Try to be your own best instead of someone else’s.

A guy was running on the pavement in an athletic robe. He seemed like a marathon runner. There was a grace in his running movement. When he was running, it seems like an effortless glide instead of a run. His pace would be almost double than mine. Next day again he would come for the run and finish with a nice pace strongly. Daily I will think I should talk to him and get some tips on running. But there wasn’t enough of the push to go to him and talk about running.

I had also started on my running sessions recently, like a month or so back. Everyday i go to this creek side  pathway where joggers and oldies would come for a morning stroll.  I’ve been keeping up with running schedule for the past month regularly.

Today I pulled myself together and run along with that guy and greeted him ‘Hi’. He responded back with warmth. We continued running along, after 25 minutes he stopped and I stopped along. I asked him, so how long you have been running. He said, “its been quite long”, with a smile. You can say half a decade. I frowned. So you must have ran many marathons. He nodded in agreement. I said, “wow”, with an excitement.

Then he asked me, how long you have been running. I said its 6 months on and off. You know life these days, always running for work, errands. No time for ourselves. He said, “that’s true. But its up to us, how we control our life. We control it or we let it control us.” I nodded in agreement. First time I’ve been talking to someone who seemed like thinking from my own perspective for life.

He told me, its good to see you running. It would be great to accompany you and share experiences. I said, that would be amazing. Then I asked him how did you reached to this pace. I cant keep up with your kind of pace (I’m talking about a pace of 5:30 per kilometre) for long runs. He said its all about training with the right mindset and towards the right direction. Listen to your body, but start to enjoying the boredom of getting up daily and going out there. All it takes is get up and get out there. Everything else will follow. The best advice I can give you is, “try to be your own best, instead of someone else’s”. Don’t think about if someone is thinking you are running slow. Don’t let that kind of thoughts bother your mind. Just keep this in mind, long you will give your muscles to build up for the higher paces by first running on slower but longer paces, that soon you’ll be running on your desired high pace. I said, I must admit, its quite a handful of insight from your experiences. He smiled. Then he bid me adieu and said see you morrow bud. Let’s train together. I said awesome, in agreement.

We parted in different directions to reach our homes. In mid-way, I thought oh shit, I didn’t ask him his name. But I said never mind we are training together from tomorrow.

How we forgot these kind of small details when we get into highly intellectual conversations. I wonder.