This is a story of how I was able to run in an official 10k running event after a month of practice and proper planning.

I have loved running since my childhood. I used to be the guy who did not get tired even after playing for the whole day.

I soon realized that I can run for a longer period of time than other people in my group (I don’t know it gives you a good feeling when you can do something better than others. That makes you unique in a way) and which made me to think that I should run a marathon some day.

Slowly over time the dream was always there but with other things it never got executed. I was always busy with other things. I tried to run a few times for some weeks in all these years but it always ended after some time.

One fine day last month I finally decided that no more of this. If you don’t put effort in, you can never realize your dream.

So the first thing that I decided was to set a small achievable goal in a month or two.

Setting the goal:
The goal I set for me was to run a 10k

Setting a time frame:
Next thing was to plan on how to achieve this in a time frame.

I decided to search for an event in the coming month and that would be my deadline date. I found an event for 12th June and that became the deadline 🏁.

I haven’t ran in a month or so and was able to run a maximum of 3 km, when I last ran. So I started with that and created a base plan- The number was a combination of data / km

I started from 10th may / 3km and thought it would gradually increase to 10km.

The plan was ready and the goal was set but still there were some things that were holding me back to start, which let me to the pain points

Identify the pain 😣 points

I identified all of the pain points and resolved them one by one:

1. Waking up and starting to run is way way easier when you have a running partner. This way you know that there is something/someone that has a reliance on you and if you don’t come then it would not feel good. I didn’t have that yet.

My solution: Find a community where you tell your goal and show them daily progress. This way you will feel motivated to go the next day.

I found a community called bonkers club and joined it. I also had a fitness club in ColoredCow where I can post my daily progress.
This way if you miss someday there will always be people to motivate you or ask out of curiosity which helps you move back to the goal.


2. Even if you have the community, running alone was really hard for me, especially coming back after running. Half an hour of complete silence and thinking random thoughts.

My solution: I decided to buy earpods. I have heard somewhere that good music 🎵 helps in relaxing your mind. It really helped and it kind of felt good while running.

3. The shoes were not comfortable in the hilly terrain.
My solution: This was an easy one 🙂. I bought good running shoes

Now all the pain points were fixed and then I started the daily routine and stuck to it. There were times when I deviated from the plan but since the goal and deadline was in mind and with the community support and I was able to rally back

I believe that by following these steps you can achieve anything in your life:

1. Create a small achievable goal from your dream
2. Set a timeline to achieve that
3. Create a plan
4. Identify and resolve the pain points

Well after reading the points above I am realizing that this is what most books say. I was able to finally run a 10k and it was a good feeling to getting closer to my dream.

Last but not the least part (to the folks who are thinking of starting running)

A question that many people have asked me since I started running. What are the changes that you find in your day to day life after starting running?

I always thought about it for a while and have no definite answer to convince someone for running. Even I didn’t know how it made me better.

So I started searching on the internet to find the benefits of running. I will list them here so even I remember what benefits I am getting (these are all research based and may not be true in every case)

Better cardio health: Lower your risk of cardiovascular disease. Lowers your resting heart rate. Haven’t really checked this so can’t comment on this but I believe this would help in the future for me.

Better sleep: This I can definitely vouch for. I used to sleep at 2am earlier but now even if I try I can’t wake up after 10pm. And the sleep is really good which makes the rest of the day better.

Improved knee and back health: Not sure about this but hoping this is the case.

Improved memory: Not sure about this as well.

Fewer colds: This I can definitely say. Earlier I used to have cold almost every 6 months

Better mood and energy: Energy not sure but the mood is always better.