Readiness….The Importance of Registration

I have registered for SCMM 2015- I am READY to Train!

Ran 8k today.

With my music

Late, as sanjana had exams.

A breezy non stop hill run.

I ran through familiar neighbourhood. Places I have grown up in. Passed my parents house, my school, and PDP where I have wasted many –a-evening during my college days.

The music was perfect. Although the ipod was on shuffle, it still picked out my favourite songs. All perfect for a rainy day- some romantic Kishore Kumar, one by One Direction(Sanjana’s playlist – obviously) and also a head banging type rock song, from Arnav’s. I sprinted down the last hill- with “Tonight’s gonna be a good night”, with my arms spread out, flying against the breeze and then sprinted home. But I didn’t want to stop!!!! I wanted to run forever……..

Today, it was a morning of Epiphany( a.k.a Eureka moment).

Sanjana read an article yesterday from the Mint lounge newspaper. She tells me, mom….this is the kind of stuff you write. Why don’t you send them your blogs and get them published?? Ahem……good question. Amused by her admiration, the idea that was floating around in my head for the longest time, grounded itself. On the run, this thought germinated , the remaining pieces of the puzzle fell into place and I found myself ready to put the book together.

This Readiness, is the biggest motivation for anything that we want to accomplish.

This is the readiness I had felt when I completed my SCMM half marathon in 2010 and told Savio that I would run the full marathon the next year. And I did.

This is the Readiness I had last year, in June, when I stepped my training to achieve my PB for SCMM 2014.

Readiness implies a degree of concentration and eagerness. We do our best when we are physically, mentally and emotionally ready to learn, to apply and to push. We need to have a clear objective, a strong purpose and a definite reason to overcome all the difficulties which we would encounter along the way.

The effort to keep at it, day after day as per schedule is paramount. Each practice makes us stronger as we move closer toward the goal. Once the effort is regular, we see the effect of this. This in turn has an emotional effect. It is a satisfying feeling to see progress. And this is directly proportional to motivation.

Each lesson need not be entirely successful. We don’t need to master anything in the first shot. All lessons are small steps towards the ultimate goal. While making the effort we may encounter feelings of defeat, frustration and exhaustion. This only makes us stronger. They condition our brain and can be channelized in a positive way. It depends entirely on us to extract what we think we have gained from each session. This is the positivity which we will require on Race Day. This is what lays the foundation for the last 10 k- when the race really begins! When the mind gives up, we have to dig deep and bring out these strong, unshakeable memories. All this hard work will give us the confidence we require on the D-Day.

Along with my running, I have spent all of last year reading classics by John_Milton. The recurrent theme for most of his early works is his anticaption of doing something BIG in his life. He writes for 25 years- poetry, prose, sonnets, essays, waiting for the BIG IDEA. And at age 59 he writes the world’s greatest epic poem- Paradise Lost.

To dispel any  thought…….i am nowhere close to Milton in ANY way.

To draw a parallel- we all itch to do something big, but we embark on that road only when we are ready.

Ready to commit.

When the time comes and the stars align.

These are all words of the old and the wise. All making sense to me now…..now that I have matured enough to understand. They have now become a reality of my life………

Nike is the Goddess of Victory. Her siblings are: Kratos(Strength), Bia (Force) and Zealous(Zeal).

All these are qualities we need to conquer ourselves physically and mentally.

As I begin my journey, I hope to be guided by unknown forces along the way. May the music of their song bring joy to all our hearts.

“At last he rose, and twitched his mantle blue,

Tomorrow to fresh woods and pastures new.”…………………………..John Milton

(These are the last 2 lines of a poem- Lycidas, by John Milton. here he says- that  has dusted his hands, put his cape over his shoulder and is done with writing the small poem. he is ready to move onto bigger things, a new phase in his career.)