This blog strictly is for those of us with laziness, short lived motivation, endurance limitations etcetera as our perpetual virtues. Irrespective of what is taught in schools, laziness is not that bad in my opinion. Sometimes it is actually encouraging and mischievously rewarding too. And when luck adds to your laziness, you would see yourself smarter than others! Conservation of energy, economy of emotions, unlikelihood of disappointment are other advantages. So I guess living lazy can just be a lifestyle choice which under certain preconditions can turn out to be the right choice too. Of course, this theory is without proof and not everyone in the world should be lazy else the world itself would be boring. Some of us would have to work harder, stay motivated, and endure tough times to save us from climate change, polar icecap melts, to take us to the mars, to check for water on the moon, to campaign for human rights and to send food for Africa.
For us the thought of running a half marathon can immediately cause hormonal imbalance. Only Forest Gump would do that and that’s the reason they had him as a low IQ movie character! Short distance running is not enough of a challenge and long distance running is just too mundane as there is no win-loss. And it demands too much of self-motivation and discipline which in the first place are against our laziness ethics. We would rather play a sport than to run where we can beat someone. And if we are the beaten ones, we have plenty to load until our next chance with all the adrenaline, testerone and a mouthful of expletives – which are all effective antibiotics to laziness. So unless we find a strong enough motivation, running is definitely not our cup of tea.
But what in life can give us that motivation? We often see Indian boys and girls slimming around the time of their marriage. Perhaps they are inspired by the thought of their soon to be wedding album or may be their fiancee is already in a better shape. Staying fit, checking it off our bucket list; active lifestyles are other unlikely reasons. Anyways, like mathematical induction let’s just assume we find motivation.
Once motivated the next challenge is to stay motivated. Running a half-marathon is about a two hour activity which means you would have to run longer than a typical English movie. Not that it is a physically daunting task as running at an average speed is just a psychological thing but it can be boring. Especially during half-M training runs. To counter this you would have to find ways to stay enthusiastic and ofcourse being creative always helps. One of my friends who did a half-M said that he often finds a good looking girl and just runs next/behind her. May not be the perfect setting to ogle, but like beauty lies in the eyes of the runner, finding a nice girl and running alongside her is not a bad idea to stay motivated as long as it is done in a near-polite way, if such a thing is possible . And ofcourse the girls can do the vice-versa too. In addition, you could get yourself a very nice running shoe. It mostly will not be the shoe itself that will push you but the price you paid for it.
Apparently Anil Ambani hired a personal trainer to help him do a marathon by carrying his drinks, towels, cheer him and even tow him to the finish line if needed. Obviously a PT is beyond us but running with a group will help in staying motivated as you would find people fatter and older than you running relatively easily and you wouldn’t want to fall in your own eyes – not atleast right there, infront of them all. Though it is like comparing primitive hunting with rocket science, during the run when the going gets tough you could silently glorify your imaginations with a Lance Armstrong, Christiano Ronaldo, Roger Federer, Michael Schumacher or someone climbing mount Everest, just for a temporary adrenaline rush.
So if somehow a miracle happens and you do cross the half-M running (and not walking!), make sure you take lots of pictures of yourself as it is very unlikely that you would run so far ever again (blame your lazy hormones). And when you tell your friends, family and even when you tell yourself, make sure you tell the distance you ran in kilometers as at that point 21 kms would sound lot more pleasing to ears than 13.1 miles.
P.S-> This blog’s title is inspired from a movie called ‘Run Lola run’ and also from a story in the 9th Standard English text book. Therefore the plagiarism is now legitimate. Not that someone would be interested nor that I have a loaded bank account as I would anyway have to file for bankruptcy if such a situation does arise but why even go through that trouble?
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