Today has been good so far. I did the Parkrun today.
In South Bank Parkrun, where I usually—religiously for a while now—run, about 800 runners (young and the old alike, with their dogs, with their babies in baby carriages, with their smartwatches and sunscreens) huddle through the wide lanes of the Brisbane pathways.
Even though it was exceptionally hot this morning, I did fairly well with the run. In the last few runs, I have been running 5k in 25 mins.
Just a year ago, when I first started running, I would run a 5k in about an hour. I had never run over 5 kilometres in a long time. But running itself was unnatural to me. When I was in Sainik School (military school), I ran across the country every Saturday. I did so for seven years. And then, one fine day, after I had graduated from the school, I stopped.
There was no motivation, after all. No one was there to care if I actually ran or not. I went to college and graduated without ever hitting the ground for a run.
Then, COVID-19 came. I bulged up—and there was no stopping the bulging. With no exercise and quarantine, I gained about 20 kgs in a short span of time. The weight suddenly increased from 65 to 85 kg. And with this, my confidence was gone for a toss. All the youthful bravado had suddenly disappeared.
The year was 2022, and COVID-19 was still looming. But I decided to mask up and start running. I would run about 2 kilometres, feel tired, and walk back. It did not help.
So, just as any uninformed person would do, I stopped eating. I thought that if I gained weight from eating, I should stop eating—and all the fat would just disappear. After six months of running clumsily and eating less, I lost about 10 kgs. But it did not help much. I felt lazy and tired all the time.