By Rameshon Date 25/11/2024
Best Marathon performance
2hr 24min 22sec (Chiengmai South East Asian, Games 1995)
Masters In Education (University of Western Australia 2005 to 2008)
There was once where I gave a talk on running, around the year 1994. The group consisted predominantly of nurses, male as well as female.
I gave a presentation on how to train for a marathon, and had a question and answer session, after the talk. I was able to answer all except one. I had answered to my capacity. It will be good to share this here as I was wondering how to answer this particular question that I am going to answer now and to my satisfaction. It took me quite a while, in fact, some years, to come to a realisation on how to confront this perculiar but smart and thought provoking question.
The question was on what gives us the motivation to run the marathon. What is going on in the runner's mind. This was asked by a male nurse. I was not sure what he was asking and I asked him to repeat. He repeated by rephrasing the question so that I can understand.
I was puzzled by this question as I found it weird, and I answered that I just like running. As for the next question, the gentleman told me that it is boring to run, so he was wondering what was going on in my mind. I was telling myself that I should have watched my mind throughout the run and become aware of it.
Simply put, the gentleman was wondeing what were the thoughts going on in my mind and he wanted to know. As for me, I was running because I like and enjoy it. I did not need anyone to push or force or strongly encourage me to run. It was automatic. What thoughts are going on. It is something that I did not bother to find out all my life when I was running. For the male nurse, he felt running as something grueling, and he was wondering on whether we enjoy or suffer while running. Even after the next 20 years it was a question I kept it aside and keep it in view and was hoping to find the answer myself.
Innate runners who like running are intrinsically motivated and don't need to be told to run. But there are those who hate running but hope that somehow there come a time that they will be motivated to run. Some even consider the marathoners as mad.
The answer to this is simple and it really took me a while to understand. It is thoughts formed in the mind that forms your action. What you read, write, think and listen forms your thoughts and mind, and your tendencies. If one keeps reading about running, writing a diary or sharing experiences after a run, a training log, discuss with friends on running, especially with same interest in running and also listen to u - tube, instagram, blog etc, the media, on running topics, they will gradually be an automatic process to get themselves interested in running.
In short, thoughts form action. So, if you want to succeed in completing or even doing very well in running, it is a good idea to watch more the media and these forms thoughts, the motivation to do the action of running. Compared to the past, the new generation are blessed with instagram, facebook and u-tube and what not. Watching, the media, especially on running, again and again, and watching other variety of u-tube will form thoughts and this pushes one to run. It is because of the media, as one of the main reason, that the world record keeps getting better over time, as a matter of fact.
It is a similar situation of one don't feel like doing yoga exercises. However, the moment you watch the u-tube, step by step yoga sequences, one will feel the push of wanting to do. It is that simple.
