It’s been a year and a half since I “actually” started running. And by “actually” I mean, by choice and quite regularly. Now, it’s been a bit irregular lately, but still, whenever I start I don’t have trouble. And I like to start again. I need it. Before, even when I would start, it was never fun. So, how did the change come about? Let me take you through my journey of running.

First thing you need to know, feelings are all psychological (deep stuff, right there). Hating to run is no different. Why would you hate running and not sleeping? Consider this, what if you slept and felt sore every morning? Would you like sleeping? You’d change your sleeping posture or the mattress, that affects your posture, right?

The same thing goes for running. If you don’t run right, it causes all kinds of trouble for your body, which makes you hate and not continue running. So the first advice I got was improve your form. A colleague, who’d been running for a while shared some of his insights. He pointed me to Good form running. It takes a while to get it right. But once you do, running is all different. It feels good and haves you going back to it. Everything from there on out is just about consistency and improving your capacity with practice.

My next step, actually start running, consistently. I found out that I had horrible stamina. That’s when I was introduced to C25K – app. This is one of the apps, and you can choose any one you like. I happen to like this one. They are a set of apps that are designed to get you from the Couch to 5K. And this was perfect for me, coz that’s exactly what I was doing, starting from the couch. I have been using the app ever since. It’s been great and keeps me motivated with just the right amount of running that pushes my limits just enough every time.

It was all well and fine , until…Yeah it’s the same until. I found myself breaking off around the 4th week. When I started again, I would go back a week, because I’d lost my stamina to continue. Another break and I’d have to start all over again. This happened a few times with vacations and winter and stuff. So I changed my plans.

See, whenever I started from square one, it was easier than before. So, I started off running faster than the last time (Most apps have tracking to help). And I’ve been trying to extend my strength limits lately instead of stamina. You can choose either. The ultimate stage is essentially to run fast and long, right? 🙂

Well, that’s my story. There’s a more elaborate article over at Lifehacker that motived me to write this.

-Akshar Rawal