Running and Rudiments

I have been wanting to write about my running, but I kept feeling like I wasn’t running enough to write about it. Like I needed to clock in some more serious miles, before my words could mean enough.
Then today’s run set me free from the mini-whirlpool of thoughts sucking all my peace of mind.
I can only speculate what it is about running that does that. The feeling of the solid ground passing beneath my feet, the release of endorphins, the focusing on breathing or the acute awareness of form that I have been working at developing. I just know that every run brings me back to base, reminds me of who I am and the direction in which I want to head. Its also restores faith in my body’s ability.
And the biggest thing I have derived from all the running, is to be Fearless.
It is the only way to be.

Cannot form the right sentences to express just what I need to say, but as songs do some times, this has come to my rescue.
I have come to believe, that true freedom lies in deriving happiness from within, and begins with actually being at peace with yourself, loving who you are and working with that to move towards who you want to be.
Finding that balance between being confident while attempting to be objective about your flaws.

I am so grateful to the people in my life who still believe in me. Coach comes through to give you exactly what you need when you least expect it, and without asking for it.I hope I find a way to thank him some day.

See, c’est la vie
Maybe something’s wrong with me
But, at least I am free.

From a place of Strength

If you come from a strong place, you have the tools to keep things simple, and find constructive solutions to the problems of circumstance and opinion.

Un-clutter your ear for what your intuition says, and you will be able to tell when you are doing something that your principles agree with, when you are making excuses, when you need to push yourself that one extra mile, and when a break wont hurt at all. But to be able to really tune in to it, you will want to get rid of all those outside opinions and judgments that bother you and stick like Velcro to your self-esteem.

Don’t victimize yourself, stop wallowing in self pity. The hard truth is, that it doesn’t move things along, just intensifies the inertia. If you want out of the problem, the only person who can get you out, is, well, you know. At the end of it if you’re stuck, unhappy, disappointed, unsuccessful or not where you want to end up, you may have a valid reason, you may have someone other than yourself to blame. But its still you, where you don’t want to be. 

You have to find the solution. Happiness, or success or whatever works for you, comes usually from hard work, perseverance, and a whole lot from your ability to get up every time you fall. Mental strength is defined by not giving up when things seem insurmountable. Another one of those marathon analogies that recurs in my mind like a misbehaved alarm clock, is that while it matters how consistent your efforts are in your running, what really gives you the edge is how well you recover.

Let go of all those limits that you think you have, find some new ones and then push them. Don’t cage yourself, yourself.

 

 

Or, you could just be a cat and sleep. All day. 🙂 🙂

 

 

 

 

Call it Magic

Sometimes the days are roller coaster rides.

The movie I live in, is technicolor, with an oscillating background score and a whole bunch of volatile emotions flung about like pages torn from picture magazines, stuck on a large yellow wall, dotted with rough illustrations in ink, filled with mad things people say. And a desk.

Inevitable, that a bookshelf should extend from the floor to the ceiling. Sitting next to the large window with the wood chimes and the billowing white cotton curtain with golden elephants stamped all over.

Inevitable, that a cat should be curled up in the cushy corner that I want to occupy.

Inevitable for Ayn Rand to continue to recur in that corner of my field of vision.

The framed Beatles poster isn’t quite straight. There is a Bob Marley one too, hiding behind the door.
The pieces of the jigsaw puzzle lie scattered near my blue-yellow running shoes.

Ah, daydreams.

Surviving from run to run, waiting for the time to lace up and struggle every step up that hill repeat run, complaining about form and pace, building castles for the marathon coming up.

I’m just happy I’m running, that i can feel the wind in my hair, that I can feel my muscles complain about a rising mileage, that sweat dripping into my eyes is a sensation I can look forward to.

The memory of the profound simplicity of field life keeps piping up like an intelligent and obstinate child.
When did wanderlust find me and trap my soul? I cant remember.

I leave you with Coldplay playing Magic. The music floats in the air like ringlets of smoke or bubbles with a dot of rainbow, created from watered down shampoo and a pen without a refill.

running away with Running

Every morning I fight with myself, wrestle with my inertia, shun all the plausible logic that my slothful brain hurls at me, simply in an effort to get out of bed. Its still dark outside, the grandparents tea isn’t ready for me to steal a sip from yet, and I swear every reason I can think of is right there for me NOT to go for that run. Experience has taught me to put on my shoes despite everything. Everyone in the house has express instructions to push me out of the house and close the door behind me. Everyday I walk to the starting point feeling apprehensive, wondering if I’ll disappoint myself today. I find myself trying to gauge what my knees are feeling like, gingerly feeling for rubbery legs, mentally preparing myself for possibly just an okay-but-not-outstanding-run, scared that it will disappoint me into not repeating the routine tomorrow.

I can tell you, at the end of NO run have i ever regretted those lost minutes of sleep, that pre-wakefulness scuffle with myself.

With every meter that I run, things begin to fall into perspective, the sweat seems to wash out some cobwebs, and an internal dialogue begins to give me a sense of control over battles that I can pick.

