started to run, I discovered that character traits such as perseverance and ability to focus on a goal are much more important than strong legs.  And running through 3 basis lessons learned help me discover how to make some of my bigger dreams, not related to running, come true.

Lesson #1: Know your goal

I can go for a 30 minutes jogging, or I can prepare myself for a marathon. For few minutes of jogging I do not need special preparation. I can take my shoes on and start running. If I want to finish a marathon (which is 42 km), I need to be well prepared for it.

Not only in running, definition of a goal is a first prerequisite for success. If we do not know what is our goal it is hard to measure progress and success rate. The bigger goal is, the more persistence, efforts and preparation are required. And the bigger potential growth at the same time could be expected, no matter of the final outcome at the finish line. A big goal requires more dedication, and commitment. And what is the most important, it requires time. I discovered this through a preparation to my first marathon, and then first my 100km.

Asking myself: “so what is your goal Karolina, for this month, this quarter, this year?” and providing answers started to be one of my habits. Not only for my sports hobbies, but in life.

Lesson #2: Be ambitions, but realistic

There is nothing wrong in being ambitions and putting bold goals for our self, but it is good to make those goals realistic in terms of our own capabilities and resources. When I decided to run my first 10 k run in Poznan, I wasn’t sure if I would finish it. I wanted to survive it only. No any other expectations. When I signed up for 1sthalf marathon, I wanted to reach out a finish line with a smile. The goal was very simple: to verify if I can keep running for 21K, no matter how slow or how fast. It got me 1 year of running to decide that I want to improve my performance on certain distances like: 10K and 21K. I knew at that moment that I could run and finish such distances easily. Instead of extending a distance, of doing something new, I wanted to improve my scores. I knew that it would require different preparation from my site. And after that decision, I had expectations on my running pace, and final results. 

I challenged myself step by step increasing distance first, then pace within a distance. I observed myself, my body, and my mind during training. Being aware about my capabilities, limits, and skills level was a key to improve them. And I remember my first 100km race, in which I managed to run only 67km btw, and admitted upfront of myself that I was not prepared good enough for such distance. I learned that more important is to stay alive than to finish a race at every price.

Realistic goals are what we need. I can dream of finishing marathon in 2 hours, or winning UMTB race, or other such unreachable objectives. Those aims are just completely out of sight - they are unrealistic to that level that I can have a perfectly enjoyable life without them anyway. With being realistic we are focusing on how we can make the goal come true in our life.

If we are uncertain about the specifics of our goal, our capabilities, or our means of measuring progress, where will this leave us? We may need to give ourself the time to grow and develop first (which can be a realistic goal in itself) before marching onto the real and longer term goal. 

Lesson #3: No shortcuts

There are no shortcuts to make big dreams come true. Enrolling for a marathon race and paying a registration fee would not make any of us a marathon finisher. Adult person can finish 5k run without any preparation. All you need is to have pair of healthy legs, and then keep moving them and breathing. But you would not consider to stand up on a marathon’ start line just having healthy legs. When I signed for my first marathon I never run such distance before, and never walked it. I learned from other runners that I needed to slowly increase a distance I can run, overall body endurance, strengths of my legs and even my nutrition habits. I didn’t know how my body would react on such distance. There were less and less unknowns as I progressed with preparation. But 42k distance, and legends around it, made me mobilized that no matter what was the weather outside, I went running minimum three times per week, and made minimum 40-50 km per week. I heard that about 30% of first time marathoners didn’t finish a race, and that regular trainings were critical to be ready to survive ~4hours (in my case;-) ) experience of enormous effort. Thinking about final outcome, a goal, kept me motivated.

And the same applies in life, it has been always much more beneficial for me to choose the right path instead of easy one. 

Value in a journey 

Big dreams, ambitious goals – they are challenging, they do not look easy at the beginning. But they are source of excitement too. Persistence, dedication, determination and making right priorities on daily basis - all of them help with a journey towards big dreams. And this journey is something which stretch our limits step by step, and turn impossible into possible.

Surprising for myself, very first thought after crossing a finish line in my first marathon was “I cannot believe – I did it” and few seconds later “ …  when and where I can run a next marathon?”. The value, for me, is in a journey, not in finishing a race. Development happens on a journey while we are focusing on our goals. And a finish line is just one of many milestones.

Ps. 

I discovered one additional thing about myself during my running adventure. No matter how much I like running, where especially long distance running which is rather solo sport, I’ve got much more positive emotions and fulfilment from relay races, when a team of people starts together, runs together and has fun together. Team spirit from joint participation in a race is priceless. The best memories are from those runs.