One of my wishlists for this year is to run more! So to start with, I registered for a half marathon category in the Ooredoo Marathon, January 12, 2018. It’s an annual run for a cause event here in Doha Qatar. So I did some self training and with the help of the club I joined with, the Doha Bay Running Club (DBRC), it was a one and a half month’s struggle. As the date was fast approaching, I suffered several injuries. On the first week of December, I got sprained on my right ankle. So, I rested for 3 days from running. On the second week, I got flu after the long distance misty morning run. Third week, I stumbled somewhere down the road and got serious bruise on my left knee. There were times that I even asked myself why am I allowing myself to suffer like this? I can stop and give up anytime. But hey! I am a stubborn aspiring runner and my willpower supersedes all negative vibes that came.
After the debates of mind over body, I finally reached my time-frame. For the last week before the actual race, I did some tapering. So I minimized my distance runs from 10K to 5K distance. Since the deadline of submission of office reports was on that week also, it helped me relaxed my feet from running. While doing it, I watched inspiring runners on videos and read some tips on how to make marathons to finish line. But the night before the race, I got this feeling of mixed nervousness and excitement! And the final day arrived!
It was a feeling of super duper accomplishment! Now I’ve realized that anything is possible if you put your hundred percent effort on it. I was not born to be a runner but I am proud to call myself a runner now. Willpower and strong determination will always bring out the best in you. As a first timer, I set my PR to hit the finish line between 1:30 to 1:45 mins, only to challenge myself. But to be honest, during my training runs, it was about between 1:45 to 2:00 hours to finish it. The power of mind setting is really powerful!
After finishing 10 miles, I started to feel heavy. I can’t even feel my feet anymore. I could feel cramps in every part of my body specially y calves. I looked around and could see other runners I think feeling the same. Oh no! negative energies pulling me back!
So to push it through, I let my mind and heart did the run that moment. I played some mantras like it is always ok to go slowly but surely, don’t stop and just keep moving! I had trained for this so I should finish this! Consistency and body posture! This happens only once so keep moving! And there we go! For about a mile to finish line, I took a deep breathe, checked my posture, gathered remaining energy that I had, did the sprint and voila!
This was really an awesome experienced for me because as you can see, I ran with the Elite runners from well known countries invited by the local tourism.
This was my second run after the 10K I had two months ago. Looking forward for more runs. It is very hard to understand in the beginning that the whole idea is not to beat other runners. Eventually, you will learn that the competition is against the little voice inside you that wants to quit. Running helps me retract my derailed life. It’s not yet too late to dream…I will go and catch it, no matter what, no matter where. In God’s guidance, I know I can!
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