Emil Zatopek, one of the greatest runners of our times once said, “If you want to run, run a mile. If you want to experience a different life, run a marathon.”
Ashok Nath, running evangelist and India's leading marathoner must agree. Running hasn’t just changed his life — it is his life, his profession, his reigning passion, his everything.
Yet it wasn’t always that way. Ashok has worked hard and sacrificed a great deal to get where he is today. The story goes back many years ago for this communications veteran and former COO of a leading brand management firm. His induction into running happened in his teens where he recalls playing a lot of team sports, “Running is always a component to any sport and that’s how I got introduced to it. Then I joined corporate and sports became something you couldn’t do regularly because it left you prone to injury, especially while playing at a competitive level.”
So he switched to running. Nothing competitive, just a few recreational runs a few times a week to keep fit, “I would mostly run on weekends and holidays,” he recalls. “Work was hectic—I used to live out of airports. So running was simply about taking a break from it all and keeping myself fit. I didn’t think of myself as anything special back then.”
Then in 2005 five years after moving to Bangalore from Delhi, he decided to register for the Lipton Bangalore Half Marathon on a whim when, “someone jokingly asked me to take part in it,” he recalls.
As he ran he realized something, “Except for one person no one passed me during the race. Six months later I did one more and then joined a city based runners group where I realized that I was beating all their existing members.”
There was no looking back. In the years that followed he took part in and won several some of the most prestigious runs in the country including the Mumbai Marathon, the Bangalore-Ultra, the Kaveri Trail Marathon, Auroville Marathon, TCS10k and Wipro Chennai Half Marathon among others. In addition he is one among the handful of Indians to have qualified for the iconic Boston Marathon not once but five times.
Talking about his experience at Boston he says, “The Boston Marathon is like a pressure cooker. There is no easing off. You slow down for a moment and someone overtakes you so you have to keep pushing and pushing. It really helps you understand what competition is about.” With his fifth Boston around the corner, Ashok is training with single minded focus on it, “There isn’t a hard and fast rule but I run twice or thrice a week and do a lot of core and flexibility training. Also, I am careful about what I eat—I never have two consecutive heavy meals. I think I have reached a stage where I listen to my body and I eat what my body tells me to eat,” he says adding that pre-run nutrition is dependent on the nature of the run itself, “If it’s a short race it doesn’t really matter. But for the longer races you tend to increase your carb intake in the three days prior to the race to help build your glycogen reserves. You may also need to supplement fuel during the race.”
Today, Ashok is not just a serial runner, he is also a running coach, mentor and counsellor, “Three years ago I realized I wanted to focus on running more seriously and do something substantial in the running space. And I reached a point in my life where I no longer needed the money. This made it easier for me to take the leap,” he smiles.
His organization Catalyst Sports & Wellness undertakes mentoring services, offers running workshops and has recently begun an e-chat counselling service.
“A catalyst is something that accelerates a chemical reaction without undergoing a change itself,” he says. “And that is what I do. What I offer people changes their life without changing me.”
Running has been touted as one of the most effective forms of cardio vascular activity, perfect for torching fat and keeping your heart in a tip top condition. But runners are also highly prone to injury. According to Ashok that is because of a fundamental issue that most runners do not address, “Most runners do not learn technique. In any other sport, you learn the sport and then practice. In tennis for instance you first hit a ball against a wall and practice that before playing against an opponent on a court. But we think that anyone can run and simply go and do that.”
The problem, according to him is when people chose to train for longer distances, employ improper technique and jump into it, “You decide to do tackle a long race by training two months before it. From sitting in front of the idiot box, you’re suddenly running one hour a day. Your body cannot absorb the added stress and gives way, leading to injury. You assume that pain is the vocational hazard of running and push through it. But that’s not true. Pain is the body’s way of indicating something is wrong and that happens when you use the wrong technique and do too much too soon. Injury is not endemic to running. It is endemic to improper running. Running technique will minimize the impact forces on your body,” he says adding, “The human body will surprise you what it’s capable of doing. But the foundation needs to be in place before you add the first and second floor. It is like building a good house.”
On future plans, “Well, I’d like to win Boston in 2018. I want to see Indians more active in the running space. I also want to write a book on running,” he says adding with a smile, “Oh and once my running goals are achieved I need to focus on my love for dogs and do something in that space as well.”
