Changing with the time
HOW RUNNING MADE ME A BETTER HUMAN
I'm a slender 5"11 male and I took up running, what happened next was unexpeted.
Growing up in the Caribbean, certain things were sort of a right of passage. Among these things were learning how to swim, how to effortlessly pick fruits (Yeah, I know right), play cricket and yes RUN. I made the junior track and field team in primary school and ran every event there was at sports day, for I, Rashade was a pleaser. I quickly found out that distance was my strong point when I came second in all my sprints and at the end of the day tired and worn out I still pulled in at first place in the 800 meter run. Fasforward half a decade and you'll find an out of shape, still slender, 20 year old living in a new upscale community with two of his equally youthful and unfit friends. The Millsborough plains and Mountain spring hills were popular among running groups in Kingston Jamaica so we were quickly exposed to the get-fit culture. One day after realizing that my days mostly consisted of lying on my chest watching 90210 and Gossip Girl on Netflix I decided -in a haunted state- that I needed a hobby. So, as nature would have it I gathered my green and black Adidda gear and took up road running. The rest was an unexpected turn into higher enlightenment that I could never have imagined. Here are the three unusual things I learnt from 3 months of rigorous exercise, buckets of sweat and sore muscles.
ONE That life is way more than hills and valleys.
Many philosophers and eat, pray lovers will enlighten you with talks of the ying and yang of the world. How life is a series of ups and downs, hills and valleys and the works. Well I'm here to tell you that its so much more. Running for 30 minutes every evening up and down hilly residential roads are not just about the physical up and down of the plain. try telling my legs that. In life you will in fact see good and bad days, but preparing for them both is the key to successfully living and growing through these fluctuating times in our lives. I learnt a nice little tip in running to exhale whenever my lead leg hits the floor, what that does is alleviate the stress from my muscles with the rapid intake of oxygen to lessen contracts, sprains and after aches. Same for general life, whenever your falling down into your 'vallies' don't brace yourself too much, breathe, fill your life with 'oxygen'... you'll be ok real soon.
TWO How growing up is so ok
After a month of getting back into shape and trimming down my time on the 5k from 30mins to 25mins, I simply became too fast for my friends. My longest and best friends couldn't keep up with me anymore both on the road and in real life. My career had taken off and so had my speed up, down and through Millsborough, Kingston. I felt remorseful in the beginning because these were the people with whom I grew up with and I was afraid that if I left them behind I would never find anyone else like them. The ending to this was not that I would lose my friends. That was not what was at stake, I was, me and my personal growth. I had to learn very quickly that finishing the race/run was an obligation I had to myself. Whether or not my friends decide to power through and finish as well is not my cross to bear. So I stood in the sun and allowed my flower to bloom, I'm happy my friends soon followed suit.
THREE That its ok to go slow, just don't stop
Not to lead on that I was just so good at road running. I -like any other human being- had bad days. There were times I literally felt like my life was ending. No volume of upbeat pop music flowing from my earbuds could encourage me to fight on. What made me a star distant runner back in the day were my tenacity and, well, my smarts. I knew when to go slow and when to power to the finish. On my runs I had to begin pacing myself, I would go slowly but I would never stop. In life, it will get super hard but you have to honor the things you've accomplished thus far by continuing to fight on and succeed. Go slow, don't stop!
