Story of the reluctant Jogger

I had just then retired. While I used to go for regular walk, jogging was somewhat an anathema to me. I had participated as a sprinter in school athletics. But after employment walking was the only type of exercise I could indulge. There were physical and mental barriers too. In 1999 while climbing up the Tirupathi hill I had sudden palpitation and fainted. The doctor after relevant tests asked me to take corrective medicines and also go for walk regularly. My lack of stamina was confirmed when I underwent a tread mill test subsequently. I could withstand the test for only 2 minutes. The aftermath of the event was that I started going for walk regularly every day. There is a nice walking track near my house. I used to walk there for 45 minutes every day. I was not comfortable during walk even after a year. I had sudden feelings of faintness during the walk. During one of the walks, I felt so bad that returning to the house took double the time than usual. I felt sore over a life without hobbies. That was the time when I went on a pilgrimage to Sholingur a nearby town with a shrine on a mountaintop. The mountain is situated at a height of 600 feet, and there are steps to reach the top. I found to my chagrin that both young and old in hundreds were climbing up the hill easily. Even disabled persons were climbing by squatting and pushing themselves up. There were also few invalids who were carried on Dolis(chairs) by helpers. My heart went throbbing as I climbed the first step. After climbing hundred steps, I took rest, sitting on a nearby parapet wall as I felt uneasy. My family was waiting for me to start climbing again. I was in no mood . My family finally went climbing up to the temple. My wife who accompanied me during the climb till then also left me sitting and started climbing. I was not alone, as there were plenty of people moving around and also lot of monkeys playing around. I gained normalcy after some time but continued to take rest till all the members of the family returned after visiting the shrine. I learnt valuable lessons during the trip. One has to endure suffering alone and nobody else other than the person could endure the suffering. I took a vow to overcome the deficiency at the earliest by God’s grace and climb a hill as soon as possible. I started walking regularly for 45 minutes every day without fail from then onwards. I bought a weighing machine and started noting down my weight periodically. I also underwent a dieting routine known as “GM routine”. My weight came down marginally by one or two kgs. What was more important was that my stamina was improving. I could now walk without problem, and was feeling confident that I could climb a mountain. Soon an opportunity arose to check my state of health. I visited a Srinivasa temple on a mountain, near the town of Chengalpet. The hill was around 300 feet in height. I comfortably climbed the mountain without any difficulty, and was very happy. In the subsequent months while visiting Pune I climbed up the Sahayadri mountain to see the Karla caves. The mountain was quite steep and had many steps. I was quite comfortable while climbing and there was no adverse effect. While I was practicing walking, I did go for a bit of jogging now and then. But I could run only for a minute or so as I found my heart racing up and body sweating profusely. There were also muscle pull-ups and knee pain. I had read that jogging beyond 50 years of age was not advisable. I was not too optimistic on jogging. Few months later, a dramatic change came when I went on a visit to my son’s home in US. My son is an avid jogger. He had participated in some of the marathon races held in the part of US where he lives. If he had spare time he would spend it on jogging. He lives in the upper New York state, which is a hilly terrain surrounded by forest and hills. It is an ideal location for jogging as the traffic is less and there are plenty of roads around the mountains to run on. Even on holidays I could speak to my son only during lunch or dinner, as most of the time he was out running. I and my wife went for short walks during morning and evening. My son used to insist on my accompanying him during his running; but I was too reluctant to follow his advice. We had planned to stay with him for 4 months and were taken around to nearby places by him in the first month. While I was employed I did not have time to do even normal routines. But in US I did not know how to spend time as there was plenty of leisure time to manage. I had read activities of achievers. They persisted in their plans irrespective of hurdles on the way. But I always carried out activities in fits and jerks based on moods. I came across a suggestion that “carry out activities in small bits, but on a sure footing; Make course correction when ever needed and then continue”. I was impressed and resolved to follow the advice. On most of the days,I had leisure time after 3’o clock in afternoon. One day I started walking from my son’s house to a bridge nearly 2 miles away. The surroundings were very nice with tall trees and meadows on the way. There were very few houses. I had to climb up a bit of gradient and then descend down for a distance of 1/8th of a mile. After that it was a flat plain road, but again the road rose up nearer the bridge. Every day I walked on the route at the same time. It was tiresome initially, but the scenes around created deep interest and enduring impression. It was surely better than getting cooped up in the house. I was covering a distance of 4 miles every day. After a week my walking speed improved and leg muscles got used to the routine. The boredom I felt initially in walking alone vanished and I started enjoying the walks. The only problem was that it was summer and the heat was unbearable. I did not try jogging as I was not sure of my stamina. One day I saw an elderly person joging. He was running in a rhythmic manner, with beautiful steps. I felt ashamed and made a resolve to start running somehow. Next day during the walk, I started jogging. I would have run only for a minute or so but by then my breath became heavy and I was sweating all over. That did not deter me to give up entirely. After every 10 minutes of walk, I ran for a minute. Next day I continued jogging in between walking as I did in the previous day. The exercise continued throughout that week. For the next week I set up a target of running continuously for 5 minutes. It was a herculean affair to achieve the target. I could reach it only by the week end. But I was quite happy. In subsequent weeks I slowly increased the duration of running with lot of protests from the body. After 2 weeks I could run the full distance of 2 miles without much halts. Subsequently I was able to run the total up and down distance of 4 miles comfortably. Because of regular jogging, I lost 5kg in weight, by the time I left for India . The trick was in gradually training both body and mind to the rigorous routine of jogging. Speed of running was unimportant; but steady rhythm was much more important. I was extremely happy in achieving a new mile stone on my 60th year. I continued to run long distances even after returning to India without any adverse effects.