What I learned from being a runner

If you have followed my blog posted you may have noticed that I was quite active in running since 2018. In previous years, I was more interested in endurance sports like cycling and swimming, but not running. Why? Because, running was, for me, difficult, hard to enjoy (because initially there will be no rhythm) and sweats the hell lot our of me. So, in such a rare occasion, I ran and usually it was a hard one that made my feet sore for a couple of days.

Fast forward a little bit, after literally being active running for almost a year now, I believe that I have crossed the plateau and it brought me a grateful feelings of whenever I run. Because running now is my rewards for being good. I even make it be more exciting by labeling my runs: morning grateful run, evening reflective run, long-lasting endured run, and so on.

My accomplishments so far:

1. Sep 18: finished 35K solo birthday run and 20K Leg 3 Kings of The Trails (KOTT)
2. Oct 18: finished 50K MSIG trail ultra
3. Nov 18: finished 25K Leg 4 Kings of The Trals (KOTT)
4. Dec 18: finished first road marathon 42K (5 hr 40′) Standard Charter Marathon Singapore (SCMS)
5. Jan 19: finished 70K ultra trails Vietnamese Trail Marathon (VTM)

So, how did I overcome the hardship of running you may ask. Alright, I could immediately tell you a secret of mine is that I choose running as one of my identity: I am a runner and running healthy and frequent is what a runner does. It keeps me motivated; pushes me through the sore, the sweat, the fatigue, the boredom, the solitude; and helps me find gratefulness, peace, meaning, hope, and enthusiasm. Once, the identity is set with clarity, I integrate it as part of my daily routine, it means I run every day at a fixed time. Then I turn it into daily habit just like we are brushing teeth before going to bed or watching our face after waking up. It is one of the thousands of atomic habits that make up of my daily routines. Things gets more excited when I could even combine running with other spiritual activity like gratefulness, reflection, thinking of future, reminding myself of who I am and what I am standing for etc.

Just a quick summary of three step process I used :

1. Make running as one of my identity
2. Make it to be an atomic habit and integrate into my daily routine
3. Combine with other activity to get the remarkable compound benefits

In term of learning, it’s reading, doing and experiencing that give me the good perspective of the approach that best suits me. And I would suggest you do the same. Why ? Because only you could know what you are standing for and make up of in term of mental, physical or mind and body. Taking in other suggestions and opinions is great but you need to filter it, rationale it and create your own context surrounding it to make your own sense of it. I used to ask question closely related to other experience: e.g. what do you feel when you enter a race, how do you pace it, what do you used as main food through out, what do you feel and experience when you hit the low points, how do you motivate to by pass it. The answers will give me a deeper understanding of someone experiences that I could use to rationale with his training to formulate my own way of experience it in my mind. Occasionally, you could even prevent fault assumptions of those saying but never doing one.

PS: I know what I am sharing here is a bit abstract, but I would like to create a good framework of doing things for you first rather than jumping directly into the factual that I already rationale and you make not understand the process I used. It is my maxim of teaching a man how to fish rather than giving him one.

If you have read up to this point, thank you and you should be very curious on the factual tips. I promise to give you very useful tips and tricks that I learnt so far. But in this introductory post, I would like to limit to the context of being run well and healthy only. For the race preparation and racing itself, I am still learning and fine-tune my craft hence yet be able to share.

Here you go the tips of running well: strong, long and grateful:

Tips 1: focus on heart rate (HR) training run.

You can use formulate (180 – your_age – 5 (if you don’t run more than 3 times per week)) as max HR for any of your run. For example, I am 35 years old and I ran more than 3 times per week, my HR max for any run will be 145 bpm. Let say you are 30 years old and running 1-2 times per week, your HR max for any training run should be 180 – 30 – 5 = 145 bpm. One of the benefit of HR training is to strengthen and endure the heart. But the effect and benefits could only be realized gradually and slowly by months and even years of active running, therefore it demands a hips of discipline, consistency and persistence. Nevertheless, you could have the same feelings of running easy and relaxing and you could keep doing it more frequently.
The more you do, the better you feel, the better you got. Bingo! You hit a jackpot on setting up a positive loop.

There is another school of thought on this topic that you can run hard on certain pace, initially your HR will be high, but by time it will reduce as your body is getting used to the pace. After doing both, I would say that both takes time, running fast causes body long time to recover, higher risk of getting injured, and less enjoyable. So, I am totally abandon it and just focus on HR training run as it is easy, much lesser risk of injury and very enjoyable as I could see, observe and smell the surrounding. I may write a more details post on this topic in the near future.

Tip 2: You NEED to run slow because you WANT to run fast

It is related to the HR training run that I did. At first, due to cap HR max at 145, my pace is reduced from 6-7 (but HR was 160+) to 9-10 mins per km. Initially, I even sometimes have to walk to let the HR cool-down. I know that it is very frustrated while running in the park you are getting passed by uncle or auntie or even babies. I kept reminding myself and battling my own feeling about all of those: I NEED to run slow now because I WANT to run fast. It is a good metal training for my mind I would say and I start focus on the environment, my own body movement, the breath through the nose, etc. It makes my run getting more enjoying. Fast forward, after first month, I could run at pace 8-9. After 2 months, I could secure pace 7-8 comfortably. Now after doing it for a few months, I am almost running at the same pace I used to run with longer distance, less water, and less tiring.

Tip 3: Running is a good mental training and you should do it every morning

I used to be night owl whom dreaming of beautiful dawn and breathtaking sun rise. I used to wake up early often because I could do a run in the past but I was not a runner at that point. Hence, I used to only do it periodically, e.g. the longest streak was 30+ days then I stopped. Since, I am a runner, I trained myself to wake up daily at 5 am and doing a graceful run. At first, it appeared to be a battle of itself that I always ask what the f*** I am doing to myself now, the muscle and the joints is aching with morning sickness, the whole body is complaining and sweat is hell out of me. At first I calmed them down by listing to an audio book or podcast. But now, I used to run free without any phone or music in my morning run. I have trained my mind to be grateful and to enjoy the run. Still, the morning battle is going on every single day, but it’s just much less effort to pick up. And one thing I know for sure that I already win the day once I walk out of my door, wear the shoes and start running.

A disclaimer: just in case that you might think that I am all about running bullshit. Well, it is certain that I should care less on your comment about my personality as well as my hobby. Rather, I would like you to think though it for yourself and what you could do about it to improve your life, your health and make it be more healthy, lively, grateful, enjoying. For me, running is one of keystone habits that I could do daily. It serves as a strong foundation for my mind, body, attitude and spirit that make other part of my life be more meaningful. I am proud of being a father, a husband, a coder – architect – agilist, a life-long learner, and a runner.

Until we meet again, happy running, coding and living a meaningful life with hips of grateful moments. My deep thank you for reading my post.

Best regards,
Mike Nguyen