Saumya's MindfulRunning

People who push themselves physically are much calmer when it comes to life stresses because they have trained to be with discomfort. Long-distance runners, cyclists, triathletes, mountain climbers and endurance athletes in general can teach us a lot about how to deal with the current situation. The pandemic feels like a marathon and marathon’s require patience. Initially COVID-19 felt like running an 800 m sprint but now it feels like a marathon or more likely an ultra-marathon. Unlike endurance athletes, who choose to participate in prolonged and grueling events, we did not sign up for COVID-19. Yet there is so much we can learn from their experience on how to move through extended periods of discomfort.  Patience, Pacing, Process  and  Purpose  are four important aspects guiding successful endurance athletes.  Patience “If you are kind to yourself, most of the time you’ll get through the dark spot in a better mood and without wasting precious energy ruminating”  Rebecca Rusch - seve

“Ability may get you to the top, but it takes character to keep you there.”  John Wooden (American Basketball player & coach) Sports teaches us life lessons might sound cliché but, in some cases, this cliché holds true. What makes Super Champions? Sabrina Ionescu is the most dominant basketball player. She is a world record holder for triple doubles for men and women  (A triple-double is achieved when a player records a double-digit total in three of the following categories: points, total rebounds, assists, steals, and blocks) She was born to immigrant parents and has a twin brother. She honed her early competitiveness from the psychological drive to beat her brother. They competed in everything – chores, racing, who can get in bed first etc. There was a natural inclination and push towards competing and that didn’t come from parenting. This is an example of a study called “Talent needs Trauma” which indicates that there needs to be some sort of challenge to showcase your talent a

  How do you encourage new runners? How do you convince them to take that first step out of the door? It’s not easy but hundreds and thousands of people have taken that first step, otherwise we would not see as many as 30,000 (and upwards) runners participating in marathons. That first step is the hardest and the next few steps over the next few days and weeks can be tough too. Motivation is something you can’t buy on the Internet, encourage people to run. Most important, encourage them to start. Part of what makes running so great are the conversations (or runversations) that you have during it. If one couldn’t talk for the vast majority of their training, running wouldn’t be as much fun. So, when a novice says it’s tough, they need to slow down to converse. Exercising hard will feel hard. We relate the feeling of exhaustion and sweat as signs of a good workout. Want to lose weight? Increase fitness? Run a faster kilometer? Lift heavy weights? Train hard. No pain, no gain. But as a ru

Running a kilometer nonstop for the first time can provide you with your first Runner’s High. Running that kilometer progressively faster can keep you going or you can increase the distance you can cover continuously to 2 kms, 3kms or more. Even though you don’t consider yourself a competitive runner (and most runners probably do not compete), you might want to pick a goal for yourself and then train to reach it from “tabula rasa” to mastering it. Unfortunately, while in the process of achieving the goal which could at times be overambitious, many runners succumb to  injuries which sometimes force them into periods of lessened training. This could be due to: - peer pressure - not able to body sense and understand the needs of your body or  - simply excitement There are times when we must modify activities to recover for good times to come. Philosophers and physiologists might argue over whether these periods of injury and recovery represent low and high points in our lives. Sometimes w

In running language, there is a term called ‘Interval Training’ which was Gerschler’s baby in the 1930’s. He discovered that they could accomplish more in a given stretch if they broke it down into discrete chunks of running, followed by brief breaks. For instance, you’ll run faster and with better form if you run hard for a certain distance followed by rest and repeating the exercise multiple times where the effort for the first interval is the same as the last interval. Gerschler used this style of training to guide multiple runners and this eventually spread to every other sport and is very popular among runners today. You can apply this to any field be it sports, music, arts, chess or a regular 9-5 job.  Ericsson popularized the 10,000 hours rule stating that you can learn any skill if practiced for 10,000 hours however these hours were completely undisturbed with short breaks – which is similar to ‘Interval Training’ as described earlier. Regardless of the industry, repeating cycl