Outside of my mind, I am gasping for breath, grimacing, trying to correct my posture, breathe from my diaphragm, struggling to make the next step fall well. Inside, the jigsaw begins to put itself in order.

Coach says when I run faster, push myself towards my potential, out of my comfort pace, the flaws in my form fall away. That the downward slope, the easier run is the time to introspect, straighten out your form, the upward slope is what tests it.

To me, that sounds astoundingly like an analogy to things in general.

I’m no ace athlete training for the next big marathon. I just run, because at age five my father began dragging me out with him on his circuit, ignoring my cranky complaints about aching ears, teaching me to breathe in rhythm BEFORE i fell short of breath. At some point I forgot to complain and became addicted to the endorphin release.

I’m still struggling to get out of bed every morning. Sometimes, I manage to convince myself that my excuse for not planting my feet on the road was valid. But every time I tell myself, it wont be valid tomorrow.

When everything else is difficult, the easiest thing to do is tighten your laces and be grateful that you can run. That you remember how to push yourself.

Keep running.

(next time will be less heavy on the sentiments, I promise!)

Of Inspiration and Inspiration

There is no greater high than being back on the running track. 

I’m fatter, older and slower. My muscles’ amnesia is painfully(literally) evident, my feet are just about clearing the ground, my knees pipe up complaining alternately, and sometimes together, and barely discernible inclines make me feel like killing myself. To say nothing of, my form is ALL wrong.

And I’m not running with music. So, there’s no Black Eyed Peas Phunking With My Heart, no cliche Eye of the Tiger helping with the remote possibility of a second wind. I do have this really cool bunch of people clapping when i finally finish the run they completed about fifteen minutes before me.

Despite it all, I do finish the run, and the rest of the day I feel like the cat’s whiskers. I also don’t feel killing myself over a piece of chocolate cake that I’m going to have no matter what (yolo!). Nothing compares to a post-run euphoria, and its as addictive a habit as working in the field. Every painful step in front of the other feels like I’m squishing out all the stubborn laziness, pooling in abundance inside me, like toothpaste from an almost empty tube. Akin to Sunday confession, and kriya, and meditation, for me.

Having committed myself to at least a good six months of slavery to books I don’t like reading, and expensive twelve hour classes I wont like attending, I constantly find myself trying to take 10 steps back to retain the memory of the big picture that I’m trying to achieve. Next year, this time, if I’m getting myself butchered in a post-graduate program, I will consider myself lucky. 

Stop scoffing, contemporaries, I’m not trying to cast myself as the solitary warrior, here. Consider this a collective sigh, a small wail sent up on OUR behalf. 

This is not an unusual situation for an Indian Medical Graduate to be in. Its also an unfortunate situation for them, us, to be in. In the current generation, I have come across a subset of these bright, motivated, clinically oriented, and this is a difficult combination to find already, but patriotic doctors, who recognize the crying need for medical care in  many parts of the country and want to do something about it. In order to actually be able to achieve something constructive in that vein, very quickly the requirement of having a post graduate degree for a host of reasons becomes evident. Giving those incredibly competitive and remorselessly memory reliant exams, is so difficult for this subset, because they happen to be concept-oriented people, not learn-by-rote people. 

Its not easy to get a residency abroad. It requires hard work, a lot of time, and a big dollop of luck. But its concept based, predominantly.

So, these kids want to stay in the country, but desperately want to bypass the Indian entrance exams.

Its a tad worse for the female subset (dont boo, boys) because a section of the family seems to have devoted a part of their lives reminding them about various Important Things: their incessantly ticking biological clocks (ALREADY you’re going to be an elderly primigravida), the necessity of getting married (you’ll feel lonely and regret not getting married when you’re old and are suffering from arthritis and/or dementia or you just want to talk about the book you’re reading), the grandparents desire to see them married and preferably witness irritating great grand babies running around the house While They Are Still, you know, alive (how do you argue with that?).

See, if you want to have babies, its all good, more power to you. But if one wants to travel around, mess up a few times in general, discover and re-discover what clinical medicine means, and get selfish pleasure out of sticking IV lines in the middle of a forest, then prioritization is a persistent knot in ones stomach that insists on prompt resolution.

At some point, hopefully, we all reach a crossroad, take the road less travelled, and reach the same damned crossroad again a year or two later, if a little wiser the second time around. By that time one is compelled and/or motivated to choose said path. So all thats left really, is the actual doing. 

If i think about the future, things begin to look daunting, and the tunnel threatens to become darker and cloudier. Like a stuck record, my brain starts flashing a shady-motel neon sign that says things like ‘Baby-steps!’. Interchangeable with “One freakin day at a time!”.

And of course, my favourite, “Carpe that (expletive of choice) Diem!” 

(side note: if you see a post MBBS person hanging around with a morose/blank expression, showing symptoms edging towards zombie-like behaviour, the drug of choice is an encouraging smile. You can gauge boundary issues and (always) after oral consent, move in for a hug, as supportive therapy. )

To explain the point of the title, though titles should be self explanatory, is to take a deep breath and to literally look for inspiration in everything around you. Yes, its preachy, but it really is aiding survival here.