First of all I want to start this piece of post with saying I am not an athlete or fitness enthusiast but I like the idea of it. I am just a regular person who feels fat at times and just do 30 minutes of workout occasionally and hopes the next day I look freaking toned (or even see that I am 1kg down on my scale). Why I am giving a disclaimer is because often we see the wins of others on social media and as audience we feel motivated but we also feel like they are the stars we should be like. We all have our own journey and we post mostly our wins on social media thats because imagine posting your failures and reminding yourself that, it will never encourage your to run the high miles.
Ok, lets get to topic now. I started running seriously in February. I used to run before but as I said, it was like if I felt fat. The reason I started running was, I got tired of focusing on weight loss. I am not like heavily overweight but I am not thin either. I like a slim and slender body and I don’t have that. I lost 5kg doing intermittent fasting for 3 months last year but I couldn’t keep up. So this year I decided that ok, lets forget about weight loss. I figured I feel good as long as I did some physical activity and I feel the active muscles, the aftermath of working out gives me the pump I need to feel good about myself. So I kinda enjoy the aftermath of running or even strength training. But I needed a goal that is easily measurable. Like I can see on my phone ( I don’t want it to be the weighing scale, gives me headache). I decided that ok i’ll start running slowly and try to reach a 10Km overtime. And thats how I got started!
During my initial runs I used to run for around 2 – 2.5K minimum and if I ran more, it was a progress. i started posting on tiktok, to keep myself motivated. Guess what! there is so much motivation! Like just after posting my stats for a few runs, people were encouraging me, giving me tips, thought me on ‘Zone 1, Zone 2…..’. I never knew there is so much strategy and science behind running! First I learned about heart rate. Trust me, I used to think running aimlessly with 170-180 BPM was NORMAL! that is NOT normal. I have a habit of directly thinking that if I start something I want to start with the tough settings ( this is my weakness btw ). When people started advising me and commenting on my tiktok on my run stats, I researched on the facts about it and I changed my running style to run slowly. I even set an alarm to my heartrate limit on my apple watch, setting it to beep if I cross 150bpm.
For the first month I ran with my sketchers. I love walking with my sketchers but I realised after a few runs that my heels were hurting, I took advice from tiktok, and thanks to them I bought a new pair of running shoes which feels great and elevated my running experience. Another important thing to do is stretches before running. I do basic leg stretches and arms and body stretches to get me started. I feel that it helps by loosening up the joints in my body and I don’t feel so stiff.
I did not care about the way I should fuel my body during my runs. But after some suggested tiktoks and doing my own research, I realised that fuelling with carbs on the running day and taking an electrolyte drink/ water mixed with juice even during the run helps me keep going during my runs. I don’t listen to music or anything during my runs, that is my preference.
So far, my longest run was 8.75Km! My pace is still slow but I did finish that long of a run which was impossible for me to think about when I started out. And hold on.. my minimum run is not 2.5 Km anymore! 5Km run feels easy now! How is that possible? I have no clue! I guess showing up and improving and improvising is the key?
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