Life lesson from Running

After 20-years running experience

Runnig is a big part of my life like Taichan to JD, Muetai to Dana or golf to BK.

But in past I was not good at running. When I was a teenager I was one of those who is in last for 100 meters sprint, and yet I did like long-distance run. When we had a boom to make a sports club in high school, which is probably due to stress from too much study, I made a jogging club with the other two friends and we called it "joggers". I was not so serious about running yet back then. It was simply for fun.

Joing a military service was a turning point actually. To go out of army base during weekends, I should pass physical test like push-up, sit-up and 2-mile run. Seeing a girl friend is a best motivation for everything, isn't it? That said, I started to enjoy running per se. I had set my own goal like 5 km run, and then 10 km and half-marathon and in the end full course marathon. Since then I have run until now as a more casual runner. Here is my lesson learn from 20 years running experience.

Preparation

Like any other sports you need to prepare properly for a long time to reach your goal. When it comes to running, there is no short path and so there is no other way but running at least 5-6 times a week to prepare a long-distance running. This is because running time record is proportional to your effort time. The more effort you put in, the better result you can get. The more pratice you have, the more fun you have while running. If you don't prepare properly for a competition, you shouln't expect any good results.

Strategy

But even if you prepare well enough, you could be screwed up if you don't have a good strategy while running. You might say why we need such a strategy for running. Can we simply run as fast as you can? Surprisingly enough, running more than 5km requires strategical thinking to get better scores such as how fast I need to run at the moment, when to save my energy and when is good time to speed up. Otherwise you migh over- or under-pace during the race, and your time record is not as good as it is supposed to be. You should constantly listen to your body and change your strategy accordingly to beat yourself.

Companion

I should admit that it is such a painful process to run 6 days a week for more than 1 hours and make a plan to squeeze your running time in your daily life. I chouldn't have done it if I have done it on my own. As I said earlier, there was a club in high school to run together and in military service there was a friend of mine who also likes to run (you know there is a crazy person out there). After a couple of years of running, I have also invited my father to run together and we still often run together sometimes. One reason to participate in running event is to run together in a group, which give you different feeling I cannot express properly. You should try it. It is sincerely true when it comes to running : The more the merrier.

Flow

The best part of running is "Flow" which means "a state in which people are so involved in an activity that nothing else seems to matter, from a book called "Flow (in Korean "몰입의 즐거움"). In other words, it is a concep describing those moments when you are completly absorbed in a challenging but doable task. When you start running, your body starts to complain also and your mind is with stream of many thoughts about work, friends and family. But when you reach your limit after 5 km for example, you don't have any energy to think others but concentrate on yourself. That is the moment you are in Flow completely and in that state, you can forget about everything. Whenever I need to make an important decision, I go for run to clear my thought and then the situation is becoming much clearer.

That is all the lesson I have so far and I will keep running to learn how to live better. Why don't you prepare yourself with good companion and make a good life strategy based on "flow"?