It was a little more than a year ago, in a school reunion, that I committed to ride/run a total of 2000 KM in 2016. In this year, not only did I meet the commitment of 2000 KM, but doubled it to a total of 4040 KM. There is a lot I learnt in this year with all the cycling and running. This blog is an attempt to share my learnings.
It has been an amazing year in which I learnt to truly connect with myself. I learnt that with persistent practice and encouragement I can do what I did not think was possible. I learnt that even though I was never an athlete, I can still do things that are usually attributed to athletes. I learnt that for my own sanity I need the music (I sing Carnatic music) and I need the high that I get with a run or a bike ride.
It all started with getting a fitbit surge around the same time last year. I needed a device that could track my activities with GPS so that they can be uploaded to Strava. Connecting to Strava was one of the most important things that pushed me to keep going. It is an amazing community of athletes. I really like the ability to compare against my previous performance to make myself better. The "cups" I kept getting on strava for my rides and runs made me want to get better and better. The competitions with fellow athletes is also a fun thing.
My longest ride as a teenager was from Varanasi to Saranath. That was a big achievement at that time. It is a mere 19 KM when I look at it now. That ride used to take all morning to complete. Now I can finish a 19km ride well within an hour. In the beginning of this year, I started with regular afternoon rides. A 25km ride was a stretch and felt like an achievement.
I had to really push to complete 25 Km in reasonable time. I had not imagined that I would go on to do much more than that. Now I am able to do the same ride as weekday morning warm up ride. A climb that took me 4 minutes and 39 seconds on the first ride, with me stopping and starting and not being able ride the climb in one stretch, now takes me 2 minutes and 4 seconds. My ability has grown so much that, I can now go for a morning 100km ride through green fields, enjoy it and then spend the rest of the day in singing and in music classes. I have been able to complete a 200 BRM and 4 day bike tour as well in this year.
A year ago I ran a 5K and was really happy to be able to run a 5K in 40 minutes. That 5K in 40 minutes was very hard with a lot of huffing and puffing. Now a 5K in 40 minutes doesn't get my heart rate to anything higher than zone 2 on strava. I had run the Hyderabad 10K run many years ago and attempted other 10K runs after that. Each time I had to stop due to knee pains. Many times I had to walk and finish the 10K with severe knee pain. I ran the Chennai marathon (42.2 km) recently and not once did I have to stop due to knee pain. Of course there was pain in many leg muscles but that is what I call as bearable sweet pain.
So what happened? The most important thing that happened is commitment and determination to get better and better. The second most important thing was that I managed to find the right set of friends and coaches to help me. A coach who helped me with my running form, a yoga teacher who helped me understand all the muscles in my leg and how I should stretch them and strengthen them and a friend who gave me a structured systematic plan to follow as I trained for the Chennai marathon. I also couldn't have done it without my training partner (my husband). The other important thing was that, with all the biking I had done, my leg muscles became strong enough for me to be able to run.
I always wanted to run. Running felt like freedom. Running was like meditation. I wanted to cycle long distances too. Cycling gave more freedom to explore new roads. While enjoying the running and cycling in this last year, I did not imagine that I would learn so much and also that it would help my mind and body so much.
Here are some of the observations and what made this whole experience possible:
It couldn't have happened without me really wanted to do this. I had always wanted to run a marathon and cycle long distance from deep within. This deep want helped me keep my commitment to the practices. The regular practices helped me get better and better.
In the beginning of the year, I was thinking that 5+ hours of running would be really boring. I thought I would need to listen to music to keep myself occupied. But when riding solo or running solo, I really connected with myself. This in turn made me like the whole experience. As I enjoyed it I wanted do it more and more. I was able to run many hours with no music at all.
I wondered how I was going to make time for this. Does something else have to give, in order to create time for this? On an average I was spending an hour a day. In the short term, it did take a whole day away from family time, when I was doing my 200 BRM. I did miss many weeks of music practice as I was traveling for the marathon and training for it. But in the long run it actually helped in multiple ways. Hence taking that time was really worth it.
Injuries do happen. The most important thing through those times is that I did not give up. I had a cleat fall in the duathlon. Still ran for a week after it with hurting muscles. When the pain was really bad and I consulted a physiotherapist, he advised no running for a minimum of a week. That was a disappointment since I could not stick to the running plan. But it was good in a way. I could do the 200 BRM instead :). The cycling not only strengthened the other muscles, it also helped increase my endurance. I was initially not planning to do the 200 BRM at all so that I could stick to the running schedule. But then the injury happened and I had my first Brevet experience.
Listening to myself and doing what was needed to be mentally ready really helped me. Given multiple injuries which led me to miss a couple of weeks of the runs as per training plan, I was not physically or mentally ready for the Chennai marathon on the original date. It being postponed gave me more time to prepare for it. I was able to do a 35 KM training run and that really made me believe that I can do the full marathon.
Apart from these there were some real benefits to my mind, body and my family:
The main benefit was to my emotional health. The connection with self, the positive hormones and the clear head that the exercising gave me, helped me to be a much calmer person. I was able to be more mindful. The running rhythm and cycling climbs were working like meditation as I had to focus on the breath. My emotions changed to be lot more balanced and I now naturally have a constant awareness of my state of mind.
It helped me connect with myself more and that helped with my singing. It has helped me understand time in music much better. It has helped my breath control and am able to sing for longer in a single breath.
It has helped my family bond together since we could do the cycling together. My husband and older son completed the Olympic Duathlon as well while my younger son did the mini duathlon. My husband also ran the Chennai marathon and my older son was riding much better than us in the bike tour. He completed the Strava Festive 500 challenge while I completed the Festive 50 challenge. We are all tracking our miles on strava and liking the challenges in it.
In summary, recommendation is that anyone can do it. All it requires persistent planned practice and commitment. The benefits are so amazing that I recommend that everyone should engage themselves in active physical exercise that pushes their limits.
Acknowledgements
The cycling part, couldn't have happened without the constant encouragement and support from everyone at The Bike Affair and other fellow riders who regularly joined the TBA rides. After 1000 KM of riding I graduated myself from a hybrid to a road bike. The level of support from TBA enabled me to focus and give my best to the riding knowing that the expert technicians there can always figure out and fix whatever the problem was.
