Prathima's Miles & Milestones

A Half Marathon can be daunting & challenging but it can be accomplished. It’s the joy of running which we sign up for.

Running is a mental game rather than physical

The most challenging part of training for my half marathon took place mentally. I convinced myself that I was capable of doing it.

So every day that I trained I told myself :

“Today I will be running ___ 13k (W1), 15k (W2), 17k(W3) and I will not stop until I get there.”

Preparing myself mentally beforehand allowed me to have a realistic & tangible goal and run towards it (no pun intended).

So when race day came I told myself again that I would finish the race in close to 2.5 hours.

I had literally never run so far in my life! 21 kms of adrenaline ran through my body.

2. Your Practice is your Prayer

When you start something and see results it’s hard to stop. So by starting you are creating momentum that will help you get to your next goal and your next and so on.

The double breathing technique has helped me a lot & calmed me down. Initially, I used to get overwhelmed when I see my friends passing over me. I then used to think of Tortoise & the Hare story & recited — ”Slow & steady wins the race”.

During my race, I would tell myself

“One more km and you will be half way done… one more km and you will be more than half way done… One more km and then all you need is six more”

After a while, my body got so used to the pace and the motion that it was hard to stop once I crossed the finished line. The inertia of motion — Newton’s first law! All I did was let the momentum carry me one km at a time.

3. Plan it with your Coach or a mentor

It is perfectly okay if you are disappointed with your performance & skips a day or two in your routine. Learn from your mistake and make sure to have a proper training plan in place. I gave myself 6 weeks to train, stuck to the plan, and got results.

Prepare for a race-day strategy from your training plan results.

Here’s the race strategy breakdown —

1. First chunk | Five kms — You don’t win the race in the first five kms. Do not get into the adrenaline as it can mess you up. Taking it easy is the goal. Being patient as there’s a lot more to go is the key here.
2. Second chunk | Ten kms— This is the biggest chunk of the race. Finding the pace to settle in here is the goal. This is the experience you signed up for. Music or no music, enjoy the race here to sustain the ten kms.
3. The third chunk |Six kms— Prepare for the struggle. They are just going to hurt. They will be painful & hence be mentally prepared for it. The best advice is to hang on to it. Be surprised if it doesn’t hurt. You signed up for it, you trained for this with all your heart. And, you’ll be done with it soon & get the runner’s high.

4. You’re never going to be ready

Most of the time impulse decisions aren’t the best idea but they can be at times.

Overthinking is a real problem that too many of us are prone to so sometimes being impulsive is actually a good thing. If I would have waited until I was more “conditioned “or the “right” race & “pace” came along then I’m not sure I would have run it.

We need to get over our analysis paralysis and just do! We tend to underestimate ourselves.

So go ahead just sign up for that half marathon! Or go for the full! Start your own business plan. Start writing on medium. Start. Start. Start.

As I said, you’re never going to be fully ready. The only way you will feel ready is with experience and you can’t get experience if you don’t actually do the thing you’re trying to get experience in.