Running: from being newbie to finishing a half-marathon in 3 months

 Assuming that you are self-motivated to challenge yourself  and grow your fitness level from 0 to finishing a half marathon. You will go through following 3 phases during your journey, (a) preparation, (b) the race day, (c) after the race and up to 7 next days.

Phase -1] Preparation phase

To most people the first thing comes to their mind is training/workout-plan/how long, how many time per week to run etc. But training is just one side of the golden-triangle you need to be considering.

The golden triangle has sides as - (a) training & rest, (b) Food/water, (c) consistency.

All three aspects are equally important, and only together they will bring the best possible transformational results for you.

(a) Training: "Run slow" is the mantra, you should remember while your training. If you can speak full sentence/s while running then that is the pace you should be aiming at.
You build your endurance by accumulating distances done from several slow runs. 20% of the total runs could be made of "mixed runs", i.e. either (1) running 1km fast - rest 5 mins - run 1km fast, repeat or (2) run 2km slow - rest 1 min - run 1km fast - rest 5 mins, repeat.

Running alternate days is a good starting point. On the rest of the days you can do some upper body workouts to strengthen your core body muscles.


(b) Food/water: When it comes to nutrition, you will be bombarded with "... proteins, proteins, proteins ...". People who do trainings of 100-150 kms per week, and the recommendations of proteins and carbs for that kind of people is very different than a person like me who has just started running and barely do 15-25km per week of training. Therefore stop worrying about proteins and carb loading etc. In fact, most of people tend to over eat by simple thinking that "now they deserve this cheese cake" or "they must eat an extra peanut-butter sandwich". But you dont. 

Below are some most essential tips to consider.
(1) Drink enough water every day! What is 'enough' amount? The color of your urine should be "pale straw" (yes thats the name, google it).
(2) Eat a lot of green leafy vegetables. Eat at least twice the volume of both-palms-together filled green leafy vegetables. You will get all the essential nutrition required for your workouts. Eat whole fruits. Not juices, not even fresh pressed filtered fruit juices, but whole fruits.

The best way to eat enough green leafy vegetables and fruits without having to say 'No' to your usual meals is to have smoothies.

How to make a good smoothie?
1] Take a large volume mixer blender.
2] Put twice the volume of both-palms-together filled green leafy vegetables.
(dont worry about the volume, after blending it takes surprisingly small).
Green leafy vegetables whichever you find in your region. I find spinach, iceberg lettuce, jumbo lettuce, romaine lettuce, little gem, kale, veldsla etc.

3] Put 1 palm full of fresh or frozen fruits - bananas or strawberries, mangos, blue berries etc.
4] 1-2 table spoons yogurt (unsweetened).
5] and water only essential for the stuff to move inside the blender properly.

Additional things you can put are,
1] Chia seeds, 1 table spoon
2] hemp seeds, 1 table spoon
3] turmeric powder, 1/4th or even less
4] dates
5] Cashews, almonds, walnuts and other nuts.




Phase -3] After the run

 Getting recovered faster. Finding right foods to get the essential micro and macro nutrients is extremely confusing and misleading. Stuff that I have found best and natural in a way are -

1] drinking plenty of smoothies, especially with bananas, kale, and turmeric as main ingradients as they provide essential salts, calories, antioxidant and anti-inflammatory benefits.

Further things like flaxseeds based wraps etc are best to get proteins and salts.

Diary of a fitness newbie

"Eat - Drink - Workout"- mantra

Getting fit, losing weight, or gaining muscles has 3 basic commons building blocks.

1) What you eat: "Everyday", in our body, billions of cells from different organs constantly shade and are replaced by new ones. Good raw material is required to make healthy new cells.

Basic essential foods to always include - Chia seeds, cashew nuts, leafy green veggies


2) Drink: Nothing like drinking plain water. Your pee should be "pale yellow" (google the term to see exact shade). You should be drinking enough water always and not just during the actual race (half-marathon/marathon) or workout duration.

3) Workout: Running 'slow' but for longer time/distance with deep breaths is the key to burn fat. I.e. running pace at which you are still able to speak full sentences without huffing or skipping words. When you run even slightly faster than conversation pace our body's aerobic metabolism switches its fuel from fat to carbohydrates to keep up with the increased energy demand. We dont want to enter that regime. Finally, run consistently. Starting with 2 km per day, 6x a week, for 4 weeks. Increasing the distance by 1 km every week. Once you feel comfortable running 5km regularly for 4 weeks, you may aim for running every day around 45-60 mins but still with slow pace for 4 more weeks. By the end of 12 weeks you may be able to finish half-marathon within 2hrs to 2hr 30 mins.

** What to eat before a half-marathon/marathon: At least 2-3 hours before marathon, I would drink a fresh smoothie made from green leafy (1 cup) + 1 banana + 4-5 dates + cashews + chia seeds.
20-30 mins after you eat/drink the insulin level spikes up. Presence of insulin in the blood prevents the fat-based aerobic mechanism during the run (by running slow initial 40-50% of the run). Remaining in fat-based aerobic metabolism zone is beneficial for long distance runs.
For days before the race, eat balanced carbohydrates+fats based diet and load up glycogen in the body.

How to run properly?

If you want to gain most from your running activity, here are some important tips -

 1) Running injury-free forever

This Prof. from Harvard studying landing postures while running and impact forces…

2) how to actually implement above running technique

and this is the guy who wrote the book Born to run based on how  evolutionarily we are meant to run barefoot/style…

How to practically control our concentration to make changes in our life aspects

Dear self,

So, why people say that "mindset" is the only thing you need to change if you want to change any aspect of your life?

With change is in mindset you will change you self image. This is the inside-out force which will drive your self motivation.

but, remember, your brain is designed to win but programmed to fail. At every point your brain will try to 'save' you for n-number of reasons. Your emotions will reinforce them, of course, because they are the part of programmed brain, unless...

"Thinking/contemplating is week", actions are strong. The only necessary thing to convert a thought into a habit or unconscious act (example driving a car) is to "act on it". Doers and thinkers -

Why is it difficult to rationally think and focus only on the important task/goal? There is always a war within our brain. Whoever wins at that moment decides our attention.

Understand how our behavior is controlled by the instantaneous impulses in our brain.

All these talks, knowledge will still not create any difference in your life, because change does not happen to you, you must act to make that change.

Exercise and the Brain -

example,

why meditate?

In the end I realized that if I "love" what I am doing then I automatically care about it, and I also get automatically motivated to do it.
This kind of love for work is recognized as 'Passion'. However, what if I am not passionate about the work I am doing? But I want to be passionate about the work I am doing.

The best practical advice - based on the philosophy of Steven Pressfield

Something Epigenetic -

Best wishes,
Self