Running

I have start­ed run­ning. I nev­er thought I would. I think I was put off run­ning in high school when dur­ing phys­i­cal edu­ca­tion they would occa­sion­al­ly force us to run 5k out of the blue. I remem­ber it was tor­ture. I nev­er did par­tic­u­lar­ly well and was sore after­wards so I came to asso­ciate it with fail­ure and tedi­um and so on.

When we moved to Sin­ga­pore I decid­ed I would do some more exer­cise and at some point read this thing about how run­ning is a cheap and easy way to get some exer­cise in and that it is par­tic­u­lar­ly fun to do with your partner.

My wife has always been a run­ner so I sug­gest­ed we start­ed run­ning togeth­er. She was sur­prised I think but agreed it would be a good idea. The next week­end I went and got a pair of shoes and that same day we were off to our first run.

In the begin­ning it was a hard to find good routes. I could not man­age much more than 3k which did not help. But 3k turned into 5k. Around that time we found a field in the neigh­bour­hood we could do laps around. When that became bor­ing we decid­ed to switch to the bay, a very pop­u­lar spot, and we start­ed doing 6–8k runs there. We’ve been stick­ing to that ever since.

Now we run rough­ly two to three times a week. Some­times we try one of the parks and run some trails. I find I enjoy trail run­ning even more because it is less about speed and more about aware­ness. And there is more to see so it nev­er gets boring.

We were on hol­i­day on Bali the oth­er week and I brought my gear and ran some trails through rice fields and along the beach there as well and it struck me that this is pos­si­bly the great­est thing about run­ning. You can do it any­where you go, and once you build up a decent amount of sta­mi­na, your legs will take you wher­ev­er it is you want to go. It is an incred­i­bly lib­er­at­ing feeling.

It took a bit of doing to get to that point. But now that I’ve reached it, I’m hooked.